Just Blaze Rant on the 5000

Perhaps he ll buy a new updated one :p

tomazzzi wrote:Perhaps he ll buy a new updated one :p

justblaze wrote:Everyone works differently. So some bugs you experience I may not, and vice versa. I look at some of the bug reports and I'm like who even USES the machine that way? or why would you need to do THIS when you could do this? And then i think about when i first met swizz 10 years ago or so. he didnt even know what midi was, and he would just sample himself playing keys and chop that up... and he didnt care. I showed him how midi worked and he was hype, but he still went on doing things his way, and made a ton of hit records. I'm pretty sure he programs differently now, but he had his own workflow then, and it worked for him. Different people use different machines different ways, so the only perspective I can speak from is mine, and where I walked away from the 4 after a few uses feeling great about the machine, I simply did not feel that way about the 5.

JB, I like your reply a lot. And I took out one paragraph because this is exactly one of the things why it is about impossible to get out all bugs during test phase in such a complicated machine and why some bugs will pop up where one will say "ridiculous! Did nobody noticed?", where the other will think "huh? When whould you EVER use that! Get a life...".

I really hope people realise this just a little more now. This doesn't justify all bugs, but a lot of them for sure.

As far as missing features concerns: one can complain about it, with a degree of understanding by me/akai that one expects maybe certain features to be in there without checking before buying, but one can also check the manual/feature list *before* he/she buys to find out what you're getting. Because the same principle counts here: everybody is using such a machine in a different way and is using some features a lot while non using other features.

[edit]by the way, same principle goes for the *designers* of these various mpc's. [/edit]

I'd say, let's wait for OS2, who knows...

Askia Shaheed wrote:

64hz wrote:

Askia Shaheed wrote:
He hated it because he didn't know how to use it? It does almost exactly the same thing that the MPC 4000 does and has quite a few things that the 4K doesn't.

Man ur twofaced arent you? First you say lets get the hating of the forum, its no good and now 5 minutes later you do the same thing.... hating

Your English reading/writing is a little off. Those were questions that I asked above that I wanted answers to. 'justblaze" actually answered all my questions ( ). Its good he cleared up the fact that he got his MPC 4000 at a later date (because I was about to call him a liar) because I purchased several of them before they hit the US and it was terrible. My only point was that the problems with this new MPC is actually better than my experiences with the MPC 4000 when it was released. My Fantom G also had/has some issues...

@just blaze....I would think that after you put so much energy into this rant about all the serious bugs you faced, why wouldn't you take 2 minutes to upgrade to the latest OS which will fix your problems perhaps?

Im not talking about those posts, im talking about the 5 posts before that where in you keep calling this the most negative forum bla bla let the hating stop bla bla.... and what do you do.... the same thing.

On topic and great reply scd.

tomazzzi wrote:Perhaps he ll buy a new updated one :p

with all of those millions

@ scd.
JB, I like your reply a lot. And I took out one paragraph because this is exactly one of the things why it is about impossible to get out all bugs during test phase in such a complicated machine and why some bugs will pop up where one will say "ridiculous! Did nobody noticed?", where the other will think "huh? When whould you EVER use that! Get a life...".

i typed that fully knowing you would respond the way you did to that section. and while i do stand by what i said and agree with you to a CERTAIN degree,this really does not apply to my experience. actually i guess it can apply being that you stated that everyone uses the machines differently, which can justify some bugs, but not all. Mine fall into the ones that i feel are simply NOT justifiable. the major issues i had with the machines were in basic function. not like.. "trying to trigger 2 sequences while uisng a filter to process beat sync through an audio click while an audio track plays in reverse and i scratch my nuts with my flux capacitor. " if that crashed... id understand. I didnt try and make the machine do anything extraordinary outside of regular use. im talking about basic functions, for example loading progs from previous mpcs and saving your work. if anything should be 100% bug free it should be the saving and loading processes, as those are the 2 main functions ppl NEED to at least be able to trust a machine. And i had serious problems on both ends.

As far as missing features concerns: one can complain about it, with a degree of understanding by me/akai that one expects maybe certain features to be in there without checking before buying, but one can also check the manual/feature list *before* he/she buys to find out what you're getting

How many times can i say the same thing?

I KNEW a lot of what would be missing with the 5000. I said this in my original post.
HOWEVER.. for the final time, when you add those obvious missing features, add in some that should be standard that aren't obviously missing and add all that to the fact that the machine has bugs, some of which are unexcusable (in MY opinion), it makes for a bad experience. My bad experience.


You obviously have some ties with akai (and i'm guessing probably more than beta testing) so i understand you are doing what you feel you need to do which is protect your brand. But at a certain point it's like... we arent going to see eye to eye on some of these issues, certain things i find inexcusable, you dont. and it just is what it is. No harm, no foul, and life goes on.

Oh yeah. @ the other guy (sorry can't remember your name)
A) the rant took 10 minutes to type. wasn't a whole lot of time or energy.
B) Im just not interested in the upgrade at this point. The synth was the main draw for me and i really can't use it effectively or the way i'd like given the way it is implemented. Great idea, so-so execution. Not to say I'll never do it, just not a priority for me. MAYBE i'll make it the next giveaway on my blog. that might be fun . a beat battle or something =)

Nice post blaze. Bang on player. Akai step up, scd had some good points too. Keeping it real and on point.

By the way did Akai said anything in their e-mail to ya Blaze?

justblaze wrote:@ scd.

For one time you misunderstood me: I was using *your* paragraph to say something general to *everybody else* about bugs after a 1.0 release because I figured people would take it easier from you than from me
You left out the most important sentence in your reply to me:

"I really hope people realise this just a little more now. This doesn't justify all bugs [in common], but a lot of them [in common] for sure."
I should have added the [in common] part to be more clear.

You definately make good points with your first post (though I do not agree with everything, but most of it) about the bugs and the feature requests. But my first reactions were much more aimed at *the way* you were leaking your frustration and how that could affect other peoples view/choices because they are clearly looking up to you as a musician rather than fighting your experiences with the 5k.

No, there are no other ties to Akai than me being a betatester. You have to believe me for that. I work at a publishing company in the Netherlands for my daily bread (http://www.walburgpers.nl). Old fashioned synthesizermusic and collecting analog synths is my hobby (http://www.synthmusic.info) and betatesting as well (I am doing this for other brands too). The only benefit I get out of it is a piece of gear every now and then, but if I count the hours put into it, that's not even a benefit in itself. Having joy in testing this stuff and getting to know all those people behind it is the real benefit for me.

Being not tied to Akai in any other way makes it easy for me to freely respond (without breaking my NDA). Of course I am not 100% objective because of the betatesting, but for the balance on this particular forum I figure that is even a good thing.
And that's also why I hope that people won't see me just as a Akai extension trying to put fires out on this forum. I critisize(d) certain points on the 5k just as loud as others, but I also have a little more insight on how Akai is working nowadays, how it is not the old Akai and how people behind the scene there do their best to earn their daily bread. This helps Akai a little and helps the users a little I hope.

Again, I didn't like your first post because it was so full of frustration (fully understandable!), but you made up for that more than expected (by me) with the rest of your posts . This is all my private opinion and I want thank you doing that too.

Boele

When this comes, I hope we have another honest review by JB.

deviating a bit:

Touch the Sky had me like

cause that was a pretty uptempo sample....sounds like a pretty good timestretch cause the quality in the sample--tho slowed down--seems pretty well maintained for the pitch not having been touched.

BxJaze wrote:deviating a bit:

Touch the Sky had me like

cause that was a pretty uptempo sample....sounds like a pretty good timestretch cause the quality in the sample--tho slowed down--seems pretty well maintained for the pitch not having been touched.

aye, one minute it was a 4k, then melodyne, then an mv. my guess is it was done with a casio rz1 and a fostex x15.

Great post guys that what we like to hear to learn from each other.

justblaze wrote:
Oh yeah. @ the other guy (sorry can't remember your name)
A) the rant took 10 minutes to type. wasn't a whole lot of time or energy.
B) Im just not interested in the upgrade at this point. The synth was the main draw for me and i really can't use it effectively or the way i'd like given the way it is implemented. Great idea, so-so execution. Not to say I'll never do it, just not a priority for me. MAYBE i'll make it the next giveaway on my blog. that might be fun . a beat battle or something =)

The synth was the main draw? I though you said something smaller than your MPC 4000 for home use was the main draw? Re-reading your rant, you had issues with using basic features like saving your projects/files and disappearing hard drives. That sounds like an update is in order. Anyway, that would be really nice of you to give away your MPC 5K in a beat battle or something. Can you get Kanye to sign an MPC 2000 and give that away as well?

Askia Shaheed wrote:

justblaze wrote:
A) the rant took 10 minutes to type. wasn't a whole lot of time or energy.

This is probably blasphemy but are justblaze's beats as fast as his typing?
I actually never heard his music... This will ban me from the forum. For sure!