Maschine+ OR Mpc One / Live II? (Comparison)

this video is sponsored by distrokid hello youtube today i want to get into the topic that i see the most here on my youtube channel and in my social media in general which is basically a comparison between machine plus on one hand and the npcs on the other so this is the mpc one and the mpc live two mpcx is also a thing but i just don't happen to have it so this is what we're gonna stick with today and we have a lot of stuff to cover here so let's get into [Music] it right and i'm a sample-based hip-hop beat maker myself so that's my perspective going in here i've used machine and these npcs ever since they first came out so i do have a few opinions but it's worth taking into consideration though that i haven't used these ones in controller mode a lot i tend to use them in standalone mode instead because i kind of want to see them as their own individual groov boxes or samplers that i can make full beats on more than anything else all of these ones can be hooked up to a computer with a usb connection and that way work as dedicated hardware controllers for the mpc or the machine software that's a cool thing to do if you want to use any third-party plug-ins third-party instruments or maybe make them talk to a daw or anything like that let's first of all talk about the differences between these two npcs the mpc one and the mpc live 2 where the live 2 is obviously the bigger one with the full size npc pads where the pads on the one is a little bit smaller the live 2 also has a built-in battery and a built-in stereo speaker and you can install an ssd drive inside of it to expand the storage like that and when it comes to the connectivity of the devices the live 2 just has way more to offer than the mpc one so this is in many ways the bigger brother of this one apart from all of that these two devices are the same they run the same computer inside of them with the same touch screens they are compatible with the same sd cards they run the same firmware the same software it's not like the live 2 is actually more powerful than the mpc one they are the same but this one just offers more in terms of the actual hardware if that makes sense but on the other hand the mpc one has more dedicated buttons on it so it's a little bit faster to work on at least for me so if i have to pick a favorite between these two i'm leaning towards the mpc one for sure and i hope that pretty much covers the main differences between these two again they are also kind of the same now let's get machine plus into the picture but first let me tell you about this week's sponsored district kit district is my preferred way to get my own music out on digital platforms and online stores like spotify google music itunes apple music tick tock and even more places like that i'm uploading my music and my album art once onto district and then they just make sure that everything works from there both in terms of finances and in terms of actually releasing the stuff onto the digital platforms where i want to be found 20 bucks a year allows me to upload an unlimited number of tracks eps or even albums onto the service and everything just works smoothly from there also make sure to use the link in the description below because that will give you an additional discount thanks a lot to district for sponsoring this video now let's get back to machine and to be clear this one is machine plus it's not comparable to machine mark 1 2 3 or machine micro those were usb controllers for your mac or pc running the machine software this one though is completely standalone just like the npcs and that's where this comparison starts making sense it's always difficult to talk about pricing because things just happen to change over time but as of today in april of 2022 mpc live two goes for about thirteen hundred dollars machine plus for about 12 and the mpc one is about 900 us dollars so that's what that is and of course i got that a little bit wrong and that's not totally accurate machine plus seems to be on a discount right now so you should be able to find it for 12 or 13 hundred dollars somewhere around those lines that means that machine plus and the mpc live 2 are kind of similarly priced and the mpc one is a little bit cheaper the mpc live 2 gives you way more connectivity it has a built-in speaker a built-in battery and the touchscreen if you enjoy that machine plus is more comparable to the mpc one actually when it comes to the connectivity and stuff like that but everything is not hardware specifications because the overall workflow is where these two systems differ a lot this one has way more buttons and way more knobs on it and it works differently than these ones do comparing these two systems in general is a little bit like comparing coca-cola to pepsi mac to pc playstation to xbox or something like that people will always have really strong opinions about these things but when it all comes down to it these two different lines of products are kind of similar for example where i think it's a little bit easier to develop a muscle memory on machine and actually learn the device by heart like that than it is on these ones just something like the cv and gate connectivity that's available on both of these comes in really handy sometimes for some setups i've actually had a machine plus crashing on me way more than any of these that becomes better for every single update that they put out but that's still a little bit of a factor sometimes i find the menu system on the npcs to be just a little bit slow and if i've talked to 20 people who really hates the workflow of maschine i've talked to about 20 people who hates the workflow of the npcs too and even if we're just talking about the npcs some people prefer this one other people prefer that one that's just what it is both machine and the mpcs comes with a crazy amount of content when you purchase them we're talking samples one-shot hits melodic samples plug-in instruments effects and crazy stuff like that which one is better i don't know you won't be able to go through all the different presets and samples and stuff for weeks whichever one you go for and of course that's also a matter of personal taste do you like the sound library that comes with this one more than what comes with these ones that's impossible for me to try to answer both akai and native instruments are working kind of hard to put out new updates for these devices instruments or effects or samples or features gets added all the time and if you happen to want even more content there are expansions both for this system and for this system that are kind of affordable and has a lot of really good stuff inside of them and since the entire machine ecosystem started with a software and dedicated hardware controllers i think that i prefer using the software for machine over the software for the mpc on the computer but again that's not something i do a lot of at all but the question i get the most about these things is which one is easier to learn which one is the one to go for as a beginner let's get one thing straight here you do need to invest a little bit of time to learn any of these and to fully master them because they kind of forces you to think about music making in a way that you might not be used to this one works with patterns and scenes and you put that together into pieces of music like that the npcs has tracks and sequences and programs and you put that together into different loops so please don't think that you can pick up any of these and just start making beats just like that that's just not how it works and i'm not saying that there aren't any differences between these two systems because there definitely are just the fact that you're working with four knobs and a touchscreen on this one and here you have eight knobs and not a touchscreen for your day-to-day beat making that actually makes a big difference in a good way in a bad way it all depends on your personal preference and what you prefer over something else for instance i wasn't very excited about having a touch screen on my main piece of gear to make beats on at first when i got my first npc live mark 1 then i got used to it now i can totally see the advantage that has and parts of me kind of love it not having a touchscreen on machine plus kind of makes a lot of sense in many ways and some things becomes quicker and easier and faster other things becomes more finicky and difficult so let's say that i've recorded a few midi notes into the sequencer and then i want to move the notes on the timeline that's totally doable on machine plus but just a lot easier with the touchscreen on the npc's that's just one thing but i would say that the overall navigation and browsing system is a little bit easier on the machine than on these ones so again there are a lot of pros and cons with machine plus and there are a lot of pros and cons with the npcs and with the 2.10 update for the npcs they added the hype synth they added a selena a melotron and a lot of cool stuff like that as well as the vocal chain of plugins that's a really cool addition and machine is running massive in standalone mode it has massive it has reactor it has contact libraries that are compatible and if i were to make a complete list of all the features here and all the features here i think it would be damn near impossible to say which one is objectively better than the other people are claiming that the computer that runs inside of this one isn't good enough fast enough efficient enough or whatever like that i think native instruments made kind of a mistake here by shipping machine plus with all the stuff that it comes with now let me explain that real quick sometimes when you load up a group in here you get 16 different sounds on the 16 different pads right and in some cases these 16 different pads has multiple layers of different effects applied onto them so sometimes you'll find a reverb a delay two reverbs maybe some kind of pitch shifting functionality a compressor another compressor a limiter a reverb whatever just a crazy amount of stuff like that and when i make my own beats i never use effects like that that just doesn't make sense and even if it did i couldn't keep track of all those effects per pad on multiple groups like that that would be too much for me and obviously maybe a little bit too much for something like this too machine used to be a computer software that ran on computers where you could afford to do stuff like that in this case maybe you just have to tone that down a little bit and i'm not even talking about consistently thinking about keeping your projects light on the cpu or the ram or whatever i don't think about stuff like that at all when i make my beats but sure i don't put 16 different reverbs on 16 different pads who would even do that so what i'm trying to say here is that at least from my experience sure i've heard machine making a lot of crackling noises and not working good at all when i've intentionally tried to push it way above the limits but for my normal beat making needs that's just not a problem of course that's not a problem with the npcs either but they don't have that reputation that machine unfortunately has now let's try to be reasonable here native instruments and akai are competitors in this range these are pretty much the best groov boxes samplers or whatever you want to call them on the market right now i think that if native instruments decided to do something new for a machine akai would do something kind of similar with the mpc series and vice versa sure someone like me would love to see a new version of a machine with a built-in battery and maybe something else added to it i would also love to see a new version of the mpc one that's a little bit bigger with full size pads and a battery inside of it i don't care too much about the speaker but something like that would be awesome and when it all comes down to it i make a lot of beats in here and the majority of my work is done on any of the mpcs or on machine plus i don't really have a preference between these two myself it should be said that there is one functionality in the npcs that i would love to see being implemented in machine in the future too and that is how they help you to identify the scale and the bpm of a sample and get that right pretty much all of the times that's really really helpful and would be awesome to have on machine in the future so come on accurate which one's better yeah that's what i can't really say for sure because that depends on who you are and what you're looking for and what you like over anything else take the drum pads for instance they are more sensitive on machine plus so that should be a good thing right some people hate that and the pads on the npcs are a little bit stiffer and doesn't bounce as much so that should also be good some people hate that too according to me the main difference between these two systems has to do with the overall workflow of the thing either you like that workflow or you don't and then you have these two options to go by and i can't really say which one is better because they're equally good they're just different so let's take price into consideration two and that's where the mpc one obviously is a great option here it gives you a lot of bang for the buck and a really cool device with a lot of functionality for less money than anything else we talked about here today but we haven't said anything about machine mk3 or machine mark iii which isn't comparable here that's why i'm not including it but still it's a product that's available if you want the machine workflow but still doesn't mind working with a computer a part of me kind of almost feels like machine plus might not be the right option for everyone it might not be the option for entry-level producers who might be looking at the mpc one just because of the price tag itself but if you're invested in the machine workflow and you're a big fan of that and believe me there are good reasons to to be in that case machine plus is the one to go for because it's the exact same workflow the exact same thing but just with a built-in computer inside of it and if you're thinking about getting any of these devices to become a part of a bigger home studio setup then you might be a little bit worried not to have enough audio inputs or outputs and that's not necessarily a problem at all because all of these devices can be connected to external audio interfaces and that way you get access to more inputs and outputs both for midi and audio so that's kind of cool so finally feel free to leave me on any desert island with machine plus the mpc one or the mpc live 2 and i'll be able to make beats for days and i'm gonna have a good time but don't force me to pick one of these over another because they make me work in different ways and makes me make slightly different beats on them that's just how my creativity works and that's cool to me and maybe we need to talk more about the sp404 mk2 in the future for now this is it thanks a lot for watching this video i hope you got something out of it and please don't forget to check out distrokid in the links down below and i hope to see you guys in the next video too until then [Music] accurate

Channel: Accurate Beats

Views: 34,566

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Id: A7TbNiSUlLc

Length: 15min 18sec (918 seconds)

Published: Tue Apr 19 2022