Rant and rave about MPC keys 61

First the positive. I took a long break from synths and music production to focus on other things... And practiced my vocals in the meantime. Now I'm back. Used to own roland fantom 6 yamaha cs2x korg n1r, yamaha mx49 etc...

I got this keyboard to try stay away from DAWs during creative process... The crashes and complexity slows that down.

This keyboard blows my mind on how powerful and versatile it is. The number one thing that is crazy is the effect system in there. On its own the vocal effects and instruments affects and mastering effects in this setup is unreal. This is not talked about much but it's replacing a 600$ vocal effect module I have, the voicelive play, and I was going to get a 1500$ one which is backordered and I won't need it as this synth will do almost all of it.
The sounds are excellent for the most part although some samples are very noisy ... And not by purpose (barely usable in quiet parts) think stage piano...

Now here is the biggest issues I have which are huge to me

This mpc keys was said to have audio interface compatibility... False... For most part. It doesn't work without flaws and isn't usable with my zoom L-8 and other interface I tried. Laptop connection works....

Here's another mind blowing thing... Why in 2022 can't we have the audio interface connected to the laptop while still being able to use the mpc in standalone. Extra USB inputs would have been a lifesaver. Especially with audio interface compatibility.

Now that usb inputs don't work stuck with two mono inputs. Two stereo would have been nice or 4 mono at the very least. Can't even record backing track and vocals at once without forcing mono on both.

Please akai get firmware update to work with zoom mixer recorders USB compliant interface they are so awesome to use.

I'm new to MPC so the learning curve is very steep. Not intuitive at all. But extremely powerful. I am spending a lot of time trading watching tutorials as the interface is clunky to use. But the versatility and functions still make it worth it.

The next version of MPC needs sliders for part volume even if this sliders aren't very wide.. Having to dive in menus and switch between programs audio inputs outputs and pad etc... Is a major pain. It at least we could control part volume quickly that would be so nice.

Which brings me to a question which I have searched for and not get a satisfying answer for. Which controller is best to add those functionality. I looked at the apc40 or something similar... Anything out there with pre-existing maps for mpc stand-alone control?

Also... Please make the MPC 2 software accept other audio interface connection at the same time which would patch the limited audio input problem by enabling the use of my mixer for routing audio to and from.

At the moment I'm setup the old fashion way with analog cables. Sending music 1/2 out to my mixer and 3/4 my audio... Voice recordings etc...
I'm sending a custom mix via the configurable headphone outputs... Sending only dry mic vocals to input 1/2 for the onboard effect to process. The many ins and outs add some noise which is not ideal but it works.

This synth workstation has a Huge potential. It is already a game changer but it couldn't literally take the market with some upgrades

It sounds like midi mapping a a small controller that can sit on your MPCKeys might be the best solution. You'll only have to go menu diving once to set things up and then you can have whatever you want always ready at your fingertips.

Wanting more knobs or a set of knobs is my biggest hardware wish. But I think overall the hardware UI is excellent. So more knobs might break that vibe.

Lampdog wrote:

Lancerben wrote:The next version of MPC needs sliders for part volume even if this sliders aren't very wide.. Having to dive in menus and switch between programs audio inputs outputs and pad etc... Is a major pain. It at least we could control part volume quickly that would be so nice.

For this I’d say get to know your q-links and how to manipulate and/or edit them to your liking. Not sliders, but knobs for MANY diff functions.

I do this lot on MPC X. On Keys61 with it’s q-links banks it’s a lil more cumbersome but doable.

Yes I have begun looking into those. But it gets confusing as you can easily make unwanted changes because hitting any other section changes the function etc... Dedicated knobs and buttons for certain frequently used features would be awesome. Pan and part volume x16.
I know real estate on the keyboard is an issue but I'd take smaller buttons they don't need to be that huge.

SuperKonquer wrote:It sounds like midi mapping a a small controller that can sit on your MPCKeys might be the best solution. You'll only have to go menu diving once to set things up and then you can have whatever you want always ready at your fingertips.

Yes I ordered one, it seems like the best solution. Are there some commands and that can't be controlled through midi?

https://a.co/d/j2o3uwa

Lancerben wrote:

SuperKonquer wrote:It sounds like midi mapping a a small controller that can sit on your MPCKeys might be the best solution. You'll only have to go menu diving once to set things up and then you can have whatever you want always ready at your fingertips.

Yes I ordered one, it seems like the best solution. Are there some commands and that can't be controlled through midi?

https://a.co/d/j2o3uwa

There are somethings that can't be mapped and are tied to the touch screen but I'll doubt those functions would be needed to have more tactility anyway. Pretty much though, everything you can control with a button or a qlink you can map to a controller.

Lancerben wrote:
Here's another mind blowing thing... Why in 2022 can't we have the audio interface connected to the laptop while still being able to use the mpc in standalone. Extra USB inputs would have been a lifesaver. Especially with audio interface compatibility.

It's the same reason why you can't plug the same card into two computers at the same time. The problem isn't on the MPC's side with this, it's on the Sound Card's (Zoom's) side. They would need to write the soundcard to handle two different USB input's.. someway to lock channel 1 that is being inputted on the MPC so that the computer also doesn't try to send an input onto the same channel. Probably isn't economical for them to solve it, as the workaround is to buy another sound card for the computer... which serves their best interest...

SuperKonquer wrote:It sounds like midi mapping a a small controller that can sit on your MPCKeys might be the best solution. You'll only have to go menu diving once to set things up and then you can have whatever you want always ready at your fingertips.

I bought a launchcontrol Xl... Lots of knobs and sliders. Very nice quality feel on them.
It works but it's buggy due to midi issues on the mpc... It makes the mpc crash or click pop and freak out... I had started a really nice custom map and stopped because i feel I'm wasting my time. My controller is now doing nothing. I think the volume sliders work well but I get issues when I want to control reverb effect mix.

renegadebliss wrote:

Lancerben wrote:
Here's another mind blowing thing... Why in 2022 can't we have the audio interface connected to the laptop while still being able to use the mpc in standalone. Extra USB inputs would have been a lifesaver. Especially with audio interface compatibility.

It's the same reason why you can't plug the same card into two computers at the same time. The problem isn't on the MPC's side with this, it's on the Sound Card's (Zoom's) side. They would need to write the soundcard to handle two different USB input's.. someway to lock channel 1 that is being inputted on the MPC so that the computer also doesn't try to send an input onto the same channel. Probably isn't economical for them to solve it, as the workaround is to buy another sound card for the computer... which serves their best interest...

No I'm talking about the usb audio interface built into the MPC.. When connecting to the computer it wants to switch to controller mode. Which disables a lot of the cool stand-alone functions. Why can't it just act like a sound card and send audio to my daw and just stay in standalone mode and yet still be able to receive midi without bugging through the midi ports...

I have made it work with midi in standalone mode but the midi is buggy on the MPC.. Another roadblock...

So right now I have sending the MPC audio out to my Zoom... Then the zoom is connected to the computer sending Audio to my daw via USB while still fully operating as a mixer...

Inside the MPC, there is a "system-on-a-chip" ie SoC computer, not much different from a smartphone or Raspberry Pi. The computer runs a Linux based operating system. The computer uses things like the memory card reader, audio interface and MIDI interface, via an internal USB bus, as far as I know. The USB audio interface device cannot connected to both the MPC's internal SoC computer as a USB host, and your desktop computer as a USB host at the same time. When you put the MPC to controller mode, the MPC lets go of the USB peripherals and lets your desktop computer be a host and access them via the MPC's internal USB hub.