Post
by delicioso » Sat Nov 14, 2009 3:56 am
I'm not impressed with Akai's midi controllers at all. They could have done so much more with APC40 but no, they had to make it useless as a general midi controller with no template editor and leaving out MIDI implementation info (unlike Novation). MPCs are classic machines no doubt, but these days, they're quickly becoming outdated with not much innovation and just riding on the hype. MPC/MPD pads are far inferior compared to padkontrol or Maschine when it comes to using them as multi-purpose pad controllers in terms of response and sensitivity. And it's annoying how they seem to think their controllers should be unnecessarily bulky.
Even if Akai attempted this, they would have a very hard time catching up with the features of Maschine, because Maschine is essentially a much more powerful MPC with the feel of hardware and the brain that lives inside your computer, and has the superfast workflow of hardware. Akai would have to basically reinvent the next generation MPC. Live's drum rack is no match either. With Maschine, you have two LCD displays that lets you work by just looking at the hardware for almost everything, browsing and loading sounds, chopping samples, visual waveforms, adjusting levels...etc. You can tweak things QUICKLY all by hand without ever having to look at the computer screen. Once you got something you like you can just drag and drop a pattern into Live and you've got an audio clip. Just like that. Oh, and the next update is going to allow importing MPC programs.
