Learning MPC Live 2 coming from MPC 2500/1000 JJOSXL/3

ontherun wrote:i am too coming from the 2500 and didnt find it that hard to start on the new MPC One.
Structure is basicaly the same with sequence, track and program.
I mostly ignored the new stuff and try that out from time to time.
I had some crashes importing my old drumkits, I loaded them in the MPC software and saved them as .pgx,
i agree the Cursor Buttons are missing and grid edit was way better on JJOS2.

hyena wrote:i'm thinking about buying back an mpc 2500 with jj me too, im very happy with my live mk1 but there are some things that i miss very much. the cursor of course but also the ability to record notes while the sequencer is stopped (i put a feature request about it). i was super quick with that method: hit overdub but not play, hit pads, insert pauses with the cursor etc... especially for fast stuff like jungle\idm\breakcore it was my goto method for chopped breaks and generally for fast beats. that and the crazy good sustain loop tools in jjosxl is what i miss the most. also, i miss the ninja aura of the older machines. but yeah, touchscreen, mixer, all the plugins and effects...i can't see me loosing them, so i think if i'll had cash and opportunity i will add a 2500 with jj and keep em both.

I'm thinking it could be interresting to work with both Live/One/X.. and the 2500/1000 JJOS, depending of the task to get the best of both worlds. But loading JJOS projects or programs seems rather buggy. It's sometimes ok but with most of them you get pitch, pad assignation and other stuff completely wrong. Thats a bummer because I would've loved to do that. I'm gonna need some time to wrap my head around what can be done with both and what role each one should get.
Maybe JJOS projects and programs can be loaded flawlessly if some parametters are left untouched so they don't induce bugs when loading in the newer versions. Need to do some experimentations.

Christov wrote:

HanHuman wrote:Yup, that must be a sweet looking combo indeed.

Yeah it is:

Neat

Christov wrote:

HanHuman wrote:Yup, that must be a sweet looking combo indeed.

Yeah it is:

i finally decided to restore my 950 last year, maxxed the ram , installed a new display and most of all swapped floppy for a usb reader, now it's back in full effect and damn it sounds dope! anyway, they look very cool one near the other

Definitely a nice looking pair.

Thanx guys! And I always wanted to put a new display in my 950, but the soldering has me kinda scared. Never did anything like it before.

HanHuman wrote:Hi,

Got an MPC Live 2 recently to have portability and speaker for the most part.
Compared to the 2500 I find the button layering not really well thought out.
And I find the OS even waaaay worse.

LMAO.. yeah, I don't find the OS like that. In fact, it's great. The new MPC's by way of the OS are far more powerful than any MPC history.

HanHuman wrote:So is it just me trippin and if not, how did you overcome that learning curve coming from legacy MPCs?

Thanks.

Yeah you're trippin. When you come down, let's talk.

EnochLight wrote:LMAO.. yeah, I don't find the OS like that. In fact, it's great. The new MPC's by way of the OS are far more powerful than any MPC history.

Got a little more time with it and of course it is way more powerful than any older MPC could ever be.
Lots of great functionalities.
But when I speak about button layering and OS I mean for the fluidity of execution. I'm used to the 2500 JJOS arrows, q2 after + pad for menus, F buttons for sub menus or selecting options and shift for another set of sub options. The tactile experience + the muscle memory that comes with it allowing for fast and automatic access to any fontionnality flawlessly.
Here with the Live 2 the choice of buttons and the layout feels weird, I don't get le logic behind it. No navigation buttons to move by steps or bars, that's a big change from typical MPC workflow. There's also those + and - buttons I never found the use for yet. And the OS is insanely full of sub and sub sub menus when JJOS could max out informations and options in the least sub menus possible and on a tiny low res screen.
Overall it seems like an MPC made by some other brand than the AKAI of the 2500 area. Functions are here, great new stuff, powerful, but the tactile workflow I was used to is gone so I'm gonna have to learn that different way of accessing and manipulating the machine. Sometimes when using it I just freeze and think "why do they do things like this, why did they change that". Change is great when for the better, here I often find changes for no benefits and sometimes even for the worse. Menus being on different pads (recors, trim, mixers, ...) being a good example among others.
On the bright side new functionalities make up for it. Maybe I'll get why they changed so many things around for no apparent reasons someday, but for now it's just a mystery. After all from 2500 to Live 2 is a rather big gap.

EDIT: As Droe33 said, JJOS spoiled us with amazing, unmatched workflow. I don't even remember AKAI original OS as I got in JJOS more than 10 years ago, so I got used to something AKAI never did. Also as 40Beatz said, between the 2500 and Live 2 AKAI apparently changed ownership multiples times so I guess new project managers may had to change things around from basic original OS, just to justify their salary and do something new.

I know it's never gonna happen, but a JJOS for the new models would be crazy.

Christov wrote:I know it's never gonna happen, but a JJOS for the new models would be crazy.

I read in some post on the forum that a closed Facebook group was working on a custom firmware.
Dunno what it could lead to but could be interesting, haven't looked too much into it.

But I doubt the guy from JJOS would be interested in getting into it. From what I understand he took all the original code from the 1000/2500 when he left AKAI back when he was working in the team that made the original OS. Then with the help of a developper started the JJOS partly thanks to this forum and feedback he got from the community apparently. Even the name JJ (Japanese Jenius) comes from here I think for some reason I forgot. But doing a new OS project from scratch for the One, Live etc, seems a bit wild. Though I would easely pay 100$+ to get the workflow logic and fludity of the JJOS on the Live.

JJ if you read this

Some history back here...

https://www.mpc-forums.com/viewtopic.php?f=21&t=53154&p=477720

NearTao wrote:Some history back here...

https://www.mpc-forums.com/viewtopic.php?f=21&t=53154&p=477720

Nice, thx!

Everytime I look at my 1k I still get this sad nostalgic feeling.
But then I think about not being able to bounce tracks and the limited effects, etc...

The real truth is if you bite the bullet and let yourself get used to the new OS you'll be happy you did.

Get used to holding the MENU button and hitting a pad to flip between screens.
And just focus on the Main screen (MAIN button) until you don't hate it. The main screen will help remind you it's still an MPC. (It took me a while to not hate all the colors in the menu screen and pads)

You'll get used to it faster than you think.
You'll know you made progress when you're messing around with your 2500 and you touch the screen.

Ps. You're not tripping. I had my Live sitting around for over a year before I felt like I actually wanted to use it.
It took me a looong time for it to click.

sergismooth wrote:Ps. You're not tripping. I had my Live sitting around for over a year before I felt like I actually wanted to use it.
It took me a looong time for it to click.

Thanks for the feedback.
Yea lots of pros for the Live for sure. I guess the the main thing I'd really like to have is to be able to customize MENU and pad placement for them. Having it the 2500 way: sampler on pad5, sample edit on pad6 an so on. Plus replacing midi control, control and pad color by something more useful.
All the different screen only have some rather random icons on the top left to identify what they are but no name. With all that screen area available they could have added some short name to next to it.
They sometimes put thing in one place on one screen then move things around in the next one like it's made by someone else. For instance Qlinks being placed vertically in one case (as they should to fit the layout of the knobs) and some other time vertically. So yea, painful having to stop and think about navigation and every 10 seconds.
As you said, getting used to it is the only way.

Discovering MPC software atm, it seems it's gonna help a lot making the bridge between the 2500 and the Live 2.
As well as better understanding the architecture of MPC software.