Death of the MPC ?

[spacepluk]

I had a Maschine and I didn't like that you can't really do sound design with it... I like the MPC a lot better to make patches from scratch.

I'm not really interested in the Play Series but I would love to get proper port of Massive for the MPC. That would be instabuy for me!

[DrGonzo]

Death of the MPC? More likely inMusic (AKAI) will buy NI!

InMusic buying Maschine or NI would be great! In that scenario at least something would happen with Maschine.

I suspect the only thing that would happen with Maschine is it would get discontinued. Why retail competing products if you own both?

Sorry for being cynical, but that wouldn't be much of a difference compared with today.

[Milkman]

This is actually surprising. I thought Akai and its parent company had more sense and will-to-live than that, but I guess investors go to brunch together or whatever they do. Time to pump/dump Akai, izotope, AND NI, and any others unfortunate enough to get caught up in that mess.

Welp, this is all post-mortem for me because I saw this nonsense coming close to 2 years ago, after NI laid off 100s of people, got bought out by the private equity ghouls, and began the process of hollowing out NI. I stopped relying on them for pretty much anything because I could, indeed, see this coming.

And I abandoned Akai around the same time for selling me a controller with knob drift, then making it extremely difficult to get it serviced, leading me to just abandoning the Akai Advance controller as well. No love lost here for me.

[DrGonzo]

after NI laid off 100s of people, got bought out by the private equity ghouls, and began the process of hollowing out NI.

This is a pattern that is common in every day business. You see that in all forms of creative projects that take off and become big: movies, games, art anything creative really. The number guys come in and ... well. That's the end of it really. It's a cycle. The good thing is that when this happens is that it opens up opportunities for hungry creators with fresh ideas and love for the craft.

I would be happy if NI would sell off Maschine to a smaller developer.

[Milkman]

after NI laid off 100s of people, got bought out by the private equity ghouls, and began the process of hollowing out NI.

This is a pattern that is common in every day business. You see that in all forms of creative projects that take off and become big: movies, games, art anything creative really. The number guys come in and ... well. That's the end of it really. It's a cycle. The good thing is that when this happens is that it opens up opportunities for hungry creators with fresh ideas and love for the craft.

I would be happy if NI would sell off Maschine to a smaller developer.

While this is true today, it wasnt always true and that isnt the context of what happened at NI; they did not lay off due to a project, they were laid off to cut costs to make their financial year look better, to make them look more attractive to new investors. There wasnt any new talent hired to replace them, only people (families) who lost jobs.

This new fetish with forcing workers to be as insecure, as gig'ed, as replaceable as possible is worse than the usual, and it is unethical and entirely unsustainable at a macro level. It is basically a bunch of unaccountable rich people trying to 'disrupt' everything and reverse 100 years of progress.

[bmanic]

I had a Maschine and I didn't like that you can't really do sound design with it... I like the MPC a lot better to make patches from scratch.

I have both a Maschine and the MPC Live and there is absolutely no contest at all which one is more capable of complex sound design.. the Maschine is a way more capable system for that. Everything in it is better in terms of sound design. It has much more complex synths, effects and up until version 3 of MPC, Maschine had a much better sampler.

In terms of synths that come with MPC vs Maschine, it's still absolutely no contest at all. NI Massive, the original, is still a supremely capable synthesizer that completely stomps on everything available in the MPC world. FM8 is way more powerful than OP4. Monark is way better sounding than the moog wannabe from Air. etc. etc.

Unfortunately version 3 of MPC software also came with quite a few big downgrades compared to v2. So until they fix those, it's a bit of a mixed bag.

Having said that, AKAI has definitely demonstrated that they are way more dedicated to their platform than NI is to theirs.

[spacepluk]

I had a Maschine and I didn't like that you can't really do sound design with it... I like the MPC a lot better to make patches from scratch.

I have both a Maschine and the MPC Live and there is absolutely no contest at all which one is more capable of complex sound design.. the Maschine is a way more capable system for that. Everything in it is better in terms of sound design. It has much more complex synths, effects and up until version 3 of MPC, Maschine had a much better sampler.

In terms of synths that come with MPC vs Maschine, it's still absolutely no contest at all. NI Massive, the original, is still a supremely capable synthesizer that completely stomps on everything available in the MPC world. FM8 is way more powerful than OP4. Monark is way better sounding than the moog wannabe from Air. etc. etc.

Unfortunately version 3 of MPC software also came with quite a few big downgrades compared to v2. So until they fix those, it's a bit of a mixed bag.

Having said that, AKAI has definitely demonstrated that they are way more dedicated to their platform than NI is to theirs.

I must disagree with that.

While NI's synths are really nice (I love OG Massive!) the act of editing sounds through the Maschine's controller requires a lot of paging around and it's really tedious to the point I just wouldn't do it. Same for the Komplete Kontrol keyboards, they are nice for small tweaks but creating a sound from scratch is painful, and sometimes plain impossible (Reaktor) or there are parameters you can't reach.

If you're editing in the computer that's something else but I find making sounds on the MPC much more enjoyable and functional. That's the main reason I still own the MPC and all my NI controllers have been sold.

Which synth sounds better is a completely subjective thing... I find the synths on the MPC very musical and fun and I don't have any complaints with the sound but I mostly use Jura for standalone sketching.

I'm still on MPC v2 so I don't have first hand experience with the v3 downgrades but I haven't read any complaints about the sound design aspect I'm talking about. The only "downgrade" I'm aware of that is holding me back is the missing time signature functionality. But apparently that's coming back soon.

[el-bo (formerly ebow)]

Having said that, AKAI has definitely demonstrated that they are way more dedicated to their platform than NI is to theirs.

In response to a lot of criticism, NI seem to be changing their ways. 2025 could be a much different chapter.

[pc999]

Death of the MPC? More likely inMusic (AKAI) will buy NI!

InMusic buying Maschine or NI would be great! In that scenario at least something would happen with Maschine.

Market consolidation is rarely a good thing for the consumer.

[DrGonzo]

Death of the MPC? More likely inMusic (AKAI) will buy NI!

InMusic buying Maschine or NI would be great! In that scenario at least something would happen with Maschine.

Market consolidation is rarely a good thing for the consumer.

Agree. Rarely, as in almost never.
But then again. How much less attention could NI give to Maschine at this point? Discontinue it?

Damn it, NI. You are sitting on something incredibly cool. DO SOMETHING WITH IT!

[cryophonik]

Didn’t you guys get the NI email with the Maschine roadmap? Maschine 3.1 is coming and they have a bunch of updates coming in 2025 for Maschine+.

[DrGonzo]

Didn’t you guys get the NI email with the Maschine roadmap? Maschine 3.1 is coming and they have a bunch of updates coming in 2025 for Maschine+.

Nope. Completely missed it. Thanks for posting!
I am extremely cynical when it comes to NI, so I believe it when I see it.
But if true - good times ahead

[cryophonik]

TBH, I’m a little skeptical that they’ll keep their schedule (what developers do, right?), but it’s a step in the right direction.

[Tj Shredder]

They simply want to transform their pseudo standard NKS into a real standard. There is a whole scene of hardware musicians NI could not access yet. Thats the plan…
I hope there will be an alternative to NKS like CLAP is an alternative to VST…
I do have it within Bitwig, but that isn’t a standard either…
The main idea is to browse sounds instead of VSTis from a hardware…

[bmanic]

If you're editing in the computer that's something else but I find making sounds on the MPC much more enjoyable and functional. That's the main reason I still own the MPC and all my NI controllers have been sold.

Ah I see, yes I totally agree with you on this part. I was merely thinking about the actual capabilities of the software itself, where Maschine is far superior in terms of what it can do (and no, I don't consider Reaktor as a part of Maschine).

But you are 100% correct that the usability in terms of editing things is far superior on the controller of the MPC. Some of the synths are really well laid out (like the relatively complex OP4).

So yes, I completely agree with you on this part.. but it's a usability issue, not a capability issue.