MPC-V: A Virtual Akai MPC

[jahrome]

Click below for the article:
Akai Virtual MPC | Audio State of Mind

Comments?

[saintjoe]

saw it a little bit ago, would love it if akai listened and made it happen

[karledwards]

VST or DAW?

[jahrome]

Been dreaming about an Akai MPC without its traditional limitations for a long time. Just like Maschine, I would like to see standalone version as well as a plugin version.

[ULTRASON]

Yes nice idea...Akai have to think about the future of the mpc...

[Inverted314]

People would buy just for the name, but price wise it would have to be competitive with Native Instruments.

Also, Akai has never been that great at software design. Rather see them make a software perfect for the MPK61.

[krushing]

Yeah, this is so rough a concept at this point that it's hard to say anything very productive - especially when his argument "against" the Maschine is that "NI makes some of the most complex softsynths" - what? For now it just kind of sounds like...well, an idea with very little substance.

[vmachine]

Yeah, this is so rough a concept at this point that it's hard to say anything very productive - especially when his argument "against" the Maschine is that "NI makes some of the most complex softsynths" - what? For now it just kind of sounds like...well, an idea with very little substance.

So I thought I might jump in here. I would have to disagree with the above since I'm the one who wrote the article/created the models. Yes, it's an idea, but I don't think it's lacking in substance. The article has a lot of pretty specific aspects in there.

And I believe the argument against NI making complex software is completely valid as a reason to why they wouldn't make a good MPC. One of the main things that made the MPC a classic was how easy it was to use. It takes a certain mindset to create a simple and effective UI like this. German engineering does not have this type of mindset. American engineering does. Compare the Tempest to a Blofeld or Monomachine (Swedish?) to see what I'm saying with this. Maschine had this vibe to it that was just too complex to ever feel like a real MPC. NI make some great soft synths, but when it comes to simplicity and elegance in UI design, they are really not good (but getting better).

Agreed though that the current Akai is not good at software design though and probably wouldn't make a good update to the MPC. They have nothing to do with the old Japanese Akai and/or Roger Linn. Roland could be a good candidate for something like this though. Their MV boxes have some pretty advanced software that they work with.

[hollandturbine]

The MPC has a low latency advantage over software so going virtual would be a step in the wrong direction.

[vmachine]

Isn't that just one minor tradeoff outweighed by a ton of advantages. And in a hybrid device, it could be designed so the samples are managed in the computer but transferred to the hardware. This would give the best of both worlds.