Ableton Forum

I thought this may help some peple struggling with programming beats with the MPD 16. I have been using it for awhile with much frustration programming midi clips routed to Battery or any synth for that matter in/outboard. I was using the USB interface. I had a major sensitivity issue with the pads mistriggering, triggering late, or not at all. I tried adjusting latency settings, everything nothing worked though. Until, I used the Midi output of the mpd 16 into an external midi device. Now it works great! It rivals the performance of the MPC pads which Ihave used for 8 years. I have no idea why the performace is better going through a midi/usb box, vs straight usb into live.

Here are some details of my testings.
1. Playing live on a record enabled midi track works great until i actually arm a clip and start recording. Then timing goes to hell.
So, it seems that the USB akai plug works well, but when combined with Live's recording function it glitches out. Note; I tried record quantization and without. Both sucked.

2. Use USB cable to power MPD 16, but route a midi cable into another midi interface and choose this midi input only for recording from MPD. Everything works great. The velocity and timing is superb. I finally do not regret selling the MPC 2000!

Gear; Powerbook G4 867MHZ, 1GB, 80GB, M Audio Quattro, Mbox, MPD 16,Niche Automation Station, Korg Z1, Juno 106, Moog Rogue, Waldorf Micro Q, Dm5.

I am glad it worked out for you!

Personally I haven't had that problem - but then again, my timing sucks so much that I wouldn't notice it.

But then again...

Maybe THIS is why my timing sucks. hmmm... I'll have to check that out.

i've never had a problem either, and I've got one of the first silver ones out, been using it for programing beats in Live as well as other apps and never had an issue, love triggering samples with it and using the data fader for crossfading, i think it's one of those things that everyone should have.

I notice that both replies stating no problems are from people using windows. Maybe this is an OSX live 4 thing?

I use windows and do get that problem but only after my tracks have many layers and use up a lot of cpu power. Before the track gets intensive, it works fine. Its probably a USB problem and the way it's integrated.