Controller Mode - Software VS Standalone! Which one is better?

what's good fam it's your boy ghetto I'm back with another video and we've been having a lot of interesting conversations about the differences between controller mode and Standalone and the MPC software and I kind of want to talk about a lot of that stuff because I do think some things need to be cleared up I believe there are a lot of misconceptions about the differences between controller mode and Standalone and why you should use either now if you want to hear what I got to say about it follow me thank you now before we get started this video is being brought to you by motion VFX and what motion VFX offers our video editing plugins for Final Cut DaVinci Resolve and Adobe Premiere they also have video editing templates which makes video editing fast and a lot easier to do and honestly I own and use a lot of motion VFX plugins that I bought and paid for out of my own pocket now the link in this video is a sponsor link and it will help the channel but these are very very good plugins I use them in every single video that I have you'll notice that you've seen these plugins used by major companies and advertisement on the internet and also in TV including places like the NFL NBA and also companies like apple so if you want to check them out click the link in the description it's definitely worth looking at okay so I feel like I've said this before in other videos but there are a lot of differences between Standalone and controller mode and the functionality that is there inside of the software and the hardware devices if you don't know in controller mode it has something that the MPC simply cannot do in Standalone I rarely use Standalone in my production I'm almost always in controller mode and in fact I'm gonna let y'all in on a little secret a lot of the top producers that you watch on YouTube to say Standalone Standalone Standalone all of the time if you really pay attention to their videos they're actually using controller mode too there are some that are actually Standalone but a lot of them are not I'm just keeping it real but they'll tell you stand alone all day because it's a hot button word and they know that's what you want to hear now I feel like the reason that a lot of people are so bent on Standalone whether they admit it or not it's because they're actually not very computer literate and I kind of understand that I know a lot of people today who barely know how to turn the computer on don't know how to get from A to B or anything inside of a computer so that's why they want to be Standalone whether they really want to admit it or not and then other people don't really understand the power that controller mode has over Standalone and don't get me wrong I have all of the newer NPCs so I definitely understand the power of having the hardware device with the software it actually makes it so so much easier as for Standalone one of the biggest things that I've heard over and over and over again as to why somebody might choose Standalone over a computer is they say why should I have to stare at a computer screen all day I don't want to stare at a computer screen and quite honestly I understand that but at the same time let me show you something real quick as you can see on my computer screen right now this is the MPC 2.0 software right now let me change my view real quick now this is my MPC X as you can see the mpcx is on now you can see that the software is on now for people who say that they don't want to have to stare at a computer screen all day because of the distraction that the computer stream might cause I say this you can turn the screen off and it's still going to work right now I'm reaching over here I'll just turn the power off on my screen there's nothing there I'm not looking at a computer screen but if I switch back to my overhead view as you can see the MPC is still running fine [Music] [Music] Okay so we've established that the MPC works just fine even when it's connected to the computer and the computer screen is turned off I kind of feel like you're losing out on that one because I mean I just showed you I'm gonna keep my computer screen off for a while just to show you that even when you're connected to the computer you don't have to touch the computer the only time you really would ever have to test this computer or the mouse is if you're using third-party plug-in but if you're using all built-in plugins that you get with the Standalone device you will never have to touch the computer or the mouse at all but you can still utilize the power that's given to you by running the software off of the computer as an example while I'm in controller mode let me show you something real quick we are going to go into our menu and go to preferences we are in the general tab and uh when you scroll down a little bit you go to the audio warp algorithms which are the time stretch algorithm right now mine is set to elastic Pro which is the best audio warp or Time Stretch algorithm that the MPC has now the MPC in controller mode has one two three four five different time stretch algorithms now let's compare that to what you got in Standalone here is my MPC live too and Standalone is not plugged up to anything it's running off of battery power let's go into our menu preferences General and we'll go down to our audio warp algorithms so if you're looking at the eye Time Stretch or the audio warp algorithm we have protein and basic so in Standalone you only get two time stretch algorithms which are not as good as what you get in controller mode for some people that's not a big deal for me I like to use the best that I can possibly get and as you can see my computer screen is still off another thing that you get in controller mode that you don't get in Standalone which is something that I kind of feel like is a game changer as you know you can take any sound in a drum program and turn it into a key group so I'm gonna do that real quick [Music] foreign [Music] to a key group we're going to go into program edit and we're going to hit that key group icon all right now that we have that sound as a kid group [Music] [Music] normally as you go up higher in octaves it speeds the sound up as you go lower in octaves it slows that sound down now when you're in controller mode you can go into program edit and you can turn on audio Warp for all of the keys in that key group [Music] and you can match the tempo with whatever the temple is of the song we're on the NPC live too and standalone I'm gonna take that sound right there and we're going to turn that into a key group so now we're in program edit and we're going to tap the key group icon we just turn that sound into a key group in Standalone you do not have the option to warp all of your samples it's just not there but you can do that in controller mode just throwing that out there now another reason I feel like the software is more powerful than the MPC Standalone because the MPC is in Standalone at the most if you got an mpcx MPC key 61 uh gets four gigabytes of RAM in controller mode we're just running off of my computer as it is right now my computer has 64 gigabytes of RAM which is an enormous amount and a much faster processor than what the mpcx has built in it so I'm getting a lot more horsepower out of my MPC than I am in Standalone so that's why I choose to use it as a controller instead of a standalone device also when it comes to the MPC in controller mode it will let you fly through the software again without ever having to touch a mouse so let me show you right now you see my MPC right here currently on the main screen if I want to go to my browser step sequencer sampler xyfx Pat perform edit the sample edit pad mixer which is not on the track for that right now but if it was boom pad mixer channel mixer now I'm just flying all through that I have to push of a button I'm just moving through the software really really fast so that's one of the advantages of using the software in controller mode with a hardware device it allows you to sweep through the software at an immense speed and again just to show you my screen is still off I'm not looking at the screen at all but I'm seeing everything on the software on the MPC screen and it looks no different than what it does in standalone action [Music] foreign [Music] I feel like you're just losing out on the extra power that you can get now another thing that I've heard people say a lot and this is in regards to the MPC live too is that people choose the MPC live too because it has a battery you got five hours of battery life you can travel with it and still make beats and everything like that and that's why the MPC live too is better than the software and in that case I say that's kind of true that's kind of true but not really because of the fact that you can put the MPC software on a laptop like this this is a MacBook Pro it has a 10 hour battery life and it can run the MPC software and you can make full Productions on it without a hardware device if you really wanted to now I'm not going to say that's the most intuitive experience because I would much rather have a hardware device to do that but it is not actually necessary and this weighs a lot less than the MPC live too and this has more power than the MPC Live 2 by far even if you get a standard laptop computer that comes with eight gigabytes of RAM i7 processor it's going to be more powerful than the MPC in Standalone actually does that necessarily mean better not exactly though but you can do more with it and riding off of that I've heard that people want to use the MPC Hardware devices because they have the eight outputs and the way that you can route sound in and out of it that's very true and the NPC is actually an audio interface with its own sound card converters so on and so forth but at the same time you can take this laptop and hook it up to any audio interface in the world and some of those have better converters better sound quality better everything than what's built into the MPC you can run this laptop through a rme audio interface a Apollo audio interface or something like that and increase the sound quality much more than a standalone NPC now that doesn't mean that you can't increase the audio output of the MPC either as of right now for me in controller mode I'm currently running my MPC outputs through a universal audio Apollo and the sound is definitely different there is a noticeable difference from using the built-in sound outputs of the MPC but I can also tell you this when I'm running the MPC and Standalone using the built-in sound card that the MPC has in it and if I run the MPC controller mode using that same built-in sound card I don't really hear a difference in the sound so to me controller mode and Standalone both sound the same if you're using the built-in audio device that that's part of the MPC now where you get a difference is when you run that MPC through other Hardware units so if you're running the MPC through an audio interface or through some other type of preamps or converters that will change the sound output of the MPC and that's something that a lot of people don't really seem to know about but that option is definitely there now you have to be careful when you're looking at that option is because once you get into those kind of outboard pieces of gear to run the MPC through to try to increase your sound quality they usually come with a pretty hefty price the better the quality usually means the more money you're gonna have to spend to get it that's just the way it is right now and there's also an importance to actually learn how to use these Hardware devices that you're getting because if you get something you don't know how to use it you're going to make your audio quality decline before it increases that's another thing you need to pay attention to if you're looking to get outboard gear to go with the MPC learn those devices and don't just throw them on there because if you don't know how to use the device you're going to make your sound worse one more thing that people consistently get wrong when asking about the MPC Hardware devices in Standalone is this question here if you buy a MPC Standalone device do you have to get MPC Beats and the answer to that question is an emphatic no hell no absolutely not if you purchase any MPC Hardware device it comes with the full MPC 2.0 version everything from the MPC Studio and up comes with the full MPC software so knows you do not have to go download the free version of MPC beats all you have to do is flip that MPC over look at that serial number go to the end music website and register your device I can't tell you how many people that I've talked to or get tutorial sessions and I was going over things that actually comes with the MPC and they didn't have it and was asking me well why don't I have this and you got it it's because you didn't download and install it whenever you purchase a new MPC and you register it you get a ton of free stuff to go with it straight out the gate but a lot of people never even bother to register their MPC and that's why you miss out on so much stuff now I would like to say that when it comes to stand alone that's not something I have a problem with and I do use Standalone on occasion if I happen to be traveling or something like that or if I'm just trying to help troubleshoot something because if somebody else is using Standalone I want to use mine the same way so that I can walk them through step by step but other than that I don't feel like the MPC in Standalone is up to par with the way that I like to use it I feel like the MPC needs to be a lot more powerful in order for me to switch to using the NPC and Standalone full time so now I feel like I probably lost my training thought and it's probably some more things that I wanted to point out about the differences between Standalone and controller mode and why I choose controller mode over Standalone we can talk about it in the comments maybe it'll come to me later that's all I got for this video and I would love to hear some of your thoughts on some of the stuff I said but as for now I'm out

Channel: GhettoStyles

Views: 5,485

Keywords: MPC, MPC Live, MPC X, MPC Force, MPC Software, MPC Touch, MPC Studio, MPC Live 2, MPC One, MPC Beats, Akai Force

Id: NgoEr2lKe1E

Length: 18min 22sec (1102 seconds)

Published: Wed Sep 06 2023