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.
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By Lampdog Tue Mar 18, 2025 10:29 pm
Monotremata wrote:Well, this isnt Maschine, which doesn't even function without a computer. The MPC is an MPC, and its always been a standalone workstation all its own.

He'd like to speak to your manager

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By Monotremata Wed Mar 19, 2025 2:42 pm
B-Wise wrote:
So would the MPC Studio.


:lol: :lol: :lol: :lol:
Hey now I still got a black one haha, it was so much fun I had to get the OG Live so I could do it without the Mac! I actually got good enough with that thing I could use pretty much just the display on the Studio to do everything (except name stuff of course).

Sadly the Ren was already dead and gone by the time I got into it, or I would've gotten one of those instead.
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By Lampdog Wed Mar 19, 2025 3:49 pm
Never used Ren but while on my 4k I was always jealous of the 16 q-links and wanted more q-links the entire time.

When I saw X, I was 50% dead set on getting it.
By Craigs Fri Mar 21, 2025 6:10 am
Lampdog wrote:
Monotremata wrote:Well, this isnt Maschine, which doesn't even function without a computer. The MPC is an MPC, and its always been a standalone workstation all its own.

He'd like to speak to your manager

Image

Sounds like a bunch of kids on this forum as is the general rule for all forums I suppose. And yeah, nah, its simple brah; theres absolutely zero reason to intentionally manufacture a product to be unable to record nor even monitor directly thru a laptop. It is now 1995 after-all. Its the modern era. its definitely an error on the manufactures part and Id expect that it will be corrected at some point around 1998. So we will see. “Stand alone” or stand by me. It still needs the ability, the option to be recorded and or at least monitored thru a laptop and into a digital interface or its just an obsolete kids toy.
By Craigs Fri Mar 21, 2025 9:51 am
ontherun wrote:I think since the new ones have a single arm cpu the overhead would be to large to allow usb audio.


The Maschine is smaller, thinner and lighter and they didnt have any issue. Maybe it was a cost x profit issue? I couldnt think of any other reason why theyd intentionally leave it out.
By dustyslices Fri Mar 21, 2025 11:40 am
[quote=“Craigs”]
The Maschine is smaller, thinner, and lighter, and they didn’t have any issue. Maybe it was a cost vs. profit issue? I couldn’t think of any other reason why they’d intentionally leave it out.[/quote]

It’s got nothing to do with size — it was a conscious, logical design choice back then.
USB devices can operate in either of two modes: Host or Peripheral. Everything internally connected in the MPC runs on the USB bus, so it needs some kind of operating system to manage it. This is now handled via a USB mux, which either connects those devices to the Linux system in standalone mode or to your Windows/macOS system in controller mode.

It’s like physically plugging a USB connector into a different laptop. When in standalone mode, your laptop has no awareness of the internal drive/soundcard/MIDI/whatever. The same applies in reverse: when in controller mode, all peripherals are physically disconnected from the Linux system via a usb-mux-switch command and are instead recognized by Windows/macOS.

Try this experiment: take a ‘Y’ USB splitter, plug one end into your interface, and the other two ends into two independent laptops. Now come back and tell me the outcome :P
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By Monotremata Fri Mar 21, 2025 2:37 pm
dustyslices wrote:Try this experiment: take a ‘Y’ USB splitter, plug one end into your interface, and the other two ends into two independent laptops. Now come back and tell me the outcome :P


But, but, programming is sooooooo easy!!!

Says every armchair reddit dev who has absolutely no clue how shit really works..
By Craigs Sat Mar 22, 2025 1:56 am
dustyslices wrote:[quote=“Craigs”]
The Maschine is smaller, thinner, and lighter, and they didn’t have any issue. Maybe it was a cost vs. profit issue? I couldn’t think of any other reason why they’d intentionally leave it out.


It’s got nothing to do with size — it was a conscious, logical design choice back then.
USB devices can operate in either of two modes: Host or Peripheral. Everything internally connected in the MPC runs on the USB bus, so it needs some kind of operating system to manage it. This is now handled via a USB mux, which either connects those devices to the Linux system in standalone mode or to your Windows/macOS system in controller mode.

It’s like physically plugging a USB connector into a different laptop. When in standalone mode, your laptop has no awareness of the internal drive/soundcard/MIDI/whatever. The same applies in reverse: when in controller mode, all peripherals are physically disconnected from the Linux system via a usb-mux-switch command and are instead recognized by Windows/macOS.

Try this experiment: take a ‘Y’ USB splitter, plug one end into your interface, and the other two ends into two independent laptops. Now come back and tell me the outcome :P[/quote]
Yes, I understand this basic concept of the USB interfacing. I am just wondering why they made a planned, conscious decision to limit their users from having a USB output so that they could quickly and easily record into any DAW, especially Logic and monitor the MPC output thru a digital interface as well. Its pretty standard tech. I am wondering if there are any other systems that dont offer this actually. It would be not so different than making a soundboard with only XLR ins or 1/4 ins but not giving the option of both.

Anywho, I get the point. Its not an option unless I buy one of those little plastic 1980s MIDI converter contraptions that I probably have somewhere in a box with my Jr High School memorabilia.
By emdog Sat Mar 22, 2025 10:23 pm
I don’t think it was common to have this ability when the standalone was releases back in 2017ish. Plus I think their idea was to have standalone for standalone and then open those projects in MPC desktop software later for further processing and ability to use high quality converters. The akai converters sre shit. I used to do this all the time, accept not now since desktop 3.0 hasn’t been released. The newer elektron boxes have the ability to stream audio through usb, but again the converters are shit although it is convenient.