MPC 3 -- Let's GO!!

eLuSiVeMiTe wrote:

Loonytunes wrote:Can someone try editing portmento on a key group I only get one result its either on at 30.00s or off, if you leave it on, playing the keys gets odd results particularly if using pitch bend, beta and all that so fine, but somethings off here and not seen mentioned anywhere

Hold shift then adjust should work. Sure I saw it flagged on the beta forum. Edit. Might have been in this thread

Spot on answer, thank you very much

Please correct me if I got this wrong from losely following the discussions,
"MPC 3" is actually "Force 3.4 for all machines" and MPC software is actually now discontinued?
So its basically a rebranding campagne?

I am especially curious about the time signatures. When I got the MPC I had been warned by people that working with different time signatures is less than ideal, and they were right, I always hoped this would be improved somewhat but now it seems this had been abandoned completely instead, and they say it never was possible on the force to have other than 4/4? is that correct?
( I have a hard time believing this, and hope that you can still at least set other signatures in preferences globally)

Probably inadvertent, but for me this has ended up being a masterclass from Akai in managing expectations. I hate the headline things I knew months ago that I was going to hate, I'm underwhelmed by the new headline features I knew months ago I was going to be underwhelmed by, and the only surprises have been intangibles about the feel and less splashy features and have been generally positive.

I've already vented at length about the things that I was going to vent about, so now I'm pretty much already past the point of being irritated by the changes I don't like and ready to give it a go and see if I can find a way of making it work for me rather than just immediately going back to 2.15 and bitching.

That said, as expected 3 has broken how I liked to use the MPC pretty comprehensively in a few places and I'm really not sure there's enough here right now to make up for it. One thing I'm looking at is how to figure out an approach to performance - how I went about it before was pretty much all about a sequence for a song section, let it run and play pad mutes, then next sequence, changing up programs but keeping the structure basically similar. Been thinking about this all day and I have no idea how I'd do something that comes close in 3.

Macro controls do look cool though, hoping I can use them with my Intech 16 pot controller for a fixed set of performance controls wherever I am in the project.

Mpc software not discontinued, but could be a while.

Mpc now has many features from the force, so the two firmware are more closely related but still plenty of differences

Time sig is a known issue so currently unknown what the future holds for this.

sparky wrote:… further to my last post (which I can see nobody cares about, but I have to vent somewhere as it’s really messed up my approach to working)… on a conventional drum track the only way now to see all the pads and what’s loaded onto them in a given bank is via the pad color page, or the pad mute page. What a weird workaround for something so obvious and integral to the original design of the MPC.

the sample assign page still exists

MPC-Tutor wrote:This is not intended behaviour and I am unable to recreate this - I've disabled wifi in both my MPCs and the beta continues without any issues. Have also rebooted with wifi disabled and no issues at all.

Mines not even on a network anymore (I hid my SSID and you have no way to manually enter one in the MPC settings). I have to hotspot mine to my iPhone to activate the beta and then turn it immediately off, everything is perfectly fine here.

MPC-Tutor wrote:Time sig is a known issue so currently unknown what the future holds for this.

I see. Since most of my tracks are not 4/4 I can not upgrade, it's pointless to me to try the beta then.
But at least I dont have to worry about a decision for now, or roll back after trying.
I am quite surprised though cause even in "straight" club music beats like 12/8 are very common, so this is a really unexpected restriction for an "upgrade".

moonlake wrote:

MPC-Tutor wrote:Time sig is a known issue so currently unknown what the future holds for this.

I see. Since most of my tracks are not 4/4 I can not upgrade, it's pointless to me to try the beta then.
But at least I dont have to worry about a decision for now, or roll back after trying.
I am quite surprised though cause even in "straight" club music beats like 12/8 are very common, so this is a really unexpected restriction for an "upgrade".

Yeah this really messes with me, I work in 5/4, 7/4 and 9/8 with about 30% of my songs. In most at least one passage is in 4/4. It's not that I'm fussing about a feature with a workaround, it's a nightmare to work with multiple time signatures in a sequencer that can't handle more than one. Maschine would drive me nuts until I gave up using it's built in sequencer for more than a sketch pad, plus it literally was the final selling point for me that the MPC can do multiple time signatures.

The only consolation is maybe they're trying to figure out how to add in multiple time signatures to their new arranger window. You always could have multiple time signatures in a single sequence so I don't know how much that applies...

Again I could use a solid yes or no answer on this. If this is the direction that Akai plans for the MPC 3 software (one time signature, 4/4), then I can plan accordingly, cut my losses, and sell the Live II.

no one here can say officially what akai will do. 3.4 is not going to hit it out the park for everyone.

some of yall are not going to install for one reason or another -- fine.

some features are broken - its beta.

hundreds of people around the world are getting on ok with this, but there will be some who dont. c'est la vie.

trying to "figure out" what akai are doing is a fool's errand. send a feedback or bug report to akai. tweet andy mac, see if he will reply.

jalex wrote:

kaydigi wrote:Clip programs coming up with a restricted warning is hilarious...

Errr.. what warning ?!
I can find no sample clip program option.
I loved triggering sample clips on tempo, mangling them with pitch/warp, etc.
WTF happened ...

Totally agree, huge disappointment they cut out Clip Programs, I used them for live performances launching clips rhythmically. How am I supposed to do that using MPC 3???
WTF+++++
Downgrading for now hope it's just back in full MPC 3, or MPC 2.15 is my choice

marctronixx wrote:no one here can say officially what akai will do. 3.4 is not going to hit it out the park for everyone.

some of yall are not going to install for one reason or another -- fine.

some features are broken - its beta.

hundreds of people around the world are getting on ok with this, but there will be some who dont. c'est la vie.

trying to "figure out" what akai are doing is a fool's errand. send a feedback or bug report to akai. tweet andy mac, see if he will reply.

It's not a small issue to remove a large portion of one's ability to write music. So far the list of removed features has only one hit, Akai are saying they will bring back track mutes in a working fashion. Clips and time signatures are another thing entirely, so far silence.

I've written to them about it, but the only way we got any word on track mutes is by making noise, and Andy Mac doesn't seem to have a twitter account..

Oh, and I've directly written tech support about it, there is a beta listing, so this is the only way I know to get anything like a definitive answer.

Mikhail Shoroh wrote:Totally agree, huge disappointment they cut out Clip Programs, I used them for live performances launching clips rhythmically. How am I supposed to do that using MPC 3???
WTF+++++
Downgrading for now hope it's just back in full MPC 3, or MPC 2.15 is my choice

It seems like they're setting up the MPC to have the Force clip-matrix that will allow you to play MIDI & audio clips rhythmically. But who knows...

B-Wise wrote:

Mikhail Shoroh wrote:Totally agree, huge disappointment they cut out Clip Programs, I used them for live performances launching clips rhythmically. How am I supposed to do that using MPC 3???
WTF+++++
Downgrading for now hope it's just back in full MPC 3, or MPC 2.15 is my choice

It seems like they're setting up the MPC to have the Force clip-matrix that will allow you to play MIDI & audio clips rhythmically. But who knows...

hopefully to happen before 4.x

cocosushi wrote:hopefully to happen before 4.x

Akai is bringing the MPC closer & closer to the Darkside