MPC 3 -- Let's GO!!

AKAI could easily make colors customizable if neccessary

cocosushi wrote:AKAI could easily make colors customizable if neccessary

I kinda like the current GUI style and layout; im cool with the grey and the red strip at the top, so I was not looking for a complete redesign; just wanted the mixer and the arranger added.

So i suppose i will miss the old GUI and layout and colour scheme; like u said it would of better to make the colous and layout customisable, rather then do a whole radical redisign imo.

i think the new style is cool but some of it looks a bit confusing on the main screen vs the old; o this is def a good case for having two MPCs'

But I would not wanna buy another MPC now as it seems so likely that a new flagship of MPC live 3 is on its way in.

speaking of this new flagship (MPC XL) do we now think that given that MPC 3.0 software took aspects from the Force software, do we also think the X replacement hardware will also take some design que's from the Force hardware?

Maybe we will see the return of the data slider? or maybe some other aspects of the Force hardware design may carry over to the new X.

jamos wrote:I have to admit that I can't understand all the consternation regarding this upgrade. Admittedly I don't work in the traditional old school MPC style, but it seems like all of the omissions have some sort of simple workaround.

And aligning tracks across sequences makes sooooo much sense. I pretty much gave up on using individual sequences to build a song because this was so difficult to manage.

So I'm excited. I will of course move slowly amd watch for fatal flaws - they may be there - but I think it will all work out.

Some of us never gave up on using individual sequences to build a song. One of the advantages to working this way is that the MPC Sequences are converted to Scenes as a Force project, which can be opened in Ableton as an Ableton Export file, complete with all the scenes in tact in session view. This is HUGE for my workflow because my friend has the force and we both have Ableton Suite so we can easily share all of our projects to be finished in Ableton, but start on the MPC.

I understand that I can find workarounds, and I will, but it just doesnt make sense to have to do things one way or the other, just give us the option for both.

funkycoldmedina wrote:Can we strum chords yet?

Nope, but a Keystep 37 very easily solves this issue.

nobody in those teaser 3.0 vids i could see adjust a fader back to 0 (nominal) with a double click (or other shortcut), they all moved their finger and hoped it would be good enough/hit the line

can we select (multiple) non-consecutive notes in the grid editor yet?

wavejockey wrote:can we select (multiple) non-consecutive notes in the grid editor yet?

Never understood why they didn't rectify this.
You can hold shift on a Bluetooth keyboard and select multiple individual notes. Hardly a leap to make a button on the device behave as a modifier.

You can also hit delete on a BT keyboard to delete selected notes.

but hey, we have delay compensation (for audio tracks)

Just to confirm:

Round robins and velocity switching on one pad/keygroup is working, we finally have it! This is done using sample chains; for example record a kick drum 10 times at a 'hard' velocity; load this recording in the chop screen and add 10 slice markers, then assign this non destructively chopped 'sample chain' to the 'hard' velocity layer on your kick pad. Now on velocity layer 2 add a sample chain recorded with 10 kicks played at a slightly lower velocity and so on for as many layers as you need (now up to 8 per pad).

Each layer now has a 'slice motion' option which in the Akai demos is shown randomly playing slices from a loop, but this can be configured to just play a random one shot slice each time the pad is hit. So now you get velocity switching over 8 layers, and each velocity can play a different round robin slice each time it's triggered (set as random or even incremental)

It's going to need some careful setting up on big kits/instruments to avoid the familiar slow loading times we can already see with Force 3.3 when you try loading a kit with hefty numbers of samples. So for example in a 16 pad, 8 layer kit, I think rather than have 8 round robin 'chains' per pad (128 samples = long loading times), we'd probably need a single round robin chain that contains all the round robins used over 8 layers, so only 16 samples required. This seems possible as slice motion can be set to start on a particular slice number and then only use the next 'x' number of slices, so layer 1 round robins on slices 1-10, layer 2 on slices 11-20 etc.

Anyway, geeky stuff but I'll try to convert one of my existing acoustic drum kits to see how it performs. And yes in theory we can combine with simultaneous play and get 40 velocity layers, each with 128 round robins per layer.

But 16 velocity layers, each with 4 round robins is probably doable and manageable in terms of ram and CPU.

How are you feeling about things so far, 'Tutor?

moonlake wrote:simultaneous programs. Instruments. Plugins.
That number is not 128. 128 is the number of "slots". Insert 9 plugin instrument programs and see what happens. I should have worded this more clearly. What was trying to say that a workaround for multiple tracks pointing to the same plugin by doubling the plugin comes at a cost that is it reduces the number if plugins you can use.
Lets say you want to split your piano to 4 midi tracks, all playing the same plugin.
You can not insert the piano 4 times instead. Cause memory and cpu dont suffice.

Ouch. You're right. I had not considered plugins.

IvoryBlack589 wrote:How are you feeling about things so far, 'Tutor?

Still getting my bearings on some stuff so won’t comment yet and am not sure how much I can divulge considering it’s still effectively close beta, some bugs and features likely to change etc, so ultimately have to stick with what the YouTube influencers are referencing but hopefully I can explain it a bit better without the shilling attached

I am of course very aware of the program issue so want to look into this hopefully without all the drama as I can see the benefits to the new unified track system, especially to those looking for a standalone daw experience,

But it does seem to lay waste to many existing workflows which is definitely a ballsy move, especially as I think those target daw loving customers are likely never going to be happy no matter how things are implemented for their benefit

worth pointing out that many features are effectively the same as mpc2, bread and butter stuff like song mode, sample edit, sampler, program (track) edit, chop, grid, browsers etc. New GUI, some little extras and tweaks but fundamentally the same as mpc2

MPC-Tutor wrote:Just to confirm:

Round robins and velocity switching on one pad/keygroup is working, we finally have it! This is done using sample chains; for example record a kick drum 10 times at a 'hard' velocity; load this recording in the chop screen and add 10 slice markers, then assign this non destructively chopped 'sample chain' to the 'hard' velocity layer on your kick pad. Now on velocity layer 2 add a sample chain recorded with 10 kicks played at a slightly lower velocity and so on for as many layers as you need (now up to 8 per pad).

Each layer now has a 'slice motion' option which in the Akai demos is shown randomly playing slices from a loop, but this can be configured to just play a random one shot slice each time the pad is hit. So now you get velocity switching over 8 layers, and each velocity can play a different round robin slice each time it's triggered (set as random or even incremental)

It's going to need some careful setting up on big kits/instruments to avoid the familiar slow loading times we can already see with Force 3.3 when you try loading a kit with hefty numbers of samples. So for example in a 16 pad, 8 layer kit, I think rather than have 8 round robin 'chains' per pad (128 samples = long loading times), we'd probably need a single round robin chain that contains all the round robins used over 8 layers, so only 16 samples required. This seems possible as slice motion can be set to start on a particular slice number and then only use the next 'x' number of slices, so layer 1 round robins on slices 1-10, layer 2 on slices 11-20 etc.

Anyway, geeky stuff but I'll try to convert one of my existing acoustic drum kits to see how it performs. And yes in theory we can combine with simultaneous play and get 40 velocity layers, each with 128 round robins per layer.

But 16 velocity layers, each with 4 round robins is probably doable and manageable in terms of ram and CPU.

Mohahaha

Yes, this is where 4 or more gb of ram make sense.

Thanks

On a positive note, I think being able to save tracks; with sounds, midi and associated settings included, and load them in different projects seem pretty powerful. I could see myself having separate sessions for working out different layers of a song. Also, the saving / loading of tracks is how reuse of drum kits is done in DAWs right? Could just create empty 'template' tracks in place of programs in some respects. If tracks are actually powerful I'm kind of warming up to them replacing programs.

wavejockey wrote:nobody in those teaser 3.0 vids i could see adjust a fader back to 0 (nominal) with a double click (or other shortcut), they all moved their finger and hoped it would be good enough/hit the line

I accidentally brushed on one of the QLinks the other day and changed the tracks volume and couldn't zero it back with my finger or the knob.. Double tapped on the fader in the mixer and it went to 0.00..