Death of the MPC ?

[Kypresso]

Akai and native instruments joining up.

From the email "Akai Pro and Native Instruments have joined forces in an unprecedented collaboration designed to redefine music creation and performance.

Central to this groundbreaking partnership is the integration of Native Instruments’ powerful sounds and tools into Akai Professional’s iconic MPC platform, a revolutionary step that enhances the MPC’s legendary status as the cornerstone of music production.

By merging Akai Professional’s hardware innovation with Native Instruments’ software expertise, this collaboration empowers musicians, producers, and creators with unmatched creative possibilities."

https://www.akaipro.com/mpc3

So N.I cant make Maschine software any good, so next they are going to f**k up the MPC.
Discuss.

[music3tone]

A controversial statement about the software for maschine. In my opinion, the NI product is more intuitive and logical than the pathetic likeness of akai (for those who like programming and the terminal running line, lol). Akai is 95% a hip-hop sampler/groovebox. Maschine is something more or less similar to a full-fledged workstation for a producer.

[music3tone]

And specifically, where the link in your post leads is probably connected exclusively with the fact that NI expansions were adapted for Akai.

[cryophonik]

Seems like a win-win move to me. This has nothing to do with Maschine and I don't see where NI will have anything to do with MPC, other than make compatible expansions. How is this going to kill the MPC?

As someone who has owned (and sold) several MPCs and every version of Maschine (currently have a Plus and Mikro mk3), I think NI could certainly do a much better job with it, but I'll still take Maschine over MPC any day of the week.

[music3tone]

I also bought plus in December and am extremely happy. Honestly, I haven't even studied 20% of the sounds from Komplete 15 CE yet) Not to mention the user library. Good luck in your creativity)

[fedexnman]

NI libraries for Akai means money for NI ... That's what I see .

[music3tone]

NI libraries for Akai means money for NI ... That's what I see .

Objectively, can you name Akai factory libraries that are worth attention? Here is the answer - NI has a pretty good quality of expansion and samples, of course there is a question about their cost, but ultimately it is better to have a choice and not be able to buy, than not have a choice initially.

[Jim Roseberry]

I got a MPC X SE a few months back (had owned the MPC Live and MPC Key-61 previously).
Depending on what you're doing, working in the MPC is pretty nice.
ie: For trimming samples, those Q-Link knobs are awesome! Beats the heck out of doing the same with a keyboard/mouse.

No, MPC doesn't have the power of a DAW running the likes of a 9950x or Core Ultra 9 CPU (understatement), but it's surprisingly capable within its performance limitations.

As far as Machine, I own it... but don't have it installed.
Never cared for it.
Obviously, Kontakt libraries are a whole different ball-game.

MPC now allows disk-streaming samples... so we could potentially see some quasi-advanced Kontakt (or at least derivative) libraries running on the MPC.
That's certainly not a bad thing.
Keygroups are alright... but lack certain synth features like Note Priority/Articulation that makes playing sampled Mono Synth parts lack realism.

Other than Kontakt, I don't really use much from NI.
Have the previous Collectors Edition.
Haven't upgraded as I'm just not using it enough to justify the cost.

[bmanic]

The big takeaway with the latest update is that they finally improved the basic sampler keygroup thing of the MPC. It is now way more flexible and actually resembles a proper sampler with a full mod matrix setup.. and you can now do 8 velocity layers. We also finally got bipolar, polyphonic LFOs (2 of those) and two global LFOs. Also got 2 filters per program.

Combine this with the auto sampler and you have an absolutely awesome box for quickly sampling a whole bunch of external gear.

Unfortunately the down side is that the processor/CPU is really showing it's age. As soon as you add just a few voices and use some of the new features like the dual filters and LFOs, the CPU usage goes through the roof. It's extremely easy to use up over 30% of the CPU with a relatively simple sample based program.

Hopefully AKAI keeps developing the software but release some new units with more up-to-date processing power.

[bmanic]

Keygroups are alright... but lack certain synth features like Note Priority/Articulation that makes playing sampled Mono Synth parts lack realism.

This just got a lot better in the latest update. You now have properly working glide for samples and you got that new voice counter modulation source that could probably be used to do all kinds of clever tricks when combined with the new mod matrix with it's mod mapper.

Unfortunately the mod mapping isn't customizable but it comes with a pretty big set of presets.

[machinesworking]

Weird title, some people will love the NI Play series and expansions coming to the MPC, personally until they get Heavyocity in there I'm not that interested but others will be happy.

I can name one thing that makes the MPCs vastly superior to Maschine. Maschine has been around for well over a decade and still cannot use more than one time signature in it's song arrangement. Akai with MPC 3 started down this path of stupid but enough people petitioned them about it and time signatures will be added to a future update to 3.

The second reason is integration, the MPC is vastly easier to integrate into a DAW as a VSTi. I've owned and integrated into my setup both the MPC and Maschine, and updates to the Maschine software in the past have introduced bugs to the way you work with a DAW. That solidified the change to the MPC.

[SLiC]

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

MPC and Machine were 'rival' products competing in the same space, and now NI have a great big picture of the AKAI MPC on their homepage! https://www.native-instruments.com/en/ so is the the end of Machine+

being able to run 3rd party instruments the MPC even better in my opinion, MPC O/S get the constant love that machine never got and there is a wide range of hardware to run it on, the MPC61 is getting close to the Komplete keyboard standalone everyone used to say they wanted with a DAW built in!

[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.

[bmanic]

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

MPC and Machine were 'rival' products competing in the same space, and now NI have a great big picture of the AKAI MPC on their homepage! https://www.native-instruments.com/en/ so is the the end of Machine+

being able to run 3rd party instruments the MPC even better in my opinion, MPC O/S get the constant love that machine never got and there is a wide range of hardware to run it on, the MPC61 is getting close to the Komplete keyboard standalone everyone used to say they wanted with a DAW built in!

I just hope AKAI comes out with a new model with more DSP processing power. The old one is really struggling with all the additions.

[VitaminD]

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?