Support and discussion for all of Akai’s modern standalone MPCs including the MPC X / X SE, MPC Live 1, 2 & 3, MPC One / One+, MPC Key 37/61.
By HouseWithoutMouse Mon Sep 27, 2021 5:52 pm
Oh yes, I've actually tried using that a few times. In most situations it's totally not what I want. Even if the sequence is just 1 bar long, and even if the stuff is actually played on pads, it's still slow and error-prone. If you miss, press undo, wait for the next round and try again. And if the sequence is, say, 8 bars, it takes at least 8 bars to erase a single note, and if you miss the exact start position, you'll have to go another whole round to get to the start of the next loop. TBH, a complete brain fart of an invention. The stuff I want to erase is usually played on a MIDI keyboard, and even if it's played on pads, or if I only want to erase one note, I want that note gone instantly. I'm sure there are "beat makers" or something out there for who the sweep erase concept makes sense. In grid edit you can select/delete a single pad faster IIRC. But what if you didn't play with pads and it wasn't drums.

In my opinion, if the MPC line is marketed to a wider audience than just hip hop beat makers, the user interface has to be much more customizeable for different uses.

Wow, I found an incredible quote in the user manual

Erase: As a sequence is playing, press and hold this button and then press a pad to delete the note event for that pad at the current playback position. This is a quick way to delete note events from your sequence without having to stop playback. See Operation > General Features > Erase to learn more.


LOL
By starwatcher Mon Oct 04, 2021 12:59 am
Why don’t you use undo? That does what you want? I tend to play some midi in go out of record and back in which makes undoing the recorded session available.

The erase function is for erasing pad events and is useful for that, I use it often and would hate to lose it. It would be nice to have an erase all option on screen when held though.
User avatar
By Ultros Mon Oct 04, 2021 3:00 am
MPC is not a live performance device. it has some live performance aspects but plotting events isn't one of them. The live related aspects are more akin to the looper and clip launching.

Producing a song using midi pretty much requires the use of start and stop buttons. However if you are recording a segment and you don't like the take you just made, simply hit the "undo" button and it will stay recording and playing and clear all your input events on the selected plugin or track. (as mentioned above)
By HouseWithoutMouse Mon Oct 04, 2021 3:41 pm
starwatcher wrote:Why don’t you use undo?


Because the thing was recorded like 5 minutes earlier, so it cannot be undone. I play something, and then as the thing progresses, re-do tracks/parts with something better or different, and the tune slowly evolves.

Shift-erase is still an unused key combination?
By mike841 Sun Oct 10, 2021 8:06 pm
HouseWithoutMouse wrote:My bad, I must have confused it with the other clear function like MPC-Tutor said. I obviously should have checked before making such outrageous claims, but my MPC One is at Thomann's so I couldn't check. But the ERASE button does anything only if you stop playback, right? And then it cannot be used in the one and only purpose I have for the MPC, creating stuff live without stopping.


Your still on the right track HWM. These guys are stuck on the "erasing" aspect, a "Select All" feature is so urgently needed. I don't see how users get along without it. I don't even see how Akai could over-look it or even worse, decide to leave it out.
By Jawbrizza Wed Mar 09, 2022 9:27 pm
insane theres no select all. head scratcher. selecting notes at the edge of the screen is awkward as **** then if youve got more than one bar and you drag to the end then open the velocity menu oops, deselected all the notes gotta do it again. frustrating. gotta just play it in right I guess :Sigh: just put a request in via the software. asked for a velocity range on humanize too
By Hideous mutant Thu Mar 10, 2022 12:00 pm
Jawbrizza wrote:insane theres no select all. head scratcher. selecting notes at the edge of the screen is awkward as **** then if youve got more than one bar and you drag to the end then open the velocity menu oops, deselected all the notes gotta do it again. frustrating. gotta just play it in right I guess :Sigh: just put a request in via the software. asked for a velocity range on humanize too

Marquee tool, scroll and zoom q-links, easy, accurate and quick'ish even in 150+ long sequences.

There's a lot of clunky workflow decisions by Akai but the easiest way is to not try to fight how it works, these are deep machines when you really learn how to use them. User manual or The Bible and Ctrl+f is your best friend, and a lot faster than posting a rant on forums, waiting for someone to spoon feed the solution.

But still, the select all would be a nice option.
By handthrow Thu Mar 10, 2022 12:58 pm
Hideous mutant wrote:There's a lot of clunky workflow decisions by Akai but the easiest way is to not try to fight how it works, these are deep machines when you really learn how to use them. User manual or The Bible and Ctrl+f is your best friend, and a lot faster than posting a rant on forums, waiting for someone to spoon feed the solution.


100% agree with this!

BTW other way to select multiple events i use on the X:
- open list view
- highlight the first event
- press shift and move data wheel to select multiple ones