Product Request: MPC 5000 Unplugged

I am just tossing around ideas. I am not a big fan of USB and firewire devices. The latency is terrible. That is why I suggest something like ethernet like some of the highend Pro Tools control surfaces. These control surfaces (like the C24) have audio inputs and outputs. If you need it in a gig, take take your ethernet capable lap top drive

Askia Shaheed wrote:I am just tossing around ideas. I am not a big fan of USB and firewire devices. The latency is terrible. That is why I suggest something like ethernet like some of the highend Pro Tools control surfaces. These control surfaces (like the C24) have audio inputs and outputs. If you need it in a gig, take take your ethernet capable lap top drive

firewire800 will have 8 times faster bandwidth then ethernet , so latency will be much less on such a device. Firewire has slightly less latency then usb only because of how it is "connected" with the CPU... The thing is, this unit would be doing more then just a midi controller so it would most likely require much more.

But if you are talking about using an ethernet protocol type of connection, why not use something even faster then 10/100 with cat5 cables when there are 1gbps connections available?

mr_debauch wrote:

Askia Shaheed wrote:I am just tossing around ideas. I am not a big fan of USB and firewire devices. The latency is terrible. That is why I suggest something like ethernet like some of the highend Pro Tools control surfaces. These control surfaces (like the C24) have audio inputs and outputs. If you need it in a gig, take take your ethernet capable lap top drive

firewire800 will have 8 times faster bandwidth then ethernet , so latency will be much less on such a device. Firewire has slightly less latency then usb only because of how it is "connected" with the CPU... The thing is, this unit would be doing more then just a midi controller so it would most likely require much more.

But if you are talking about using an ethernet protocol type of connection, why not use something even faster then 10/100 with cat5 cables when there are 1gbps connections available?

I have no idea about the technical aspects of all this. But I have never had great sucess with firewire wire. I bought a DigiDesign 003R which used firewire. When compared to the RME PCI audio card, latency is horrible. Since Digi Design and Euphonix (is that how you spell it?) uses a form of ethernet protocol for their highend devices, I assumed that it would be perfect for an MPC control surface???

Also..forum members...don't just simply stop by to vote. Give your feedback..the pros and cons of such a device. When the Native Instruments product is out, I will pick it up and post feedback here as well.

How did you come up with the name "MPC5000 Unplugged?" It sounds more like Plugged to me...

I was bored. That was the first thing that came to my mind. The current MPC is 'plugged'. This idea is the opposite.

The Yamaha Motif XS has a built-in ethernet port which allows you to configure an IP address within the subnet of your LAN. This allows the Motif to carry out fast file-transfer to a network share drive for loading and saving files and back-ups etc.

Multiple audio streams and midi is handled by a single firewire cable running from the mLAN interface with very low latency. mLAN also allows you to use the built-in effects processor of the Motif XS (which is superb) as a standalone effects processor for external sound sources.

The new Motif XS VSTI plugin which Yamaha are just about to release allows you to treat the Motif as if it were a virtual instrument within your DAW.

This kind of stuff will become common amongst all MI manufacturers if they want to continue selling products.

I doubt the NI Maschine will be that toy like. So I think building that kind of product would really only be a competition for maschine.

Your idea of having an MPC with an abundance of resources is not bad. But why integrate in into a computer then? They could just built hardware based on a pc architecture with DSPs or a similar CPU and conventional RAM. So you could easily have GBs of memory. Instead of the harddrive they should include a solid state drive and a fantom like LCD. Maybe a DVI jack or a monitor?! Maybe a mousejack!? But honestly, that would just be a cheap verion of a computer then.

The things your dreaming of can be done with a decent PC an Maschine and a nice interface. AKAI should keep buildg real MPCs maybe with better PC integration for those who need it (VSTi link etc.)

Yes, The Maschine does everything (almost) you are wishing for here, does it have to had "the" 3 letters that satisfy you?

The Maschine isn't available yet and way too early to be singing its praises based upon previous simiilar Native Instrument programs/control surface products. I found Kore to be slow and very unlike a standalone sound module. The Maschine or any other similar product has to be responsive with no latency.

Of course Akai could just build an MPC with the specs of a computer. They practically took this route with the MPC 4000 (almost $4000 with all options installed). What do you think an MPC with a highend CPU, Ram, etc is going to cost you?

I think people would prefer to build their own computer or use their existing ones..perhaps.

I bought the mpc specifically to get away from the computer.

I do agree though that a VST editor could be helpful, for now blue box does the trick ok.

I'm an IT guy so it's nice when you only have to look at your monitor 12 hours in a day instead of 16.

I kinda prefer to use the MPC stand alone to, but I've got to admit that the VST option would be great, if it were ever to become available.

A few comments:

You have mentioned Ethernet connectivity and the Digi Control|24. It sounds like you may be under the impression that the Control|24/C|24 are audio interfaces. They are not. They are simply control surfaces. While it is true that they have 16 microphone preamps, an 8channel stereo by 2 mixer, and a monitoring section complete with talkback capabilities - those are just add-ons with their own set of analog audio input and output. No A/D conversion or computer-based audio I/O occurs in them. They simply provide extra functionality outside of your existing I/O interfaces. No audio (digital or analog) travels over the Ethernet cable between the Control|24 and your computer, only control surface data.

It's probably worth mentioning also that Ethernet, Firewire, and USB are all serial methods of data transmission and are measured in bits per second as opposed to Bytes per second which is typical in parallel data transmission (hence the Mb/s instead of MB/s - easy to get confused and end up comparing apples to oranges when reading specifications because of this.)

Additionally, it should be noted that these numbers (10Mb/s-Ethernet, 12Mb/s-USB1, 100Mb/s-FastEthernet, 400Mb/s-Firewire, 480Mb/s-USB2, 800Mb/s-Firewire2(800), 1000Mb/s (1Gb/s)GigabitEthernet, etc) are all measurements of available BANDWIDTH and really have nothing to do with actual data throughput/transfer rates. They just tell the theoretical maximum that might could occur in a perfect world. Mathmatically, USB1 should be more than sufficient for 2 channels of audio in and out with reasonable latency. The USB latency issues most people experience are probably more accurately attributed to inefficient drivers, other devices consuming bandwidth on the USB bus, software, who-knows-what running and taxing their computer, and USB protocol overhead. Firewire is a more efficient protocol but shouldn't necessarily be better for 2 channels in and out. For multiple channels though, Firewire is the way to go short of any proprietary methods. Ethernet, FWIW, is riddled with it's own inefficiencies and has collision problems that it has to deal with and work around too.

Another thing to deal with regarding Ethernet as opposed to USB or Firewire is that it is yet another cable and set of devices to deal with. Do you need a crossover cable? Do you need a hub? Do you need a switch? What is needed if you need to access your Ethernet connected device AND get on the Internet or home/work network while using your Ethernet connected device? What about when the next laptop you buy does not have an Ethernet connection on it because all the computer marketing departments next year think that wired Ethernet is dead and wireless is the wave of the future?

I don't know, but I think Ethernet may be a bad idea if the bandwidth to do what you want is already available somewhere else.
That being said, I don't know that I think a computer-dependent MPC is a good thing. One of the best things about the MPC line is that they do what they do, for years and years. My MPC60 was built in 1988. 21 years later it is old enough to buy it's own beer and it still does what it was designed to do. Could you imagine if it was built to interface with and only work in conjunction with a computer that was also built in/around 1988? I'd have all that extra computer equipment to own and maintain just for my MPC to do the same thing it already is capable of doing by itself.
I've blown a LOT of money on computer-dependent equipment that has been rendered not just obsolete, but completely useless at the next "dot" version update. When you introduce computers to the dependent mix, you introduce a LOT of uncertainty. Who knows what the heck Apple or Microsoft will do 6 months from now? Who knows what the hardware will look like? Who knows if the software developers that write the software necessary to run the MPC-Unplugged will still be around to write the updates needed for it to continue to work through the next round of patches, upgrades, and security updates. If you have ever been through any of this you would know that what I am describing here it is NOT a far-fetched embellishment from a technophobe who just doesn't want to let go.

I think what you want is maybe a software MPC that can be controlled by hardware. That might not be a bad idea, but I would not want it to replace the stand-alone line of MPC's. In fact, I could see it as a standard piece of software that could be included in all Akai MPC and MPC hardware packages, also purchasable seperately.

I gotta run, didn't mean to get so long winded and I am NOT trying to bash your idea - just offering some comments based on my experiences.

tvent wrote:A few comments:

You have mentioned Ethernet connectivity and the Digi Control|24. It sounds like you may be under the impression that the Control|24/C|24 are audio interfaces. They are not. They are simply control surfaces. While it is true that they have 16 microphone preamps, an 8channel stereo by 2 mixer, and a monitoring section complete with talkback capabilities - those are just add-ons with their own set of analog audio input and output. No A/D conversion or computer-based audio I/O occurs in them. They simply provide extra functionality outside of your existing I/O interfaces. No audio (digital or analog) travels over the Ethernet cable between the Control|24 and your computer, only control surface data.

It's probably worth mentioning also that Ethernet, Firewire, and USB are all serial methods of data transmission and are measured in bits per second as opposed to Bytes per second which is typical in parallel data transmission (hence the Mb/s instead of MB/s - easy to get confused and end up comparing apples to oranges when reading specifications because of this.)

Additionally, it should be noted that these numbers (10Mb/s-Ethernet, 12Mb/s-USB1, 100Mb/s-FastEthernet, 400Mb/s-Firewire, 480Mb/s-USB2, 800Mb/s-Firewire2(800), 1000Mb/s (1Gb/s)GigabitEthernet, etc) are all measurements of available BANDWIDTH and really have nothing to do with actual data throughput/transfer rates. They just tell the theoretical maximum that might could occur in a perfect world. Mathmatically, USB1 should be more than sufficient for 2 channels of audio in and out with reasonable latency. The USB latency issues most people experience are probably more accurately attributed to inefficient drivers, other devices consuming bandwidth on the USB bus, software, who-knows-what running and taxing their computer, and USB protocol overhead. Firewire is a more efficient protocol but shouldn't necessarily be better for 2 channels in and out. For multiple channels though, Firewire is the way to go short of any proprietary methods. Ethernet, FWIW, is riddled with it's own inefficiencies and has collision problems that it has to deal with and work around too.

Another thing to deal with regarding Ethernet as opposed to USB or Firewire is that it is yet another cable and set of devices to deal with. Do you need a crossover cable? Do you need a hub? Do you need a switch? What is needed if you need to access your Ethernet connected device AND get on the Internet or home/work network while using your Ethernet connected device? What about when the next laptop you buy does not have an Ethernet connection on it because all the computer marketing departments next year think that wired Ethernet is dead and wireless is the wave of the future?

I don't know, but I think Ethernet may be a bad idea if the bandwidth to do what you want is already available somewhere else.
That being said, I don't know that I think a computer-dependent MPC is a good thing. One of the best things about the MPC line is that they do what they do, for years and years. My MPC60 was built in 1988. 21 years later it is old enough to buy it's own beer and it still does what it was designed to do. Could you imagine if it was built to interface with and only work in conjunction with a computer that was also built in/around 1988? I'd have all that extra computer equipment to own and maintain just for my MPC to do the same thing it already is capable of doing by itself.
I've blown a LOT of money on computer-dependent equipment that has been rendered not just obsolete, but completely useless at the next "dot" version update. When you introduce computers to the dependent mix, you introduce a LOT of uncertainty. Who knows what the heck Apple or Microsoft will do 6 months from now? Who knows what the hardware will look like? Who knows if the software developers that write the software necessary to run the MPC-Unplugged will still be around to write the updates needed for it to continue to work through the next round of patches, upgrades, and security updates. If you have ever been through any of this you would know that what I am describing here it is NOT a far-fetched embellishment from a technophobe who just doesn't want to let go.

I think what you want is maybe a software MPC that can be controlled by hardware. That might not be a bad idea, but I would not want it to replace the stand-alone line of MPC's. In fact, I could see it as a standard piece of software that could be included in all Akai MPC and MPC hardware packages, also purchasable seperately.

I gotta run, didn't mean to get so long winded and I am NOT trying to bash your idea - just offering some comments based on my experiences.

A lot of great points mentioned.. and you went in depth about the usb/fw/ethernet issues I was thinking about... though I am not familiar with the piece of hardware askia mentioned.

mr_debauch wrote:A lot of great points mentioned.. and you went in depth about the usb/fw/ethernet issues I was thinking about... though I am not familiar with the piece of hardware askia mentioned.

The Control|24 (and now the newer C|24) is a 24-fader control surface for ProTools that is manufactured by Digidesign, so it has a bit tighter integration with the ProTools software than a generic control surface. Rather than midi or USB, Digidesign used Ethernet to interface it with the computer running ProTools. Ethernet offers some advantages, a couple of which are that the controller can be placed up to 100 meters from the computer and you can add multiple control surfaces by just plugging them into the network and telling the software that they are there (which is really advantageous if you have really deep pockets and can spring for their even higher-end control surfaces which allow you to add fader packs.)

Anywho, the Control|24 also has 16 class-A microphone preamps built into the back of it as well as an 8X2 stereo analog mixer and it is a common misconception that this entire unit is a protools interface that can be used by just plugging in the Ethernet cable from it to your laptop, but that is not accurate. You STILL have to have protools interfaces and TDM cards (or an LE system) in order to actually be able to run protools. I wish it did function as just an interface... that would be a GREAT way to get into a decent protools system AND have an impressive control surface all at once. Not sure why Digidesign didn't see that - let it be a starter 16-channel TDM interface to get folks into TDM-land while still offering them the further expansion that the TDM-based protools rigs offer.

That brings up another good point, for those of you that are really having issues with USB or Firewire latency - the TDM-based protools riggs have practically no latency. Seriously. The latency of those systems is measured in SAMPLES rather than milliseconds. You can pick up complete TDM-based mix systems second hand for less than the cost of a new 003rack. It's really a good way to go for someone who writes/composes/sequences in the MPC using hardware synths and uses the computer more of a recording medium as opposed to a compositional tool, thus negating the need for the latest and greatest software (The mix systems have been end-of-lifed for a few years so if you go that route you are perpetually stuck at protools version 6.4.1 or lower and Apple OS 10.3 - not sure what Windows version 6.4.1 requires)

Ok, that's enough about protools. Didn't mean to steer the topic off-topic.

Back to the MPC's and the computer. Aren't MPC"s all computers anyway? Do they still use Intel processors?
I know my 60 and 3000 do. I haven't ever cracked one of the newer ones open or read the manuals to know.
I do know that when you have developers writing code for specific hardware that they are in complete control of you end up with, relatively speaking, a reliable system. When the developers have to write software that runs on an operating system they have no control over, that is designed to run on hardware that the OS developers have no control over, then you sometimes end up with behavior that you have no control over.
Doing a hardware/software combination that runs on a consumer's computer will open the system up to all kinds of issues. I would think that the combination would not need to pass audio through the "control" surface, rather leaving it all inside the computer. This would keep the latency down to a minimal amount - but then your I/O options would be dependent on the soundcard/Interface you have - thus removing any quality control that Akai still maintains over that with their current line. They could adopt Linux and scale it down so that it includes only the basic structure necessary and possibly eliminate some of the OS/Windows/MacOS issues - but didn't Stanton do that when they first issued FinalScratch and it didn't fare so well for them, later they dropped and and offered a Windows version, then a Mac Version before dropping software development for it all together and just jumping in bed with NI to offer Traktor. Of course, end users who bought and supported them in the beginning had to PAY through each hoop they jumped through all the while bumping their heads with the growing pains that the manufacturer was going through.

Sorry to rant, just the more I type the more I am feeling sore in my pockets for supporting the development of so many products that end up dying out with the next OS update or software version release. Money that I can't get back, for software that no longer functions and never or hardly worked when it was current release.

A few things worth mentioning...

I can understand why a traditional MPC user wouldn't want this type of product. I am one of them unless it works as seamless as a traditional MPC. If this is something you are dead seat against, then there is nothing from stopping you from using your current MPC.

For MPC users wanting a product like Native Instrument's Maschine, the lane is wide open for a real Akai MPC type of product. I seriously doubt the NI product will give you the level of control over the software like an MPC. If it does, Akai shouldn't stand around with their hands in their pockets. In fact, I would be suprised if they already have a product like this on the horizon since they just released the Live control surface at Namm.

As far as what protocol they use to implement an MPC type of control surface, I will leave that up to the technical experts. Whether it is the drivers or some other reasons, the products that I have owned that used USB and firewire are not that great when compared with PCI based products. I wasn't aware that you still need to connect a C24 up to a Pro Tools interface but that doesn't take away from the level of control I would want in an MPC type of control surface.

Even if they created a tradional MPC with an ethernet port along with a control surface mode built in...this would be a step in the right direction. I don't want to debate about how Akai would do this...I just what them to do what they are already doing but using an MPC as the model.