Ableton Forum

Hello, everyone.

This is my first post on the forum.

I found this video about the Akai APC40 that might be of help.

Peace!

kb420 wrote:

jamester wrote: I'd go with the MPC 2500 if I was going MPC at all; combined with Live I don't see what the need would be to spend all that extra money on the 5000.

960 ppq?

Never heard of ppq before, had to look it up. I learned something new today!

Here's a very interesting page explaining and talking about it, as related to the 5000:
http://www.mpc-forums.com/viewtopic.php ... &sk=t&sd=a

Seems like this is something that gives more of a "real" feel to unquantized playing? At the same time, at a high enough resolution it doesn't seem like this would matter one way or another? And also, most music made on MPCs was done at only 96ppq? Does this matter at all if you're quantizing anyway?

From my perspective, the 5000 costs $1K more than the 2500, yet gives little more functionally than a basic synth and some rudimentary hard disk recording - both are fairly useless if one already has Live and some vst's, no? Just asking, trying to learn as I've been looking into mpc's myself as of late...

DRStudio wrote:Hello, everyone.

This is my first post on the forum.

I found this video about the Akai APC40 that might be of help.

Peace!

Thank you for this movie short.
is it just me or was that the most boring thing, it was a cool short but it just seems like someone stole the excitement out of it, the guy with the apc did not look that excited to be holding it either he was like,"umm you can sort of play it" it's not really that hip' ehhh (sigh), it's like you could tell he wished it was an mpc hahaha just kidding looks cool

jamester wrote:
Seems like this is something that gives more of a "real" feel to unquantized playing? At the same time, at a high enough resolution it doesn't seem like this would matter one way or another? And also, most music made on MPCs was done at only 96ppq? Does this matter at all if you're quantizing anyway?

If you're syncing to a host- oh yeah, it does. Most hosts are either 480 or 960 ppq.

ew

o0o wrote:

DRStudio wrote:Hello, everyone.

Interesting video. Man that thing is gonna be so much fun.

o0o wrote:
Thank you for this movie short.
is it just me or was that the most boring thing, it was a cool short but it just seems like someone stole the excitement out of it, the guy with the apc did not look that excited to be holding it either he was like,"umm you can sort of play it" it's not really that hip' ehhh (sigh), it's like you could tell he wished it was an mpc hahaha just kidding looks cool

Lol, i agree. Can't compare that one with this video of Houston Singletary. He's really enjoying the APC40 and you can see how fast and easy it is to use (well, once you get a little bit of practice, of course).

BTW, there are many other cool Ableton videos (not directly related to the APC40 thou) on the NAMM channel.

Gargoyle wrote: MLaN ? what a disaster, I think it's only good if you would rather do troubleshooting instead of music.
and 960 ppq, not so bad at all, all of the classic wonderful music you know and love more than not used that resolution or even less

Well, mlan may have been a disaster, but I've been using it for years with no problem at all. My Motif Es7 is actually my soundcard and has been for 3 or 4 years now and I haven't had any problems with it at all. It sure sounds a lot better and louder than my Mbox does. I think the perfect solution, and the perfect combination as opposed to Maschine is that you have the MPC do all the work, but if you plug it into your computer (firewire or usb) you still have the integration that Maschine has where you can do all of your editing onscreen if you want, and you have virtual outputs so that you can track without any additional connections (multiple trs outs). This is the perfect combination, and this should have been the next logical step in the evolution of the MPC after the 4000. Imagine plugging your MPC into your computer and automatically you can open it in the host of your choice as a plug in and track all drums individually with one firewire or usb cable. That's what I'm talking about.

(Maybe someone should send this post to the product development guys at Akai. It would be awesome if Akai and Ableton were able to do this through the MPC's usb output in another OS update [OS3] since Akai and Ableton are such good friends now! )

960 ppq is great if you want to program drums with no quantization to give it a real drummer feel. When I want this feel in Live, it's hard to do because no matter how fast you pc is, latency is an issue. There is no latency on a MPC (if it is, it's completely negligible), so getting a true live drummer feel (stricty with midi data) is easy.

I tried this in Live and all I can say is forget about it.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bCKC-JdD ... re=related

Usually I record my drum data with the record quantization on, and then turn the grid resolution off and slide the notes foreward and backwards in time so that nothing is perfectly on beat to give it a more human feel. For me, recording midi data with no quantization and then quantizing at a lower percentage doesn't even do the trick, but, as you can see, it's definitely possible on a MPC.

That's about the only reason that I still have gear lust. No matter how fast your pc is, at some point, latency is going to be an issue. Hardware still wins that battle.

To be honest, I can't imagine how tight 960ppq must be. I don't have anything with that kind of resolution. My MPC 3000 is 96ppq, and my Motif ES7 is 480 ppq. The MPC 4000/5000 are the only MPC's with 960ppq resolution, not the 1000 or 2500 even with the JJOS.

kb420 wrote:

Gargoyle wrote: MLaN ? what a disaster, I think it's only good if you would rather do troubleshooting instead of music.
and 960 ppq, not so bad at all, all of the classic wonderful music you know and love more than not used that resolution or even less

Well, mlan may have been a disaster, but I've been using it for years with no problem at all. My Motif Es7 is actually my soundcard and has been for 3 or 4 years now and I haven't had any problems with it at all. It sure sounds a lot better and louder than my Mbox does. I think the perfect solution, and the perfect combination as opposed to Maschine is that you have the MPC do all the work, but if you plug it into your computer (firewire or usb) you still have the integration that Maschine has where you can do all of your editing onscreen if you want, and you have virtual outputs so that you can track without any additional connections (multiple trs outs). This is the perfect combination, and this should have been the next logical step in the evolution of the MPC after the 4000. Imagine plugging your MPC into your computer and automatically you can open it in the host of your choice as a plug in and track all drums individually with one firewire or usb cable. That's what I'm talking about.

(Maybe someone should send this post to the product development guys at Akai. It would be awesome if Akai and Ableton were able to do this through the MPC's usb output in another OS update [OS3] since Akai and Ableton are such good friends now! )

960 ppq is great if you want to program drums with no quantization to give it a real drummer feel. When I want this feel in Live, it's hard to do because no matter how fast you pc is, latency is an issue. There is no latency on a MPC (if it is, it's completely negligible), so getting a true live drummer feel (stricty with midi data) is easy.

I tried this in Live and all I can say is forget about it.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bCKC-JdD ... re=related

Usually I record my drum data with the record quantization on, and then turn the grid resolution off and slide the notes foreward and backwards in time so that nothing is perfectly on beat to give it a more human feel. For me, recording midi data with no quantization and then quantizing at a lower percentage doesn't even do the trick, but, as you can see, it's definitely possible on a MPC.

That's about the only reason that I still have gear lust. No matter how fast your pc is, at some point, latency is going to be an issue. Hardware still wins that battle.

To be honest, I can't imagine how tight 960ppq must be. I don't have anything with that kind of resolution. My MPC 3000 is 96ppq, and my Motif ES7 is 480 ppq. The MPC 4000/5000 are the only MPC's with 960ppq resolution, not the 1000 or 2500 even with the JJOS.

there will always be lag on no matter what you use....even the mpc....hell even a drumset......It is all about learning how to work around it.

if you really need that ppq then go on guitarcenter.com and see the used instruments section. I saw an mpc 4000 there
for like 1000 dollars used:
http://used.guitarcenter.com/usedgear/i ... 0&dir=desc

its a bad economy...maybe you can haggle that.

v00d00ppl wrote:there will always be lag on no matter what you use....even the mpc....hell even a drumset......It is all about learning how to work around it.

if you really need that ppq then go on guitarcenter.com and see the used instruments section. I saw an mpc 4000 there
for like 1000 dollars used:
http://used.guitarcenter.com/usedgear/i ... 0&dir=desc

its a bad economy...maybe you can haggle that.

Did you really read my post or are you just mental?

In that post I talked about how I work around it, and I'm fine with that.
As far as the economy is concerned, I'm fine. I haven't been laid off or collected an unemployment check in over 3 years.

If I really wanted an MPC, I would buy the 5000, and I would buy it brand new. I want a virgin!!!!!


And, if you want a MPC 4000, I found one for $500 right here:

MPC 4000

kb420 wrote:

v00d00ppl wrote:there will always be lag on no matter what you use....even the mpc....hell even a drumset......It is all about learning how to work around it.

if you really need that ppq then go on guitarcenter.com and see the used instruments section. I saw an mpc 4000 there
for like 1000 dollars used:
http://used.guitarcenter.com/usedgear/i ... 0&dir=desc

its a bad economy...maybe you can haggle that.

Did you really read my post or are you just mental?

In that post I talked about how I work around it, and I'm fine with that.
As far as the economy is concerned, I'm fine. I haven't been laid off or collected an unemployment check in over 3 years.




If I really wanted an MPC, I would buy the 5000, and I would buy it brand new. I want a virgin!!!!!


And, if you want a MPC 4000, I found one for $500 right here:

MPC 4000

i read pg 1 of it and it was like too long to read......btw....failed attempt at getting me to click that lol link....try harder next time.......

but i was just commenting on how much you really wanted 960ppq and i always hear that rant on future producers, mpc forums, 4chan and i think people worry too much about specs nowadays and forget that most people who are going to be feeling your music ain't musicians.....

as for getting the mpc5000 in virgin condition.....most of the people who return it or resell it didn't use the damn machine anyways.....


did you cop the waxpoetics Philly issue yet? that was actually a good read.

v00d00ppl wrote:i read pg 1 of it and it was like too long to read

but i was just commenting on how much you really wanted 960ppq

Then you still missed the point. I never said how much I wanted 960 ppq. I was responding to why someone may buy the 5000 over the 2500 or 1000. The only thing I said was that the MPC should integrate with my pc in exactly the same way that Maschine does, but I'm not going to repeat myself anymore. Next time you want to participate in a thread, maybe you should actually read some of it, at least the last page or two so that you actually know who said what and why.

v00d00ppl wrote:did you cop the waxpoetics Philly issue yet? that was actually a good read.

NO.

Maybe you should just start your own thread about that.