MPC X SE – EA-ski SONICS controversy vs BLACK LION audio mod

SuperKonquer wrote:

B-Wise wrote:How are your tracking Akai product sells in order to factually say what selling like hotcakes?

Of course I don't have hard numbers, but I've never seen any one of the others devices ever sold out at so many retailers within a week or 2 of release. Social media is full of proud braggadocious new owners and even in my own circles I know quite a few who jumped on the SE even while saying the original X doesn't fit or not needed for their workflow. I can only assume that these devices were purchased and not given away by Akai.

My observations are mostly anecdotal but I don't recall this much "take my money" buzz (positive +negative)for any of the standalones, even when the live was first announced. I have had the X since release and this SE version doesn't excite me much, but clearly it fits the bill for a lot of people with money to spend. At this point even the new users have a good understanding of what they are buying, likely due to the long and public, somewhat bumpy road the MPC OS has taken since 1.0.

So basically you don't know, but the XSE just seems like it selling the best. I'll still bet on the ONE as the best selling MPC, but I know.

SuperKonquer wrote:This whole discussion is kind of mute because the MPC XSE is selling like freaking hotcakes. I don't even think the original X moved as fast as the SE. The people that are unhappy about it not being drastically different from the original and lacking the real or perceived sonic punch of vintage models are clearly not the market for it. I see people who for years said they wouldn't buy the X because they prefer the live or One now buying the SE in droves. Plus all the new users buying the XSE as their first MPC.

I don't think I've ever seen this kind of feeding frenzy for any of Akai's recent products. I really think that all the plugins have a huge part of that because now you aren't just buying a sampler/grove box but also pseudo hardware synths. Like it or not, Akai seems to have the pulse of it current and potential user base, at least as far as what makes them part with their money.

the SE is selling well but nothing to do with the plugins or the ram, its simply because of the retro colours, people are very superficial and buy based on looks., shit I wanna get an SE just cos the looks, I dont give a shit about the plugins but just waiting for the price drop and 3.0

TT_Lab wrote:

jpeg wrote:Most people agree that current music has gotten worse then 20, 30, 40 years ago; all areas/generes and in all aspects, hence why the old songs re classics and are still popular today, while current music has a short lifespan of interest.

I guess you mean most people that was alive and concious 20, 30, 40 years ago, but maybe you remember (I do), that 30 and 40 years ago people said that music 20, 30 or 40 years before was better. I think it is nostalgia. I hate nostalgia, is a way to not keep moving forward, also a tool to to sell shit to unaware people. Memory is progressive, nostalgia is traditionalist.
This has a very notorious psicological logic. The time of your life when you discover and have new sensation and you start to live the freedom of your adulthood, you start to be aware of your surroundings, you enjoy new stuff , it gets recorded in you as the best times of your life etc...hence the art, music, culture and people you meet and enjoy in that age, I guess sometime between 14 to 30 or so, gets the "best ever" label

it aint pure nostalgia shit is objectively better even kids in this current generation are saying the muisc of previous era was better, so this is how u kknow its not just nostalgia, the msuic industry has been watering down and pushing music that lacks soul and meaning and people of all ages are noticing.

jpeg wrote:it aint pure nostalgia shit is objectively better even kids in this current generation are saying the muisc of previous era was better, so this is how u kknow its not just nostalgia, the msuic industry has been watering down and pushing music that lacks soul and meaning and people of all ages are noticing.

I agree that the older music is better, but to be fair, people in every generation said that

This is like when people would install cameras from the first iphone in their latest model, just because the newer HD camera's doesn't remind them of better times back in the day. And be mad about it that Apple doesn't release phones with older cameras for the 'lofi res'.

I can't see any company going backwards. Oh wait, one man already did. David Rossum. So I guess everybody is happy now? No? What? Way too expensive? No modern day features except for extra RAM and upgraded storage? What an awful time to live in

Hopefully these videos will be helpful to some.

#1
Kinda technical but stick with it.


#2
The last few mins was key when he talked about the sound of old hardware.


#3
Keep the MPC/Force vol knob at max was the key to this demo.


Happy Mothers Day!

You investing too much time into details. Nowadays even the cheapest and DAC are sounding okay and transparent in comparisons to 90 DACs. If you like some coloration just use a preamp like a neve clone or an API clone. Warm Audio got some good value 4 the money. Or get an analog electron heat. You always have the option to use an external audio interface for tracking out tracks.or use plugins 2 do the job. The Air flavour pro no is a solid choice.

I hope I get a MPC x used 4 cheap now as a companion 4 my MPC live

I m sure someday that the awful sound of the MPC 1000 will be glorified

e-smile-z wrote:I m sure someday that the awful sound of the MPC 1000 will be glorified

you mean the same awful sound of the 2500? because they share the same specs. i don't think they sound awful, i had both, with jjos2xl (which in some areas is even superior to current line, feature wise and UI-wise).

i think the issue some of you brought on, that the music was and sounded better 20-30-40 years ago, has got some points and some contradictions.
1st thing: how does nowadays people (especially young folk) listen to music? NOBODY has a decent hi-fi system in their homes. i teach music and audio to young kids as a day job. they all say they passionate about music, but they listen to it on crappy headphones from crappy streaming services or on their (sometimes decent) studio monitors, or in their car (probably the best sound system they have). it's obvious that nuances get lost if you don't have a nice listening environment (i'm not saying audiophile grade gold cables bullsh1t, just a proper hifi system with proper big speakers instead of a shiny sound bar with led light show....).

on the other hand audio technology has matured like crazy in many areas. isn't this strange? i always suggest my students to go to a pawn shop and buy at least a decent amplifier with proper speakers, then they can connect their computers or their phones, they don't need the cassette decks or the turntables (they don't have vinyl collections). so they can experience a listening environment that's not meant to be flat like studio monitor or headphones.

on the issue of converters\opamps\old vs modern... i think there are contradictions here too: while the tech specs have ramped up since the 90's, the usual quality of components has gone down in some areas, or to put it differently, companies have now way cheaper options to produce stuff, and obviously if they can spare some cents on each device, be assured they'll do. one good example is the s950 and the successive akai s-series samplers. the s950 was 12 bits, true, but it had frequency dividers independent for each of the 8 voices, hence the transposition of samples up and down the keyboard was better than the algorithm-dependent solutions they adopted since the s-1000 onwards... but of course the s-1000 and later models were 16 bits, which theoretically is better... and also: the interpolation algorithms on the s-1000 were better than the successive models, but it was probably more expensive in terms of processing power, so they ditched it in favour of cheaper solutions. see what i say? they get better while at the same time they get cheaper. which is good and bad, it is good because nowadays a professional akai sampler is cheaper compared to an mpc 2000xl fully expanded, that beast costed a lot if you bought it when it was released, comparatively much more than an mpc x....

so my conclusions are: each gen of mpc's (and rackmount samplers) has its pros and cons, usually translating in better specs but cheaper components (especially the ones concerning the analog part of the signal path, opamps, preamps , that sh1t).... so its very hard to say what is better. workflow wise? the new ones (with exception of jjos2xl i think). soundwise? well, it depends on your tastes... very old ones more characterful, new ones more transparent and flat. funny thing i always have this perceptive issue: theoretically 16 bits has more dynamic than 12 bits, then why i perceive drums sampled on my s950 to be more dynamic than the ones sampled at 24 or 16 bits on any software\hardware i checked?

jpeg wrote:it aint pure nostalgia shit is objectively better even kids in this current generation are saying the muisc of previous era was better, so this is how u kknow its not just nostalgia, the msuic industry has been watering down and pushing music that lacks soul and meaning and people of all ages are noticing.

I don't know how music can be objectivily better. It's always been youngling saying music from the past is better. I'm listening to some very fine shit done nowadays that does have nothing to envy to the classics, and just not in a single genre but in different genres.
To aknowlege that some music from the past was very good is not the same than to say today's music is garbage. This paradigm only applies to mainstream culture. Pop is and always have been shit IMHO. The thing, or at least to me, is that when you grow older is harder to find underground music cos you are more trapped in the mainstream and don't have that much of a span to be all day trying new things.
Examples can be put, Spice girls was as garbage as Rosalia is. The wu was coming from the ug and was good and today you got good shit like griselda that are pretty good too, and of course music I cannot reach because to reach it you have to be there with the kiddos and I'm out of play there. Dunno, hope I am explaining myself well.

jpeg wrote:it aint pure nostalgia shit is objectively better even kids in this current generation are saying the muisc of previous era was better, so this is how u kknow its not just nostalgia, the msuic industry has been watering down and pushing music that lacks soul and meaning and people of all ages are noticing.

Music was objectively made in a very different way.

We do not have anything like Motown. It operated differently. They had full-time house bands. They had lots of expert full-time musicians making music around the clock.

They had focus groups rating each song to determine whether it made the album or was released as a single.

Life was a little different as well, and it was a lot easier to be a touring musician. There was a time when there was nothing but live music. There were jukeboxes and DJs, but people spent a lot more time going out with friends, and there was just much more provision for bands.

That's not to say it was better, but there was most certainly a lot more musicianship around. There just wasn't an option to be a solo producer.

Making Music in a band introduces a lot of interplay between each musician, resulting in a sum greater than the parts. The drummer responds to the bass, the bass responds to the guitar, the guitar responds to the piano, and the piano responds to the drummer. And before you know it, you're all playing in new territory.

That's not to say it's better, but it takes you to newer spaces.

Plus they were doing this all with real instruments and not instrument patches, leading to much more expressive performances. While there are lots of key-switching gurus out there, there really is no substitute for the real instrument when playing live.

Plus there's the issue that you can't recreate the unexpected. If you try to make anything remotely like Bohemian Rhapsody, even if it's objectively better, just wouldn't have the same impact. While it's not the only or first rhapsody, they delivered a distinct sound that if recreated would only sound like an imitation. If enough people imitated it, it could become a genre or flavour of its own.

And a lot of ground was covered during the 20th century all over the globe, so it takes a lot more to create something that's iconic that's both not been done before and doesn't sound like it's from another planet.

One more thing, ... R'n'b, blues, rock, pop and soul would happily use the same instruments (with the occasional instrument from another country or culture). The Rhodes never gets old. Nobody's like, "That Rhodes sound is a little dated and can't compete with the newer electric pianos with more RAM and CPU power".

hyena wrote:very old ones more characterful, new ones more transparent and flat. funny thing i always have this perceptive issue: theoretically 16 bits has more dynamic than 12 bits, then why i perceive drums sampled on my s950 to be more dynamic than the ones sampled at 24 or 16 bits on any software\hardware i checked?

Transparent and flat is objectively the highest quality you can get.

Character isn't about quality. It's just character.

And it is for the sake of character that we drive electric guitars through a series of distortions.

Those 12-bits were not linear, so maybe it exaggerated the differences between loud an quiet. But if played back your drums from your s950 and recorded them at 16-bit, well now you have those exact same dynamics as a 16-bit sample.

TT_Lab wrote:

jpeg wrote:it aint pure nostalgia shit is objectively better even kids in this current generation are saying the muisc of previous era was better, so this is how u kknow its not just nostalgia, the msuic industry has been watering down and pushing music that lacks soul and meaning and people of all ages are noticing.

I don't know how music can be objectivily better. It's always been youngling saying music from the past is better. I'm listening to some very fine shit done nowadays that does have nothing to envy to the classics, and just not in a single genre but in different genres.
To aknowlege that some music from the past was very good is not the same than to say today's music is garbage. This paradigm only applies to mainstream culture. Pop is and always have been shit IMHO. The thing, or at least to me, is that when you grow older is harder to find underground music cos you are more trapped in the mainstream and don't have that much of a span to be all day trying new things.
Examples can be put, Spice girls was as garbage as Rosalia is. The wu was coming from the ug and was good and today you got good shit like griselda that are pretty good too, and of course music I cannot reach because to reach it you have to be there with the kiddos and I'm out of play there. Dunno, hope I am explaining myself well.

let me add a caverate mainstream so called 'pop' music in this era is garbage; compared to mainstream music of previous eras; that should end the debate

objectivley less orginal and creatively new in this current era for example

Avasopht wrote:Music was objectively made in a very different way.

We do not have anything like Motown. It operated differently. They had full-time house bands. They had lots of expert full-time musicians making music around the clock.

They had focus groups rating each song to determine whether it made the album or was released as a single.

Life was a little different as well, and it was a lot easier to be a touring musician. There was a time when there was nothing but live music. There were jukeboxes and DJs, but people spent a lot more time going out with friends, and there was just much more provision for bands.

That's not to say it was better, but there was most certainly a lot more musicianship around. There just wasn't an option to be a solo producer.

Making Music in a band introduces a lot of interplay between each musician, resulting in a sum greater than the parts. The drummer responds to the bass, the bass responds to the guitar, the guitar responds to the piano, and the piano responds to the drummer. And before you know it, you're all playing in new territory.

That's not to say it's better, but it takes you to newer spaces.

.

we can hear the difference in creativity and orginality in that older music; its a combo of the limited technology along with the social climate and interaction of the people in making the msuic; that ended shortly after the digital age.

the companies also put increasing restrictions on creativity; thus stopping unfiltered creative expression reaching the masses. They use A&R's to put stipulations on the type of music and symbology in the music, versus previously artist had more creative leeway to determine their artistic offering, and as a result the current music is lesser objectively, plus even those who are not on major lables are copying whats popular so we have copies of lesser music, hence why todays music is objectivley worse.