Best Rhodes/Pianos And Upright Bass

I like to make BoomBap, Neo Soul and Jazzy music. I have an MPC Live but have used the Maschine for a lot of years. Where can I find the best realistic sounds for the MPC? I'm looking to stay standalone. Does the Live come with good plugins already? Are the other plugins worth buying? Are any of the instruments on MPC-Samples worth getting? What sounds the most real without having to go to VSTs?

Well if you want to try our upright bass, it's 100% free, so....

https://www.mpc-samples.com/product.php ... -bass-mpc/

Tutor’s Reaper is a great instrument!

For Rhodes and such i find the integrated plugin Electric sufficient and (as a plus) highly flexible. I still prefer Reason‘s Radical Keys though, I think they‘re a tad better.

Other than that you should definitely check out Tutor‘s packs, I have never been disappointed thus far, quite a bang for the buck. See his Electric Keys.

Talking of Electric Keys, I'm just finishing offer an update for this and Piano Suite which converts all instruments into 'Sample Chains' versions. This significantly reduces the load time of each instrument, down to a few seconds. This is particularly useful for the Force as since 3.1 firmware update the browser really slows down when loading instruments with more than 100+ samples. Issue is also present on the MPC as well, just not as extreme .

Either way, the update supercharges loading times for all the instruments on both platforms, and it's going to be a free update for all existing owners.

MPC-Tutor wrote:Talking of Electric Keys, I'm just finishing offer an update for this and Piano Suite which converts all instruments into 'Sample Chains' versions. This significantly reduces the load time of each instrument, down to a few seconds. This is particularly useful for the Force as since 3.1 firmware update the browser really slows down when loading instruments with more than 100+ samples. Issue is also present on the MPC as well, just not as extreme .

Either way, the update supercharges loading times for all the instruments on both platforms, and it's going to be a free update for all existing owners.

Is there any way to possibly demo Electric Keys? I'd love to check it out. The demos sound really good!

MPC-Tutor wrote:Well if you want to try our upright bass, it's 100% free, so....

https://www.mpc-samples.com/product.php ... -bass-mpc/

Thank you! I will definitely check this out!

Mannas wrote:Is there any way to possibly demo Electric Keys? I'd love to check it out. The demos sound really good!
!

Unfortunately Akai currently don't offer any way to provide trial versions of sample expansions. With the larger expansions (e.g. with 100+ instruments) I can give away a handful of the instruments as a demo, but when there's only 8 core instruments it's difficult to justify giving one of them away.

Perhaps I could make a limited note version (e.g. with just C3 to C4 notes or similar), but basically my general feelings are if you really do hate it after buying I am happy to refund or offer an exchange. In all honesty, I rarely get anyone asking for refunds on any of my work. The only negative feedback I've had with Electric Keys was in regard to the loading times (specifically on the Force), but that's now been completely resolved with the new update (will be going up later today). Loading time is now virtually instantaneous in the MPC, 2-3 seconds in the Force.

MPC-Tutor wrote:Perhaps I could make a limited note version (e.g. with just C3 to C4 notes or similar), but basically my general feelings are if you really do hate it after buying I am happy to refund or offer an exchange. In all honesty, I rarely get anyone asking for refunds on any of my work. The only negative feedback I've had with Electric Keys was in regard to the loading times (specifically on the Force), but that's now been completely resolved with the new update (will be going up later today). Loading time is now virtually instantaneous in the MPC, 2-3 seconds in the Force.

No need to go to all that trouble. I'm going to go ahead and get it for a couple of reasons. I've read good things from multiple people about it. The bigger thing for me is how you approached this. To even try to think of a possible solution outside of the norm just for one person says a lot about your character. Add to that you are willing to address and mention any negative feedback and I'm sold. I'm really thinking out loud here but hope this helps someone else to see your approach. Thank you for your help!

Mannas wrote:No need to go to all that trouble. I'm going to go ahead and get it for a couple of reasons. I've read good things from multiple people about it. The bigger thing for me is how you approached this. To even try to think of a possible solution outside of the norm just for one person says a lot about your character. Add to that you are willing to address and mention any negative feedback and I'm sold. I'm really thinking out loud here but hope this helps someone else to see your approach. Thank you for your help!

Thanks, I think my OCD just won't allow me to knowingly leave anything 'unresolved', so if I'm told of an issue I try to fix it immediately.

With the lengthy load times on the Force, this was a tricky one to fix as the sample chains needed all the original sustain loops re-applying as pad parameters to each slice (350+ slices per instrument), and was basically a task that would take weeks to do manually. Lucky my friend Amit Talwar eventually came up with some scripts which speed up that aspect of the process.

I've just uploaded Electric Keys 2.1, you can download it from your File Bank (it should show a blue 'Update' button). I've re-checked loading times and even for the really hefty instruments (that previously needed over 350 samples), the load times are:

Standalone MPC (SSD drive): less than 1 second (pretty much instantaneous)
Force (SSD drive): between 2 and 4 seconds.