MPC Live 2: 2 to 4GB RAM upgrade

40Beatz wrote:

machinesworking wrote: How about I want a portable MPC with built in speakers and 4gb RAM?

As if these aren't computers and people don't mod computers ever.

With me...If I need 4GB of RAM, I'm creating a Lavish Orchestral Composition and I would want to be Stationary somewhere, behind a MPC with a Big Screen or a Keyboard Attached to it
Not at the Park, on the Subway, or on the Toilet with my LIVE 2

For me, I can whip together quick compositions at the Dinner Table, on the Porch or in My Car....with 2GB of RAM

Two ¢ lol

with 2GB ram, I can max it out with only 3-4 plugins (e.g. studio strings, stage piano, fabric xl - then 'out of memory') - I also do quite a lot of auto sampling and for longer evolving textures,, things fill up surprisingly quickly - and I think I've also noticed some issues when the ram gets full enough to display low ram messages (maybe 80-something %) (I had one project that song mode wouldn't' export correctly to a sequence - got some odd missing sections, but when I did same thing on a 4GB machine, export worked fine - not 100% sure though)

That's where Bouncing some of those Plug-In Tracks to Audio Files, comes in at! That'll Rejuvenate your RAM and CPU Usage

Hey, 40z - any links to your beatz?

My big question is:
Given how cheap are Ram nowadays, and given we work with 32gb with computers, why is not Akai putting 8gb on Mpc?
That would make it a really standout and competitive device for music.

Straker wrote:My big question is:
Given how cheap are Ram nowadays, and given we work with 32gb with computers, why is not Akai putting 8gb on Mpc?
That would make it a really standout and competitive device for music.

exactly, cos most phones have 8GB at this point, so no reason for akai to not bump up the RAM for this modern era, we should also be on Octa-core CPU's at this point also.

Straker wrote:My big question is:
Given how cheap are Ram nowadays, and given we work with 32gb with computers, why is not Akai putting 8gb on Mpc?
That would make it a really standout and competitive device for music.

Because as has already been said time and time again since the modern MPC lineup was released, this isnt your Intel CPU with RAM slots sitting right next to it. Its an SoC. Its one single chip, the RAM and cache and the CPU are all ONE single chip.

You don't just 'add RAM' to it, you fabricate an entirely new processor to do that. This isn't Akai Professional, they don't have japanese engineers actually designing their components. If you think today's Akai actually has the ability to do that, you are sorely mistaken.. They own a reference design, they can send the plans to someone and say 'Here fabricate these for us'. I HIGHLY DOUBT they have an engineer up there that can redo the whole system and create a new one from scratch. They bought the 2/4GB design, they didnt invent it and don't have the means to modify it.

The 4GByte limit on the current MPC is not that the CPU and ram a monolithic, it's that the memory controller on the CPU (Rockchip RK3328) only has a 32 bit address space. The RK3328 was quite advanced in 2017 when it was released, but it's looking a bit limited compared to modern CPUs.

For a new MPC (e.g live 3), I'd be very surprised if they carried on using the same CPU (though I'm fairly surprised they've used it for so long already!)

Changing the CPU in a redesign should be fairly straight forward - the OS running in MPC is just a linux variant, and most of the internals are on USB busses.

40Beatz wrote:That's where Bouncing some of those Plug-In Tracks to Audio Files, comes in at! That'll Rejuvenate your RAM and CPU Usage

of course, but bouncing adds friction to the work flow (harder to go back and edit or add new sections for example), so the 'have 3 plugins, bounce and be happy' isn't ideal, especially as there IS an alternative by expanding the ram, (albeit not an entirely straight-forward mod).

I'm much happier with 4GByte than 2. (and the OS uses nearly 1GByte, so going to 4GByte is nearly a 3x boost).

I guess Akai realise this has some value to more than just the likes of me, hence releasing 4GByte in key61 and MPC X SE

natbuk wrote:The 4GByte limit on the current MPC is not that the CPU and ram a monolithic, it's that the memory controller on the CPU (Rockchip RK3328) only has a 32 bit address space. The RK3328 was quite advanced in 2017 when it was released, but it's looking a bit limited compared to modern CPUs.

For a new MPC (e.g live 3), I'd be very surprised if they carried on using the same CPU (though I'm fairly surprised they've used it for so long already!)

Changing the CPU in a redesign should be fairly straight forward - the OS running in MPC is just a linux variant, and most of the internals are on USB busses.

That makes perfect sense, and explains why it topped out at 4GB hah. I remember folks being excited for the 64-bit versions of Windows so they could use more than 4GB of RAM. Remember the old FAT32 filesystem? Couldn't even copy a full DVD image because the file system couldn't handle file sizes over 4GB.

natbuk wrote:
of course, but bouncing adds friction to the work flow (harder to go back and edit or add new sections for example), so the 'have 3 plugins, bounce and be happy' isn't ideal, especially as there IS an alternative by expanding the ram, (albeit not an entirely straight-forward mod).

I'm much happier with 4GByte than 2. (and the OS uses nearly 1GByte, so going to 4GByte is nearly a 3x boost).

I guess Akai realise this has some value to more than just the likes of me, hence releasing 4GByte in key61 and MPC X SE

Of Course We'll be happy to have more RAM. But the Time and Cost to Redesign the Current Circuitry would be Expensive for Akai. The way Akai uses the Customer Base as their Unpaid Beta Testers, I believe it would be a Logistical Nightmare. I come from the Old School Drum Machine Era...Friction Creates Creativity lol

40Beatz wrote:Of Course We'll be happy to have more RAM. But the Time and Cost to Redesign the Current Circuitry would be Expensive for Akai. The way Akai uses the Customer Base as their Unpaid Beta Testers, I believe it would be a Logistical Nightmare. I come from the Old School Drum Machine Era...Friction Creates Creativity lol

It really isn't a huge increase in price at all. At the price they're paying for those 1GB modules, going to 4gb a difference (so 2x2gb) of $10-15

There is simply no reason for them to want to give you more when they can up-sell a special edition version with 4gb ram right.

Keep in mind, that there is no changes to the circuitry required. Just like shown in the video.

True...but Increasing the RAM, means you have to increase Bus Speed for a faster rate of data transfer between the RAM and the CPU.

"Hmmm We Just doubled our Investment of 18-Wheeler Cargo Trucks (RAM), Lets just send them down the same Two Lane Side Street. That way We Cam Transport More Cargo Per Trip"

#BottleNeck

Shouldn't Cost Too Much

My only thoughts on this is: why did dude only use a 4gb chip? why not more?

Ultros wrote:My only thoughts on this is: why did dude only use a 4gb chip? why not more?

Had something nerdy about the broad being limited to 4GB. This is most likely why never went higher on any MPC so far even after 8 years. But you can chat wit him on YT.

Ultros wrote:My only thoughts on this is: why did dude only use a 4gb chip? why not more?

It was just posted above yesterday, the memory controller is only 32-bit, which means no matter what, you have a hard limit of 4GB.