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 kday Thu Feb 01, 2024 8:22 am
Lampdog wrote:Orange 3.0/3.1 power delivery, sleep + charge.

USB 2 shaped port??


Yeah you're right. My faster orange chargers didn't use computer that type of 2.0 usb port just the regular cable.

I guess it may be the slow 2.0 then. That's a bummer.
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By MPC-Tutor Thu Feb 01, 2024 8:57 am
My bad, as the MPC One/One+ has an orange port and this is restricted to USB 2.0 speeds, I assumed orange indicated USB 2.

But that said, as the key 37 seems to just be a One+ with a keyboard at this point I am going to assume the 37 is also running at USB 2 speeds like the one+

kday wrote:Actually that is incorrect.

Orange USB port is used because the orange usb port protocol is much faster than the standard blue port. Orange is the color of the newer Quick Charge QC 3.0 higher wattage faster data transmission protocol. The new QC3.0 orange ports allows much higher wattage and more amps in usb transmission which means much faster data transmission over standard usb ports. Which means that Akai just 'future proofed' the MPC Key37 and will allow faster data transmission and smoother usb connections for controlling VSTs in future products. QC3.0 orange ports overcomes limits the MPC Key61 may have with newer VSTs in the future that benefits from faster port speeds. Higher wattage Orange USB ports have been around for a year or two, I bought a few orange port QC3.0 high wattage faster USB chargers for my cell phones because they were listed as being up to 4X faster on some orange ports, over the regular blue USB ports on the same charger. Orange cost a bit more than blue USB 3.0 because they claim it's faster for newer technology products being made mainly they were used for expensive cell phones.

Most likely all new Akai USB products will begin to incorporate the orange USB ports on at least their high end products. Because technology is headed towards USB 4.0 now. And orange seems to be that ladder if orange is not the official color of the coming USB 4.0

I don't think Akai would go all the way two steps backwards to offer a much slower USB 2.0 speeds as the connection basis of a new high technology dynamite keyboard sampler being a lead in a new direction Akai is going. That would be foolishness and could destroy the whole product line because 2.0 is way too slow for data storage especially in highly sophisticated new product that will be connected to the computer.

Most likely both storage USB and computer USB connectors will be orange to normalize both connection upgraded speeds.

The reason I suspect Akai didn't include the additional plugins they charged for, like the Strings etc, is because Akai wants to make extra money charging Key37 customers for those extra plugins because the Key37 is lower priced product already. I predict the Key37 will be a big seller overall.
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By Lampdog Thu Feb 01, 2024 9:05 am
imo, usb 2.0.

Why choose orange, idk, ext devices use type a for charging. Does the 37 charge itself with that port, it has an internal battery. Charging/battery option wont take away the ugly, not at all.

There has to be a reason. idc enough to find out why.

Maybe I’ll run across the story behind it one day.
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By Ultros Thu Feb 01, 2024 10:03 am
Monotremata wrote:
B-Wise wrote:What are you talking about JJ is the "the only models of mpc's who received a very revolutionary third party os"? There's hacked versions of the MPC & Force & we don't now how far they gonna push that OS later, which is why it's not easy to predict the future.


There's a HUGE difference between the two though.. JJOS comes straight from the source code itself. JJ literally took the 1000/2500 OS when he left Akai and started working on it on his own.

Anybody 'hacking' the current MPC OS is still stuck with whatever we've got. You might be able to enable some hidden Linux functionality in it, but it's not like anyone is ever going to be adding features or improving the actual MPC/Force OS.. Making one OS boot on the other's hardware is pretty trivial compared to modifying the source code itself.


I've already abandon the mpc / force project known as Hakai, Zangetsus keeping it alive now. Like mono said theres nothing to really mod unless we want to spend years reverse engineering the executables. I move around quite a bit between projects and platforms and atm the what the mpc / force keep offering each update isnt worth my time. Strike when the metal is hot, but DON'T ride it to the grave. The trick is knowing when its time to move on from a project, or a scene so you arent the last dude sitting in a vacant place wondering where the party went. lol. The mpc wasnt my first rodeo, for example years ago i was the first person to ever force their way onto the PSN network with an out of date firmware, then i gave it to everybody lol! 'psnabler'. People dont want to repeatedly see the same trick though.
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By Monotremata Thu Feb 01, 2024 2:11 pm
kday wrote:
Lampdog wrote:Orange 3.0/3.1 power delivery, sleep + charge.

USB 2 shaped port??


Yeah you're right. My faster orange chargers didn't use computer that type of 2.0 usb port just the regular cable.

I guess it may be the slow 2.0 then. That's a bummer.


USB 3 ports have an extra rectangular connector up at the top of the plug...
By dunkeyman Fri Feb 02, 2024 8:46 pm
Menco wrote:
dunkeyman wrote:I've never seen anyone compare the two but does the Key61 load plugins a lot faster than the One/Live/X? Or does it just allow twice as much at once?


I had the One and now have the X SE. Had them both for a while and can confirm that the loading times on the X SE are faster than on the One. Also with multi-sample programs.


I wonder if more ram is the reason for that, though? Were you using a SATA drive on the X and an SD card on the One? If so I would speculate that's the reason more than the extra RAM.

One way I might be able to test this is I opened my MPC One Retro and noticed there's a spot for a SATA port on the main board. I ordered some sata soldering ports from China and I am going to see if Sata works on the One. I bet it will because the One firmware still has references to outputs only the X has. My guess is the One will detect the SATA drive on startup.

Then I can test my theory.
(At first my idea was to upgrade the supposed microsd card that I kept reading was on the motherboard but it's absolutely nowhere on mine! so no internal micro SD card for me to remove. Unless the internal micro SD was moved elsewhere I think Akai changed to a nand chip instead of micro SD at some point. I did see the reset switch so I must have been in the right place on the mobo)
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By Lampdog Fri Feb 02, 2024 9:35 pm
dunkeyman wrote:…..I bet it will because the One firmware still has references to outputs only the X has.

That’s you guessing. It’s not the reason.
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By Lampdog Fri Feb 02, 2024 11:12 pm
Not a problem as the manual tells you why. About as helpful as your assumptions, cool!

:-D
By kday Sat Feb 03, 2024 3:17 am
MPC-Tutor wrote:My bad, as the MPC One/One+ has an orange port and this is restricted to USB 2.0 speeds, I assumed orange indicated USB 2.

But that said, as the key 37 seems to just be a One+ with a keyboard at this point I am going to assume the 37 is also running at USB 2 speeds like the one+



Yeah you're right.

I saw the higher wattage so called faster speed orange USB connector used for phone high speed charging and assumed the Key37 would somehow benefit from this faster higher amp usb connector until I found out this is basically an MPC ONE with keys.

But I guess they have some personal reason for choosing the orange 2.0 port over the standard black USB 2.0

But then again I don't think the 2.0 would have any significant effect on the MPC software program or VSTs because the MPC VST program is also largely just a mirror of the original hardware when in controller mode. I don't think having a 2.0 will affect the speed on any level for the VSTs because they are hardware CPU dependent and don't need USB at all.

Just my opinion
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By Lampdog Sat Feb 03, 2024 7:11 am
I’d like to know why they chose orange.

It’s misleading. Can’t use orange 3.x speed with 2.0 physical connection. It physically lacks the pins as stated earlier by monotremata.

We want that speed as stated by kday.

What’s the real reason for orange on 2.0 ports. Sleep/charge? Charge what? Battery like many ask. We need to know what our money is buying cause many are actually and genuinely interested in the product.

Sorry. Rant.

@dunkeyman. No disrespect, I didn’t mean to come at you. My apologies if you felt that way.
By kday Sat Feb 03, 2024 8:07 am
Lampdog wrote:I’d like to know why they chose orange.

It’s misleading. Can’t use orange 3.x speed with 2.0 physical connection. It physically lacks the pins as stated earlier by monotremata.

We want that speed as stated by kday.

What’s the real reason for orange on 2.0 ports. Sleep/charge? Charge what? Battery like many ask. We need to know what our money is buying cause many are actually and genuinely interested in the product.



I agree 100%

It's totally deceptive, I think maybe they chose the orange usb so people wouldn't immediately notice the slower black 2.0 USB and think it must be a cheap product and think less of it because it holds old 20 year old usb technology in 2024.

If they built the boards from scratch, USB 3.0 cost nothing extra really to add. Unless these were old lower cost boards left over from the MPC ONE builds, which they probably were, with old deceptive orange USB 2.0 port connectors already attached to them.
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By Menco Sat Feb 03, 2024 9:02 am
dunkeyman wrote:I wonder if more ram is the reason for that, though? Were you using a SATA drive on the X and an SD card on the One? If so I would speculate that's the reason more than the extra RAM.

One way I might be able to test this is I opened my MPC One Retro and noticed there's a spot for a SATA port on the main board. I ordered some sata soldering ports from China and I am going to see if Sata works on the One. I bet it will because the One firmware still has references to outputs only the X has. My guess is the One will detect the SATA drive on startup.

Then I can test my theory.
(At first my idea was to upgrade the supposed microsd card that I kept reading was on the motherboard but it's absolutely nowhere on mine! so no internal micro SD card for me to remove. Unless the internal micro SD was moved elsewhere I think Akai changed to a nand chip instead of micro SD at some point. I did see the reset switch so I must have been in the right place on the mobo)


Used the same SD card for both machines.

Now come to think of it, loading times might also be situational per project. I can remember that I once loaded in a multisampled trumpet program I bought on this site, and it took ages to load in. While one time on the X the MPC loaded up the whole thing in RAM instantly. Yesterday I loaded in an Akai stock drumkit, which also took quite longer than usual while only having two other Drum program in RAM. No plugins, only 3 FX on the rec ins.
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By Lampdog Sun Feb 04, 2024 12:46 am
W. Steele wrote:This damn machine just might bring me back into the fold



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