condra wrote:FWIW I like the direction AKAI are going with the SynthStation iPad thing. Over the next few years, iPads and Android Tablets are going to get more and more capable of becomming studio stalwarts. That shit is much more exciting to me than anything involving a laptop.
I've mentioned this elsewhere, but THIS THIS THIS. The iDevice dock in the Synthstation would be a better display than the flip up LCD display, a better navigation input device than numpad+arrow keys+data knob, and could introduce a wide variety of other control interfaces for effects, sample editing, and so on. Such a missed opportunity. And there's no practical benefit of using numpad+arrow keys+data knob (you can't tell me it works better—it doesn't), it's just a marketing ploy designed to appeal to people who are dead set on buying something that looks like an MPC, even if it isn't (and this thing isn't).
Tarekith wrote:I'm hardly the biggest NI fan, and I didn't really click with Maschine and sold it after a few weeks as well. But NI already have a huge 2 year jump start in this type of thing, not to mention a long history of designing effects and sample libraries. Add to that the ability to host 3d party plug ins now, and I really don't see anything that the new Akai brings to the table based on what we know so far.
The audio interface is a nice addition, unless it sucks, or drives the price up higher than the market will bear.
Tarekith wrote:I think if they HAD made it standalone that could also be used with the computer if you wanted, then at least it would have something to differentiate it more from Maschine.
Imagine if they'd gone with the iDevice dock in the Renaissance.
That would be sufficient to give it a standalone mode. You could use it with whatever app Akai are cooking up, or with Beatmaker2 or whatever else you like. Except now your iDevice is connected to a proper audio interface. With MPC pads! And a fucking ton of LED-ring encoders/knobs! And since there are USB/MIDI ports on the back, why not plug in a keyboard as well? And the sad part is, Akai already has the fucking parts. They literally have a bunch of little iPod/iPhone dock connector mounts that they've licensed, developed, tested and produced sitting in a warehouse somewhere in China.
They've already paid for the damn things. It could have been
the new workstation, drawing a line from their expertise from the last 25 years to the developments sure to come in the next 25 (Hey, iPhone 4s owners: did you notice that the thing in your pocket is a more sophisticated computer than every computer you've ever owned prior to your current one? Think that trend will be slowing down at all?). Instead, unless I'm seriously missing something here, this very well may be their last hurrah.
Tarekith wrote:Right now it's just a Samsung Galaxy tablet trying to catch up to the iPad2. 2 of you here will know what that means.
I'd say Akai's more like Sony. They used to
own this entire product space. Times begun to change, as they always do. They stuck with it and kept trying to compete, all the while becoming more and more irrelevant. New competitors continued to chip away at their market, and they started to panic, throwing together more and more bizarre combinations of old-favorite features and alleged technological improvements as they forget what gave them their competitive advantage to begin with.
(Minor history lesson, I suspect Erik knows all this but some of you might not: Sony made their bones when they invented the portable transistor radio. Initially, it was widely regarded as a stupid idea. The sound quality and reception were significantly worse than in the huge radios that people kept in their living rooms at the time. The product line that followed were some of the most successful consumer electronics devices ever produced. The fact that they were cheap and portable meant that younger people could not only afford them, but take them out of the living room, away from their parents. Some suggest that rock and roll never would have happened if not for the Sony portable radio. Several million Walkmen later, Sony was
the driving force behind the adoption of the CD. Phillips was heavily invested as well—which, among other things, resulted in their hilariously awful interactive pre-DVD CD video game platform CD-i—as were other consumer electronics firms, but it was mostly Sony. Hence, the Diskman, SACD, a wide variety of home stereo CD players, and so on. They built partnerships with entertainment companies, had leverage over every supplier, manufacturing plant, and distribution channel on earth. By the time music started to go digital, they'd already spent years producing computers and digital storage media as well. They were, once again, pioneers in the switch to digital photography. They were
perfectly positioned to once again revolutionize how people listened to music. I defy you to name a single Sony digital audio player that anyone gave a shit about, ever. Minidisk doesn't count, and even if it did, it wouldn't be a good answer.)
