The MPC Granular & freeze

You got the right to wish for a better FX on here this forum, but have you let Akai know on their sites?
I still want Odyssey's delay Echo which is an emulation of the famous Echoplex guitar delay pedal made by Mike Battle to be made as a standalone FX (& don't tell me it's the same the Air Analog delay. Its close tho) but there's nothing anyone here can do about it. Maybe you can suggest to Akai that they make a Granular Pro, that way it makes more SenSe for them to do it.

Surely Akai is awhere and or working on payed pro versions /or 3d party

I don't get paid for this, don't even own one Im on a 4k.. these in grand scheme of things is are minor insufficienties

Their ecosystem is close but has a few downfalls..

Upgrade the engine, pro reverbs and dynamics.. it will cost more cpu but the next generation of production instruments is on the rise: SP24 just got 3rd party support and it sounds spectacular! The Elektron Digitakt 2 just leaked and many are still in the shadows /TBA


If facing a board of Akai villains in a meeting Id mainly address the UI...> track select/mute and solos are always going to be among the most used features, that fact that the Nu MPCs to this day" still have to use the dial /pad shortcuts for one of the most manual task is alarming in perspective of a morden design

Just add a xox grid so notes can be touched (instead of fingering the LCD like goldfish on acid.. same for the Q links .. just include buttons for amp filter envelopes lfo pitch seq ect and get away from the pre millennial F-softkey menu bouncing.. same for seq copy/paste quantities zooming etc ...

Add some "moog" analog circuits on the I\O and its a banger ..

That being says Air Akai team has done major improvements to the mpc as a fantastic production workhorse, its just stuck in a drum machine shell from the 80s

glide wrote:So if Akai (as Great as they are ) served crap algos on these plugs then face it.. why try to cast the blame, bury the body and say move on .. head in the sand, or hush hush this is a mpc forum...

This forum is, and always has been openly critical of Akai (both fairly and unfairly). I'm sure they would use the word 'hostile'. But there's no 'hush hush'.

The free MPC FX rarely see any additional love beyond some minor tweaks, although Air granular is actually the exception as it received quite a few additional features in the 2.11 update, I'm not sure if these came from feature requests or directly from developer input.

I can't see Akai completely overhauling the free plugin to create a full granular synth, but you should definitely send them a feature request for one as I suspect it would make a good premium plugin (assuming the CPU is up to it). Apparently they also read our Feature Request topic.

The one thing I miss about Maschine over the years is the Grain Stretch Effect.
But I will never go back to NI.
I don't use a lot of the FX in the New Mpc's. I resample back into the Mpc passing through other hardware or I use the FX/Plug-ins in my DAW.
If the New Mpc's had a better reverb honestly...The Delay is meh too... I won't pay for the "Pro" Delay. I don't trust Akai with buying expensive plugins, then a decade down the road or so, these plugins deactivating within the Mpc, and them dropping support.
Just too many holes in there business model for me.

My freezing recipe for MPC:

Assign sample to pad.
Record pass of note repeat of pad at 32/t at 160 bpm.

Pad settings: attack 33
Release 66
Polyphony 5-7
Offset (randomized) 10

^adjust to taste

Now scroll along start point of waveform in sample edit (program view) using the qlinks as the sequence plays.

Lampdog wrote:

BeatWilson wrote: I won't pay for the "Pro" Delay..

Pro delay is another 20 levels above the free one.

The reverbs, yea, are trash imo.
They should give reverbs a pro version with the same attention to detail and mass amount of features as they did with the pro delay.

Maybe I'll take another look at the Delay Pro. I still think it's overpriced, but it would be nice to have a decent Delay in Standalone.

Dplay Pro is worth the price. Just wait for a sell.

+1 for Delay Pro
Does some very cool things

to the OP: not every granular has the same goals\feels the same. i think mpc Granulator is a copy of the Clouds algorithm by mutable instruments (originally an eurorack module, now its been ported multiple times because the algo itself is open source). it sounds very similar to clouds, less the nice reverb thats on the original eurorack module which contributed to smear the grains a bit. anyway i still think it is good for some applications. anyway nothing beats grainstorm on an android phone\tablet the mightiest granular workstation i know of!

It's good to have this granular for free but yes, it's more a cloud FX.

I'm a huge an of granulators. There are a lot of good ones on iphone/ipads. As standalone units there are the GR-1, the Lemondrop and the Microcosm. But there are expensive. Don't forget that the Microfreak has a granulator synth machine since the V5 update.

I bought and am waiting to receive a Sonicware Texture Lab. It's a synthetizer, it's cheap and is interesting as it has it's own sequencer (128 steps with probabilities) but also can threat external sources.

But if Akai / Air supply a good granulator plugin (synthetizer and/or FX), I would be very interested. Air Delay Pro and Air flavor pro are great so I'm pretty sure that Akai / Air are able to design a great Air Granulator Pro.

And yes, I'm also waiting for good reverbs in the MPC.

hyena wrote:to the OP: not every granular has the same goals\feels the same. i think mpc Granulator is a copy of the Clouds algorithm by mutable instruments

Really they inported the MI algo .. I have mad respect for MI and my friend had clouds and I dont hear the resemblence .. Maybe someone with a bit of talent can post a demo of the MPC doing pleasant garnular suff??
tbh content creators nowadays seams to just need a device to make a vid ... the knowlage is in 2nd class

Rank31 wrote:I bought and am waiting to receive a Sonicware Texture Lab. It's a synthetizer, it's cheap and is interesting as it has it's own sequencer (128 steps with probabilities) but also can threat external sources..

please hit us back with feedback on the Sonicware ... its tempting as I one could use it live (via realtime though processing) .. it,s light and cheeper than a FX pedal ..

the MI Clouds discussion has been speculated before... I don't hear the similarities either... and have seen no proof that it is using the clouds algorithm either... so just rumor and conjecture I suspect.

"please hit us back with feedback on the Sonicware ... its tempting as I one could use it live (via realtime though processing) .. it,s light and cheeper than a FX pedal..."

So regarding The Texture Lab quickly tested during two days, what to say...

Quite a strange workflow. A big mess regarding knobs, buttons and keys. Some functions were strangely located. I don't understand the rational behind it.

I found that the grains are very quiet compared to the sample. So when you tweak the blend you can have a loud sample but too quiet grains. It can be a problem.
I find the FXs quite good despite all bad comments in forums. The reverbs are much betters than MPC's ones IMO.
The step sequencer is interesting with its 128 steps, probabilities, "p-locks".

When I bought it I though it will be a simple machine but I'm surprised. There is a learning curve.

I still have to test it has a FX processor (for my guitar) as I'm sure it can be very interesting from what I heard on samples.

I don't know yet if I will keep it or resale it to fund a Lemondrop. I appreciate the sequencer of the Sonicware which can sequence external gears and its effects. But I'm not sure at all it's the better granulator. Let's wait for more tests.