Something on the horizon?

So.....with the half-pricing of many expansions continuing long after Black Friday, and considering the free expansions etc. for Live 2 owners that dropped in December (check your in music profile peeps).....AND the fact an Akai email dropped today saying they look forward to more innovation in 2025.....does anyone else think there could be a new MPC on the way at NAMM?

I know I know I know....rumours abound etc. but considering they maxed out on X-SE, have updated the workflow with v.3, and brought in (the less than successful (goodness knows why not!)) Keys....are they potentially pushing Live 2s out the door before a newbie is released

Here's hoping! I love my Live 2, want an X-SE but held off in anticipation of something new last year and was disappointed.

Much love, Peace.

There will be new MPCs in the future. OK, happy now?...


I hate these posts. No one here can give you a definitive answer & even if they could, they wouldn't...

Akai haven't even attended NAMM for a few years now, like many companies, they decided it wasn't a particularly effective way to reach out to people (typically trade).

The clue to a forthcoming MPC are the FCC test reports (wireless, bluetooth), which have to be uploaded to the FCC web site long before the product is released. We've all got alerts set up for this and I don't think anything has popped up yet. Some reference to a new model normally appears buried in the firmware code as well, nothing yet.

But yes, there will almost certainly be a new MPC coming at some point, and after that there will likely be many more progressively better models to come.

I don’t think waiting is the best option, just buy what you need now (if you truly need it) and when the new model arrives you can sell your older model to someone who doesn’t care for the latest features.

Would you be happy if they released a new unit which was more powerful (faster SOC, more RAM) and that meant your existing units were now legacy? (ie. software upgrades stopped).

Many people would complain.

gilesjuk wrote:Many people would complain.

Some people just love to complain. Some complain when companies don't innovate, some complain when they do innovate. Many don't care either way, they bought what they bought and get on with enjoying it.

Would you be happy if they released a new unit which was more powerful (faster SOC, more RAM) and that meant your existing units were now legacy? (ie. software upgrades stopped).

Akai have shown they are happy to continuing supporting hardware long after it's stopped manufacturing it (e.g. MPC Live). The latest model (key 37) has the same CPU & RAM as the Live, 8 years apart. I would assume the Key 37 will still work with MPC 3 or 4 (or whatever) for many years to come, and hence so will the Live.

Regardless, phasing out software support for older hardware is likely to be a gradual process spanning many years.

BTW, MPC 3 is working fine in all the current hardware.

yes there will definately be a new mpc next year

it will be released alongside mpc 3.0; expect Q1 or Q2, for something to drop.

discalimer the above is speculation based on circumstantial evidence and historical akai release behavior

Or …

”Yes, there will be a new high-end MPC next year that will do everything that all the other models do and then some - more outputs, more simultaneous plugins, polyphony, bigger screen, more knobs, bla, blah, blah.
And it will only be $5000 street price”.

Oh, not the thing we hoped for?



Then perhaps this …

”Yes, there will be a new budget friendly MPC that will only be $500! Although, it will only be able to do half of what the current models do, but hey, it’s cheap …”

Perhaps also not the thing we hoped for?


Hmm, maybe, I should just continue to make music with what I got?

gilesjuk wrote:Would you be happy if they released a new unit which was more powerful (faster SOC, more RAM) and that meant your existing units were now legacy? (ie. software upgrades stopped).

YES PLEASE. they literally beat this one to death with the updates and downloading and addons and antiquated hardware that it no longer has any luster to it. Slot machines are cheaper. Why would anyone he *mad* about a new platform? esp if its more reliable and less shitty with the DLC content than this one.

It's not beaten to death. Bugs and usability issues remain! How much CPU and memory and other computer geek numbers does it take to have proper legato for keygroup instruments? At what GHz value does the MIDI note-off bug disappear?

HouseWithoutMouse wrote:It's not beaten to death. Bugs and usability issues remain! How much CPU and memory and other computer geek numbers does it take to have proper legato for keygroup instruments? At what GHz value does the MIDI note-off bug disappear?

The more power they add the more powerful the bugs will be.

B-Wise wrote:The more power they add the more powerful the bugs will be.

A fundamental truth of any system: simplicity is the easiest way to determinist reliability. Features are nice, mutually synergistic features are even nicer and result is complexity, which generates bugs. I want the DAW in a cheap box, I accept the bugginess... If I wanted rock solid, there are plenty of great options - that also don't offer one tenth of the functionality !

HouseWithoutMouse wrote:It's not beaten to death. Bugs and usability issues remain! How much CPU and memory and other computer geek numbers does it take to have proper legato for keygroup instruments? At what GHz value does the MIDI note-off bug disappear?

Ok so in WHAT VERSION of update are they gonna solve that god damned bug. I have a folder with 20-ish rom images it persists across. It would be a valid arguement if inMusic was writing stable code but they arent. A prime reason to flat out abandon MPC until an all new product with all new software and hardware design come along because this rn is garbage.

Peoples projects bind and bottle neck all the time and they lose their work, too many fx? wrong combo of fx? kiss your stuff in memory and current state good bye. are you unwilling to recognize this issue? thats due to it not having enough bandwidth on an RT system.

the current software design has passed hardware capability, long ago.. and the software is screwed up in its own way too. Even their new beta is a buggy pos that does not operate well on any piece of hardware it resides on.

You keep arguing this point with me but its clear that you don't comprehend on a real time system bandwidth has a factor on performance and people are finding that limit all the time in the strangest of ways. Who gives a crap about the midi bug thats piddly in comparison to it crashing and tossing your project in the garbage all because you added the whatever garbage ass plugin you paid $100 for to your project. That is happening and it cannot be addressed via software bud.

Let me tell you about kernel preemption so you fully comprendo wtf real time means. On a regular system with kernel preemption your tasks are all prioritized and interleve in a timed manner relative to thread priority. On a real time system tasks are excuted immediately, there is no priority for rt tasks the moment you execute it it's using as much processor as it needs to get the task done. Now start heaping tasks on to a cpu without prioritization and you end up with an operating system that by design requires bandwidth to be open to the software.... It will allow you to heap tasks on it until the cpu literally runs out of space to insert tasks and start chugging and this is where you see projects disappear. So yes with RT if you up your bandwidth you get a more stable system with more room to process tasks.

Then we can get into a thing called "thread affinity" where we assign tasks to the various cores to make good use of the processor. The processor that has 4 underpowered 32bit cores that cant keep up.

Just fly me into hq for a **** week and ill help fix it **** me.. my rt systems don't suck or crash.

So: it can crash if you use too many plugins. Don't use too many plugins.

I can sympathize with your wanting to use more plugins, it's OK, no problem. But I really like and appreciate a large common installed base of hardware, with very little diversity.