Akai MPC Live

Electronic Music Production // Dark Arts
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Lost to the Void
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Akai MPC Live

Post by Lost to the Void »

youtu.be/2IhSmq4WDMU

Weirdly not discussed on Subsekt.
Akai getting back to what they do best.

Sampler with pretty much unlimited sample channels
DAW style sound editing, piano roll sequencing, step sequencing
midi sequencing, fx on every channel, rock solid midi.
Fantastic for live but great as a Music Production Centre, DAW in a box basically.
Pads are lovely, super responsive and expressive.

So far I`m loving mine to bits, the OS is still in beta and lots of additions are coming, but this is the perfect hub for my live PA (though I am starting to make tunes with it too).

Game changing MPC...

Some practical usage
youtu.be/VPZZNiUDiC0
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Re: Akai MPC Live

Post by SixOfOne »

I haven't looked at any videos yet but it does seem like a beast. Been using an Octatrack for about a year and I'm still discovering new things on it, and I usually wait for a few months before buying anything new but this would be top of my list.

How would you say it compares to the Octatrack or is it a bit more different that it seems at first glance? The one thing I love about the Octatrack is it's sound mangling capacity, you can completely rip up a sound very easily, would be interested to see if this can do similar.

Interested to find out how the effects sound too, I find the effects on the Octarack a bit bland, I didn't really care too for them too much at first but it's always a nice addition to have good quality effects.

For what the MPC Live can do though it seems to be decent enough value.

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Re: Akai MPC Live

Post by arkos »

That box looks like a lot of fun!

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Re: Akai MPC Live

Post by Lost to the Void »

SixOfOne wrote:I haven't looked at any videos yet but it does seem like a beast. Been using an Octatrack for about a year and I'm still discovering new things on it, and I usually wait for a few months before buying anything new but this would be top of my list.

How would you say it compares to the Octatrack or is it a bit more different that it seems at first glance? The one thing I love about the Octatrack is it's sound mangling capacity, you can completely rip up a sound very easily, would be interested to see if this can do similar.

Interested to find out how the effects sound too, I find the effects on the Octatrack a bit bland, I didn't really care too for them too much at first but it's always a nice addition to have good quality effects.

For what the MPC Live can do though it seems to be decent enough value.

Been asked this a few times.
The short easy answer is don`t compare them, they do very different things.

Octatrack is a great sample mangling super creative device with wonderful Elektron sequencing and all that entails.
MPC Live is a very modern MPC, designed to be a hub, so the sequencing is amazing, sequencing external stuff with the Octa (chords!!) is not so great, with the MPC it`s a joy. Unlimited sample tracks (as opposed to Octa`s 8). The sampler editing is great, but mostly what you would expect in a DAW, rather than the madness of Octatrack.
The interface is super super intuitive and very easy to use. Pads are great for banging out beats and launching clips and so forth. The fx are effective, and you get a lot more and can use a lot more at any one time than the octa, but they are workaday tools. You can run in MPC legacy mode so your samples will have the sound of various old MPC`s. If anything you could say the MPC Live is like an Elektron Digitwat, but a gazillion times more powerful and user friendly.

So they really aren`t aimed at doing the same thing. Ideally have both.
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Re: Akai MPC Live

Post by Root »

Woah, that looks like the thing I always wanted after selling my 2000xl.. That big dislplay and concept looks really good. Damn, GAS.
:geek:

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Re: Akai MPC Live

Post by g3_d9 »

Had a short play with the MPC Live, though only in store.
Felt quite like a windows surface machine and a pad controler squeezed into a fairly sturdy case.
Played with the Elektron Digitakt on the same store visit and far prefered that.
The clicky buttons and layout of the Digitakt felt more conducive to techno creation than the traditional style MPC pads which have always seemed better suited to Hip Hop production and techniques such as 'finger drumming'.
The menu navigation and UI on the Elektron also appealed more to me than the MPC Live(s) touch interface.
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Re: Akai MPC Live

Post by SixOfOne »

Lost to the Void wrote:
SixOfOne wrote:I haven't looked at any videos yet but it does seem like a beast. Been using an Octatrack for about a year and I'm still discovering new things on it, and I usually wait for a few months before buying anything new but this would be top of my list.

How would you say it compares to the Octatrack or is it a bit more different that it seems at first glance? The one thing I love about the Octatrack is it's sound mangling capacity, you can completely rip up a sound very easily, would be interested to see if this can do similar.

Interested to find out how the effects sound too, I find the effects on the Octatrack a bit bland, I didn't really care too for them too much at first but it's always a nice addition to have good quality effects.

For what the MPC Live can do though it seems to be decent enough value.

Been asked this a few times.
The short easy answer is don`t compare them, they do very different things.

Octatrack is a great sample mangling super creative device with wonderful Elektron sequencing and all that entails.
MPC Live is a very modern MPC, designed to be a hub, so the sequencing is amazing, sequencing external stuff with the Octa (chords!!) is not so great, with the MPC it`s a joy. Unlimited sample tracks (as opposed to Octa`s 8). The sampler editing is great, but mostly what you would expect in a DAW, rather than the madness of Octatrack.
The interface is super super intuitive and very easy to use. Pads are great for banging out beats and launching clips and so forth. The fx are effective, and you get a lot more and can use a lot more at any one time than the octa, but they are workaday tools. You can run in MPC legacy mode so your samples will have the sound of various old MPC`s. If anything you could say the MPC Live is like an Elektron Digitwat, but a gazillion times more powerful and user friendly.

So they really aren`t aimed at doing the same thing. Ideally have both.
Cheers for the insight, had a quick look at the videos and it does seem very intuitive. The screen looks to be a nice size too, compared to the tiny fucking thing on the Octa.

Unlimited channels would be sweet to have on a machine too. Hopefully I'll be able to add this to my setup over the next few months!

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Re: Akai MPC Live

Post by Lost to the Void »

I've had it for a month, "feels" nothing like a windows machine, though I'm not sure what that even means. It responds instantly to anything you do.
Menu system and gui for sequencing is just sooooo nice and easy, especially for sequencing external gear, literally could not think of a better, more user friendly hardware sequencer for driving midi gear, no punching random unrelated buttons and then fucking about with dials trying to find each note.... all the notes are there for you to see, just tap them in and Shazam, bassline, chord progression, whatever, done in an instant.. Zipping around this getting tunes made pretty quickly now. Installed a nice big SSD the other day, very easy to do, took 2 mins and now I have 500gb storage on board.

The manual is a tome though, so much going on with this machine... Clip mode is ableton-ish which will probably be how I use it live mostly.

Full recommend this box, my best hardware buy for a long time.
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Re: Akai MPC Live

Post by Lost to the Void »

SixOfOne wrote:

Unlimited channels would be sweet to have on a machine too. Hopefully I'll be able to add this to my setup over the next few months!
Not entirely unlimited. 64 note stereo sample polyphony, but... Near enough.
Apparently the first major update is coming very soon, there are a lot more features people have requested so hopefully some of the ones I want will be in that update.

I'll shoot some video soon of implementation.
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Re: Akai MPC Live

Post by Plyphon »

Looks great fun.

On a workflow regard - how do you go about mixing and applying effects? Do you have to compose dry then apply bus processing afterwards?

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Re: Akai MPC Live

Post by Lost to the Void »

FX can be applied per sound or pad or kit.
Obviously it`s not a full DAW so you don`t get multiple busses (yet, the software is still in development, this could be added).
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Re: Akai MPC Live

Post by Lost to the Void »

As the MPC live is portable (4 hour battery life) and has great converters, you can use it as a field recorder of sorts.
youtu.be/fgg6KLI0_6M
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Re: Akai MPC Live

Post by terryfalafel »

Hi LTTV,

Since you own one of these, I wonder if you can answer a question...

I'm considering buying this with 10% off today, but I can't see reliable information about whether it's possible to bring the sample tracks in MPC Live into your DAW over the usb connection (like Overbridge in the Elektron world).

If it's possible, is there a limit to how many channels can go over USB?

This works so well with the rytm, but I'm realising more and more that the rytm just ain't for me. But I don't want to use inputs on my audio interface to get the sound out of the MPC Live and into Cubase...

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Re: Akai MPC Live

Post by terryfalafel »

Looks like it does work the way I want....

http://www.akaipro.com/support/kb/artic ... base#route

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Re: Akai MPC Live

Post by Den Bosch »

Lost to the Void wrote:You can run in MPC legacy mode so your samples will have the sound of various old MPC`s.
Currently looking at ditching my Octa for an MPC Touch since I don't need the mobility anyway. I can't find anything online about a legacy mode though. Are you referring to some of the effects that emulate vintage samplers like Resampler?

Edit: Nvm, it's called Vintage Mode. Too bad there are only four emulations available.

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Re: Akai MPC Live

Post by Lost to the Void »

That's right vintage mode runs old legacy emulations.
It does the 3000, the 60, and 2 modes of sp1200
I like the 60.

There is possibility of further modes with firmware updates.
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Re: Akai MPC Live

Post by WOLF! »

Anybody has experience with the MPC X?
It seems like that unit has more dedicated controls so I should have a better interface and workflow.
Did anyone tested/compared both units?

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Re: Akai MPC Live

Post by Lost to the Void »

I was thinking about getting one for production, spoke to an owner at the weekend and the conclusion I came to is to wait as there are still some teething troubles with the X. They are updating and sorting things out quickly, but it's not 100% stable.
MPC live has had longer to iron out the creases, and runs better.

Workflow for both units is the same, same OS.
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Re: Akai MPC Live

Post by Macca »

Ah man, that piano roll... Would kill to have that on the octatrack.
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Re: Akai MPC Live

Post by nomadjames »

Didn't they just introduce Ableton Link to these?
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