Big announcement coming from Akai today!

thedreampolice

A backwards poet writes inverse.
ill o.g.
Battle Points: 21
yea, pricing will be key to victory on this one.

Boy I don't see how it is 10x better than Maschine. Having time stretch will be nice, but I would bet that Maschine will add that before this thing hits the market. Other than that, I don't see what makes it better. BUT it will be awesome to move my MPC2000xl songs over to the computer with this.
 

Ozmosis

Sound Tight Productions
ill o.g.
Battle Points: 201
Is the new MPC supposed to also be a stand alone hardware unit, or it stricly has to be connected to a PC to work? It also looks like you can use it in place of your normal audio interface as well. If so then im sure the price will be over a $G.
 

dacalion

Hands Of FIRE!
ill o.g.
Battle Points: 259
judging from the video, they show it alone at first and then they show it hooked up to a laptop so Im thinking both...and yeah I think you're right, if it does it will be over the grand mark. Thats the only way they could justify the high price tag. All speculation right now though.
 

saintjoe

Audio Fanatic...
ill o.g.
this is great, been waiting for them to announce it ;)

This version will be around 999 or so, but there is another version "studio" that will be priced more in line with Maschine, without the interface. Then the ipad version.

As others have said, competition is good, a little late to the party, but good none the less.

I will have one, and I'm definitely going to own the new Moog as well ;)

Will get my hands on it in a couple of weeks, I'll make sure to get some video footage
 

Formant024

Digital Smokerings
ill o.g.
Funny, no one noticed MPC now stand for Music Production Controller? When you think about, "Center" actualy had more appeal to the mpc as a utility/tool which now has been downgraded to just a controller(the mpc has always been a "controller").

Also, first thing that came to me when seeing the (g)UI is Ableton!

Also I will have to laugh at all the hardware heads, I wonder if they will stay with the claim that this MPC doesn't sounds as good, blah, blah.....

I know what you're getting at, but technicaly :) I'd choose the SSL converters over the budget EIE(pro)engine. Therefor, my mpc2000xl will still sound better than this controller.

Also, the only standalone feature is the software, this machine is dead without a computer lol.

and yes.. the new pocket taurus is going to be bad ass, huge bass for little money.
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Personaly, the reason i dont jump on either this or the competition is that i'd never run it standalone(one daw to rule them all). I dont see the point how a sequencer in a daw would improve MY workflow, though this is not relevant for anyone starting out.

Just a few thoughts/assumptions on bottlenecks;

- io routing; screw the internal fx/dynamics engine. Even though i cant know right now, i havent seen anything in the software which indicates multi channel vst/au support. So im limited to a stereo bus when i would use this in a daw. Im not even sure if Maschine supports this, perhaps Mono could provide info on this.

- interface; Even if you can setup an aggregated device under osx you probably run into stability issues running 2 interfaces... unless you have 2 mpcs (lol). Win7 has no support for running 2 interfaces afaik.

Why are the footswitch inputs on the front, this is really something i dont need fast acces to.

Also, what the deal with the 3.5mm and 6.5mm headphone inputs ? I can see the ipad version having a 3.5mm input but this studio model has both where it really should be 2x 6.5mm.

The studio model should have a dedicated mic pre, not switchable between line/mic. The problem here is that the TRS inputs has its phantom power coupled for both channels and assuming noobs will use this, noobs will fuck up the phantom power upon switching(not knowing how to handle phantom powered mics/inputs). A dedicated gain for the micpre wouldve been nice aswell(theres a toggle now for the usual input gain knob).

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Face it, there is no sampler, there is no sequencer. The vintage sound is a joke(heads know where the vintage sounds come from). I'd also like to know if the software enables disk streaming, im assuming it doesnt considering the competence of akaipro usa. Also look at the software snapshot on the akaiprompc website, then look at the cpu meter...just...lol

Now..if this would have a concept Z-engine annex interface, internal sequencer, ssd, half the q-link rotaries(but with cc# management), replace the other 8 rotaries for a trackpad, 8 outs! then this would be heaven.

All the features actualy makes it less practical to apply for seasoned producers opposed to the Maschine and aims it targetgroup at the starting producers instead.
The problem with this is that the price is more than likely twice that of the Maschine or 1/3 of the Mikro. I wouldnt recommend it for those starting out with a limited budget even though it would cover most you'd need to begin with. Reason being is when looking ahead, exceeding your learning curve as a noob, you will end up selling it in order to gain a better quality interface. In such case, you wouldnt need to sell the Maschine. Otherwise, we'd have to wait for the studio version which appearantly isnt equiped with an interface(saint joe) which could be more appealing because the price is reduced and indirectly makes it better applicable for a better quality home studio.
 

dacalion

Hands Of FIRE!
ill o.g.
Battle Points: 259
naw, it is clearly not standalone and only a controller. I bet 1k max.

I'm not so sure of that, look again...it has a PHONO/LINE input and STEREO outputs...
mpcl.jpg
 

thedreampolice

A backwards poet writes inverse.
ill o.g.
Battle Points: 21
yea, that's just proves it is an audio interface. Look for things missing, like a place for a power cable (I couldn't find one) A place for removable storage (I couldn't find that either) I think it is very safe to safe this NOT standalone at this point. If it was, Akai would have made that very clear.
 

Formant024

Digital Smokerings
ill o.g.
yea, that's just proves it is an audio interface. Look for things missing, like a place for a power cable (I couldn't find one) A place for removable storage (I couldn't find that either) I think it is very safe to safe this NOT standalone at this point. If it was, Akai would have made that very clear.

Actualy, it has a strain relief for the psu but this thing cant be usb powered alone lol. Also akai themself stated that you need a cpu!
 

dacalion

Hands Of FIRE!
ill o.g.
Battle Points: 259
@Formant - I was thinking 'standalone' in terms of not needing a computer at all like the older MPC's but I can't find any removable storage either. Could it have a huge hd in it?

@dp - It appears to have a powercord slot beside the usb.
 

mono

the invisible visible
ill o.g.
Battle Points: 20
I'm very sure this is controller only. otherwise they could have just written a software controllable by the usb mpcs / mpds / mpks. plus they want a share of maschine's market, which is why they need to make this piece settle somewhere in the price range of maschine or not too far away.
and no, maschine does not support multichannel. but what makes or breaks the mpcs as a maschine opponent is rather things such as multi-core support, master and group parameter automation across scenes/sequences, groove quantization capability, time stretch, you know, all the stuff maschine users where complaining about since day uno.
how fun would it be if they released a product more expensive but with the same flaws :) another thing, judging by when the mpcs is released, they must have started working on this shortly after maschine hit the market and proved to sell like stupid.
 
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