Using MPC as an Arranger Keyboard.

Hi Guys

I'm on the verge hiring an app developer to create an “arranger keyboard” drum app. There is no such app currently on the market that can do this specific thing. I wanted to find out if I can do the same thing with an MPC. App development is quite expensive and I can buy two MPC`s for the same price..

Just for your understanding: Arranger keyboards have dedicated buttons for drum triggering, all with certain behavior. Buttons like “intro”, “verse 1 and 2”, “Fill-in 1 and 2” and “outro”. This way you can have full control during a song triggering drums. Those buttons all have added functionality. For example after “Intro” is played it will automatically jump to “Verse1” IF you don’t trigger another button before the intro ends. Fill-in 1 will automatically go to Verse 1 etc. etc..

Having an APP with this functionality is great because you can have it on an IPAD or Rasberry PI with touchscreen, and load it up with countless drumloops/fill-ins/intro’s and outro’s, sampled from high end Arranger Keyboards or VSTi’s. i`m quite amazed no one came up with creating such app.

My question is, has the MPC the functionality to act like an arranger keyboard and how time consuming is it to program this? It will be much cheaper buying a (small) MPC, instead of spending a lot of money on a APP. development.

As far as you describe that ... this is (one) of the main purposes of an MPC.

You might puzzle (drum and audio) samples from scratch together to loops and arrange/order these loops to a song (intro, bridges, main parts, outro).
You can save these songs as project to disk and load them on purpose.

Maybe arranger keyboards are more specialized for this purpose and you don't have to 'learn' the MPC workflow. Maybe arranger keyboards can switch faster from one song to another - the MPC has to "load the next project" (an MPC can handle/hold one project only in it's RAM).

But an MPC is some kind of universal music studio (in your pocket) and can be so much more (ie music instrument, fire sounds/jingles/samples, sample editor, music recording device or even a sufficient "DJ platform").

If you have less money and more time to learn and prepare I would prefer the MPC variant (and -hey- you asked in a forum full of MPC lovers).

Regards
deetee