MPC One versus Digitakt - Comparison & discussion for hardware setups, plus software pros & cons

welcome back to the channel my name is sateen today we're looking at the dig attack from electron and the Akai MPC 1 both of our beat making platforms and I want to pose the question do get a quite PC one let's get into it I will say right off the bat that both platforms are crates and they both have the strengths and the weaknesses I will not be reviewing these boxes super in-depth either because that would be an insanely long video in full disclosure I am pretty new to the MPC platform embassy 1 is my first MPC so I like gives you a time frame on that I have owned the dig attacked since 2018 and last year means and I released two albums that were basically written arranged produced on the day attacked and then recorded into Ableton as live jams type a set up or a live set up and then mixed and finished in Ableton and obviously we've done a bunch of jams with the dig tank in the MPC one on this channel as you guys can see if you go back through our videos and with that being said the MPC one definitely has been used more as a do you tax replacement when I have been doing those jams the similarities they can set up sequences and trigger specific instruments and also send MIDI data out and all that so I have used them in similar fashions which i think is the reason for this video also I've not done an official release with the MPC one yet haven't actually finished something I have used the song mode before which the detectives not have and just want to give you guys full disclosure where I'm at or my viewpoint is so let's start with the obvious stuff first they are both capable of beat making machines obviously both are sample based and both run for about 700 Street price the detect is a bit more expensive at around $750 Street prints both have stereo outs and a stereo inputs for sampling both have midi i/o and both can be plugged in via USB to the pc for some extra communications the MPC one goes a bit further with an additional USB jack that is technically an import as opposed to an out port for USB and that does expand its connectivity for for mini USB connections greatly and you can also hook up a hub and also hook up a an SSD drive and that type of thing to be plugged into there the dig attack does not have an SD card port the embassy one does and I have a 64 gig chip put into mine at all times that's usually where I saved my project date and all that in update 2.8 for NPC 1 and they expanded those mini capabilities drastically it now recognizes generic USB MIDI drivers so if I plug in the pro 3 or the summit it will say oh this is the DSi Pro 3 in here and it'll give me the proper ports and all that can hook up with a USB hub so that makes it extremely attractive for being able to easily plug in your video here so that's very nice and I happen to in with NBC 2.8 but I do want to point out that's software version 2.8 and we're now getting that feature because in my mind I feel like that's the feature that should have come with it rather bat but here we are NBC 2.8 and now it's it's obviously on the firmware but the other devices but those devices are now getting that ability seems like this should have been worked out to begin with so both of these devices do have PC connectivity as I said before the diggy tank has over bridge which is really nice we'll get into them and the FPC one can be operated as a standalone controller for the software generally speaking I don't use these devices for the PC integration I treat them as big boxes or producing boxes sound generation tools it's like an instrument that I pull off the wall like a guitar something like that I'm excited to get certain workflows that inspire creativity in the moment when I'm using these devices so typically the PC set of stuff is a bonus it's not a must-have again I think the draw to hardware devices is the creativity that can inspire licking your hands on it directly making it feel more like an actual instruments and later on the video I won't be covering more PC specific details so while there's definitely crossover between these two devices once you get past the beat making simulator use the MPC one platform completely Dwarfs the dig text and that is just something we need to get out in the open right now it's very obvious this is a full-on DAW platform and it shows the complexities there the options are there the menu diving is there so the day attacked at any given time you have eight voices channels 1 through 8 are sampled voices can sample stereo sources but they will get some down to Mono once you put it into here so again at any given time you can have 8 voices being triggered with sample data that does not mean that you can only have one sample per track because these are technically tracks you can actually have each one of these tracks play a different sample per trigger and you can load up I believe 128 total samples in your pool for per project type of thing that you can reference and each one of those samples can then get manipulated per step in the sequencer and that's one of the great things about the attacked in the electron way but again no stereo samples and I know for some people that could be a huge bummer if you have a large library of vinyl and you want to get that stereo image then you're not gonna be able do that with the dig attack unless you want to use two channels and if you're using two channels just for one sample then suddenly you're cutting down 25% of your options here in play I don't think you should use it that way and betrayed the voices strictly as drum samples or monophonic sources then it actually works out really nice and if you accept that limitation in it it becomes very creative it's honestly not as big of a deal for me personally now you comparison to the MPC one sampling capabilities it there really is no contest thing you have the option to have just an insane number of samples loaded any given time and it comes down to its CPU usage trainer you have CPU memory and drive space which drive space I don't think you're gonna really have an issue if you swap SD cards but you're gonna load up samples into memory and the CPU is going to keep on it's gonna keep on Kiba tally of that stuff you have to load a lot of samples to max this thing out and on top of that you have audio tracks as well it is limited I believe it's only eight audio tracks correct me if I'm wrong in the comments on that one so you can have eight audio tracks and then a whole crapload of samples loaded and each one of each one of these programs can have 128 because it's sixteen sixteen seventeen I think it's under 28 total samples loaded because each one of these can be technically so you have eight banks of 16 pads essentially on here that per program you could load I don't see a reason for anybody to load all 128 of those pads then the nice thing is when you sample into here you can actually have an auto chunk and it will just spread those out across all the pads so you can then go in select stuff if you want to be lazy about it and now I actually chopped specific things that's a nice feature in there the flexibility on that is just enormous like you have so much space to work with in each one of these pads can actually have thank you go program at it and I'm on a zero nine right here I can then go to effects and I can have four individual effects per pad on here that's really awesome and then obviously you could have stuff for it you can you can stretch a sample across all the pads or play it off of a keyboard or something like that in terms of sampling capability the NPC one is obviously king on this and you also have a looper as well you go here and you can actually loop stuff or capture stuff as a loop into the memory bank I actually like using this feature quite a bit Musa like come up with an idea or like a hook or something that she wants to grab real quick and you can just load up the looper grab that line and then save it and then attach it to a pad that you can just trigger and then you have that idea saved you don't have to trigger that idea all the time but we see how it's saved and then continue doing that looping type of stuff and then it also keeps it in sync with your project timeline and all that so that's one things I really like about that and also you just straight up sample - you can just let it go for I mean this is set up for 15 minutes I wouldn't technically sample 15 minutes but it's in case I need to in terms of sampling capabilities clearly Campisi one its king on that like your your actual flexibility is massive but if you want speed and snappiness and just your quick to the punches I've got to say the dig attack does it really well because all you do is you hit direct right here and then it's already monitoring whatever inputs you have you just hit function yes to start recording then it's gonna start recording whatever is coming in on the check and once you're done usually hit yes to stop it's gonna normalize and that's just a bunch of noise right there but you now can go ahead and start chopping that into the individual pads in terms of grabbing something really quick I think the Diggy tact excels at this in fact across the board throughout this if you want speed Diggy tact is technically going to be the king on this because it's streamlined it's thrown away extra features so you're only thinking when you have and giving you a streamlined electron way a beat production process whereas the MPC one is approaching it as a full-on DOM you have a crapload of options tons of effects big attack very limited on effects and again that's a pro and a con because a pro and that you are only thinking of your limited pool up effects so you're not overthinking what you could do but it's a con in that you're not going to be able to apply chorus to every voice forever and we'll get to that more whereas the MBC one it's like you can spend hours on messing with sounds and ultimately not getting wearing your production because you have so many options you really have to discipline yourself when you're doing production you have so many tools available to you you have to say okay I'm only gonna do this type of stuff with this device right now if you've been producing for a while you know what I'm talking about NBC one it's basically a full-on DAW so the sampling capability is just insane you got all the effects from compression and cue filtering all that stuff and could be prepared for channel you have the per program you can have up to four effects that send effects as well and then there's also effects you can put on the actual master output of the MPC one and all that comes at the cost of complexity because even as I'm saying it like the effect sentence I've been using this device for a few months and I don't think I've yet used the effects ends on the MPC one because I don't know where they're at and I'll admit that's weird to say in a video where I'm comparing two devices but I kind of want to show you guys how this has so much complexity to it out of the box that you can just focus on one area and I actually see other sides of it for a long time and I think that's again one of those things where you have to weigh those pros and cons for yourself how much complexity do you want versus how much sheer creativity do you want that gets you going right away so you're not thinking about that stuff and I'm a big proponent of taking the creative side of things and separating it from the finishing side of things like the editing and finalizing I think when you're in creativity mode it's really good to be inspired it's great to be just not thinking about tech counties and all that and then when you're in finishing mode that's when you want to really dig into the the technical side of stuff yeah when it comes to diggie tax I will say and I'll state this again the the effects of while they're serviceable they're good they are very limited and it's definitely one of my gripes about this box because you have delaying reverb and again they're a global stand so all eight tracks 1 through 8 send audio to those effects and then they get mixed into the master buss that gets output on here so you can't just have you can't have separate delays on each one of these they all share the same delay so if you go function delay you to see what its delay is and it's a good delay the again the the reverb and the delay on this box they sound good but once again that is limiting because that's it that's on this in fact the Diggy Tim has a chorus and I really like the scent of that chorus I wish they would put it into this box it'd be nice if they could expand this box but I don't know what type of CPU is in this thing I know there is a multi-core CPU in the MPC one they talk about on the website it's part of the electron ethos where they want to streamline a sampled type of setup for you and maybe they're thinking that you should bake chorus into your samples as you put into the box that's totally possible you know I don't think there's a right or wrong for that type of stuff it's more of a preference also there is overdrive per channel so you do have overdrive which is nice so you got your delays your send you can pan and all that and you can adjust overall volume level for the individual tracks there's an LFO per channel which is nice so you can modulate things like like the sample stuff on here is really cool you can adjust sample start length tune all that stuff pretty straightforward for sample type of stuff you can also reduce the bit rate and again LFO can control all that stuff LFO can also control the filters and things like that the filter actually does another one of those points where the I think it gets knocked down a couple points because it's pretty limited and again if you look at the Diggy Town tone has a fundamental filter where you can shave off the bottom of the top and then you can actually apply a legit with multiple options on there diggy tact unfortunately is really limited and maybe they could update that in the future don't know it'd be great if they could but you have a low-pass you have a high-pass and you're off solo pacify pass off and it sounds ok it's it's nothing to write home about it's like a it's indecent filter you know obviously it's got an envelope attached to it so you can do some shaping so it's it gets the job done but it's nothing wild nothing crazy and again the Dickey tone has better shaping and controls on that I really do wish that they would have put a fundamental filter in there because a lot of times I'll want to shave off some bottom end and the top end and have like the residents peak on top but just filter out some below it you can't do that on the dig attacked again in comparison NBC one ton zuv effects all that stuff like every pad or every sample channel has a built in I'll show you right here go program in it filter envelope right here so you have automatic filter stuff built in and it's you have just tons tons of options and like different modeling all that like I said this is more of a full-on doll so you have to keep that in mind between these two devices by this time I know that this video is something like will clearly be empty sweet one has got all the bells and whistles right and it does have all the bells and whistles but the the workflow I haven't quite gotten to the workflow yeah and we'll talk about that and that's really where the the difference comes into play the speed of execution of making some of these beats so Emily's the takeaway on this is obviously the dig text is gonna be limited but it's a streamlined a platform for your process and I think it's time to talk about that streamlined process so what does the electron way mean it's the sequencer what makes the electron Gear special beyond its sound is the way the sequencer is set up if you go to say track one which I believe is kick right now in fact I'm gonna put my headphones on so you're gonna track one you can if you hit the record button you can see I have two triggers right here and the next one I got two triggers the same two triggers right here let's mute everything else I believe this was the jam that we did for on the spot recently play this back so you see the stuff right there pretty straightforward right it's a sequencer yeah you got some triggers on there right straightforward stuff where it gets really interesting is you can you can affect all the settings on the box per trigger so I can hold down five I'm putting a trigger in here if you hear this now let's say I want to check out the tune on this so now so it's affecting that sound right there that's a super basic example right there but let's say we adjust the bitrate so it gets crushed a bit and then also we're going to switch the filter to high-pass make it pop I guess right here to bring down the volume I'm also gonna give it some reverb and delay now let's hear that so on just one track I'm already shaping some interesting sounds now let's say I wants to randomly trigger that that sound woman do is I'm gonna hold that am I hit it says copy underneath here something it copy this copy one trig so now if I hold these four down right here and I go paste they all should be on that Oh actually didn't do that you only did this one alright only did a nine so let's taste these so my bad it only copies that trigger information one time we paste it so now all right so that's obviously too much right now let's go to the trigger and we're going to do condition conditions allow it to be under certain conditions makes sense right you can have it be the first time in a measure or the first time it comes around and does that my favorites are the percentages so here 33 percent of the time oh you know you can't see it in here I apologize I'll just speak it out so 33 percent of time it will trigger these four right here and let's double-check this 33 33 33 33 so now [Music] cool alright so I'm gonna make it so it's only one measure right now so you guys can see it going across right here and I'm also going to copy this again let me start pasting it everywhere okay so this is 33 again yeah so I'm gonna grab these four right here I'm gonna lower this chain even further like we're gonna go 13% and same thing with these or no these will be like 6% the time it's gonna trigger those and this order these over here lower it so now let's listen that keep in mind that was only one measure you have up to four measures on here I'm not sure if that if it's obvious what type of power is available in that but I just created a one bar sequence that had a generative capabilities I made it so it always has that bump bump in the middle or in the beginning that I literally just took the same sample pitched it up I could grab a different sample and they could be in there I played it like four rate bars or something like that and it had this variation and changed I was going on and to me when I hear stuff like that I'm Amelie inspired because I feel like the Machine is talking to me or giving me feedback in ways that I wouldn't necessarily expect one of the coolest things about the electron way is that you can every one of the electron boxes is set up this way and so once you learn how to do that with this stuff you're good to go you know how to do it so you need to keep in mind that there is a four bar total limit when it comes to this stuff and per track you can have a total of four bars based on the subdivision that you've chosen and that's typically going to be a sixteenth note so if you're at 105 BPM for bars you can have each one of these is gonna be a sixteenth note you can change that though if you go into the options here this was an update that showed up sometime in 2018 this for me was actually a game changer because a lot of times I like to program a pad on the mini channel so we'll get to the mini channel soon I'll have those chord changes on the downbeat for the pads and a lot of the times I wanted to do it more than just for bars so what I had to do is go into conditional triggers and say on the first round do this chord on the second round do this chord and while that was a hack and it didn't work it was kind of a pain in the ass now what you can do with the the update they did in 2019 is change the base time for these to be eighth notes quarter notes what if you want or even like 32nd notes if you want to cut it even quicker that at least affords you the capability of having to say eight bars twelve bars sixteen bar chord progressions happen with this format and setup now I know in contrast to the MPC one it's kind of crazy to think that you're limited and that kind of weight because the MPC you can have whatever length of whatever's whatever sequencer links and all that and it's not going to so I'm going to throw you any kind of problems whatsoever yeah I can change that kick drum to be able to have four pages right there if you make a generative piece out of one bar imagine what you could do with four bars right does take more time to program but it's not that difficult to actually get that going you can also live program stuff as well or live change stuff so let me do the stuff again I'm gonna live record the overdrive for one bar the overdrive is getting increased like that with Ziggy tag that tells you if you have yellow highlights right here that means that there is essentially automation information now the automation is not highly detailed it is per track so you're not gonna get really nice sweeps and all that in contrast the MPC one you're gonna be able to draw in specific automation curves and all that so all in all the the sequencer in my opinion is superior to the MPC one there's more flexibility with the MPC one and you like I said you can do automation curves and you don't have any kind of limits whatsoever of bars and all that but when it comes to sheer creativity and speed I feel like the sequencer really wins on this another reason why I say that about the attacks is the way it's set up is a of eight channels up top you also have eight channels of MIDI below as well so you can have each one of the bottom tracks right here be a MIDI channel that gets and you can program your MIDI gear that way and it's it's really handy it's nice so and it's super quick again just go here so you can change the channel I can say whoops well let's say channel 1 or 6 or whatever you can change banks on there another quick way of working is I can just go into record mode I can hold the trigger and then I can play a chord and it will know that chord goes to that trigger there is a limit up Lifan ii when it comes to dig attacked and again this is another strange limitation if you're comparing apples to oranges here but in practice and reality and from producing two records so far I did not have an issue with it at all if an instrument needed more voices I could always just throw it on to another track if it needed it because I did not use all eight tracks every time usually was a bass pad lead maybe alternate pad or like some sort of weird sprinkle type of thing and if I needed to throw another MIDI track in there than I would and usually if I found myself needing more than four notes I actually reconsidered the arrangement be like do I really need to put more notes than this or should something else support it that way and that was actually interesting way of approaching something producing so the 4/4 note polyphony while it's strange I didn't actually affect me that much and again it's really cool just be able to go in grab the trigger play the chord got it and then you can go in and actually like affect it the same trigger condition type of stuff can happen on the MIDI channels as well so that is super cool and they also get elbows associated with them so you can LFO MIDI CC values and all that I didn't do that too often personally but you can which is really nice another caveat though is that after touch and modulation was not translated when you play through the dig attacked each other devices and that could also be a big deal breaker for some people I do realize that and I want you guys to fully be aware that you're not gonna be able to save that information you can fake it and going into the CCS and record automation information per track again it's not going to be smooth curves it's gonna be stepped information so if you were thinking oh man I could just record all my automation data into that MIDI track not gonna happen yeah unfortunately not it didn't affect me too much stuff because most of the time I was actually live automating things when we're recording so again it's one of those things where it kind of makes you it makes you choose on how much you're gonna be affecting it and there was nothing a few times where I set up like CC information to be able to adjust filters directly on the dig attacks as it was being played so I can do some of the stuff or switch back and forth so it gives you some great live options right there but it's not going to again it's not gonna replace your dog just straight up that's not gonna happen and in my opinion the electron sequencer is extremely powerful and a definite Pro in fact I believe it's the only thing that the MPC one does not have technically that is probabilistic triggers I'm pretty sure the NBC one cannot do what I did with that one bar measure right there I know this is like work around so you can potentially do to get it to simulate that type of stuff but it's not gonna be true probabilistic type of stuff that you can do on the Diggy tact and also the speed at what you do on the Diggy tech it's just insanely fast you're just like oh boo boo boo done oh yeah you can also do reach riggers - I didn't show you guys that but if you want to do like triplets and all that you can't actually do that on the sequencer I know the NPC one is great for that for being a live you know you just hold a note repeat you can choose your repetition like 30 seconds triplets and then just hold down the hats all night like that's one of a great thing in the APC one I do like that you can simulate that stuff in the attack it's a little bit more difficult though and like I said you have to go into a menu so not as intuitive but but it's still there and it gives you the option so another thing that I want to mention is that the the functionality of the Diggy tact is right in front of you they are organized in a way that gives you the quickest access possible to the information that's being served to you from the dig attacks so you can create really quickly and I really appreciate that about the the dig attack it's part of that electron way where there's complex as this is with all the information that's in there it's actually pretty straightforward what they give you in the options whereas the NPC one in my opinion is pretty complicated because you have you do have quite a bit of knobs and dials and all that stuff but in order to have the full access to everything that's happening in the MPC platform with software you have to be jumping through the menus and you have to be relying on being able to touch certain things on the on the screen I know the majority of the stuff is technically available on the buttons and that's one of the great things about the NPC one is there's more buttons it's got the most buttons out of all of them and they do all connect and relate that way sooner or later you have to interact with the touch screen so in my opinion I don't personally like interacting with a touch screen that often I have to use at the NPC screen to do certain things or at least it feels that way it doesn't feel like I can basically fly blind so in terms of design philosophies I really feel like the dig attack wins on that side because it's everything is there and it's relatively straightforward and there's little like shortcuts and things that get you there quicker which is super smooth there is definitely shortcuts and again the platform is deeper on the NPC one so you have to keep that in mind but there is a lot of mini diving just straight up like if you want to use any of the plugins like its menu dev city but that's that's the trade-off the UK with so much flexibility how do you put like a hundred plugins into a device and not have a touchscreen involved like you have to at that point and so the dig attack like if you were about 100 effects of plugins in the dig attack it'd just be strange it wouldn't fit so that's part of the pros and cons those it's a pro and a con all at the same time so yeah there's definitely menu diving in navigation we have to do with the screen but it's nowhere near as limited when it comes to the sequencing and sound manipulation all that as the detectives effect I'm sure that some people who are barely researched the dig attack and you're just now finding out that you only have four bars free patterns there must be a little bit of a strange concept I should mention that you do have access to all these patterns so you have eight banks of 16 patterns so you do have quite a bit so you can go you hit bank I mean you can say like I want d so I'm in bank dealing hit 401 so I have 16 patterns in Bank D each pattern has a potential of four bars total now obviously each pattern has their own channels and all that you can have different MIDI channels on each pattern you can have different sounds in the pattern as well for the channels but it does share a 128 sample pool for the project you can load up a lot of projects I don't know how many specifically but you can load up a lot and I believe it's limited to the amount of RAM or local disk space that's on there which I think it's a game or something again not a lot but when you're just doing mono samples it's actually fine for what it's doing again you're not throwing in like a 3-minute song and cutting it up and dig attacks that's not its purpose its purpose is grabbing like these one shots or like little snippets and stuff and sequencing it together like the sequencer really is the the showstopper my comes to the attacked yeah sixteen patterns per Bank eight banks total that gives you an idea of what's possible in each project and again you can make a ton of projects you can actually string together patterns so you can have like pattern one two three play like sequentially but you can't save that information that dig attacked so if you go to a show turn on your digging tank and want to recall that pattern chain that you saved you can't do that you have to reach trigger it every time you have to hold down the patterns in a particular style like that and then just say it's gonna play the chain it will never save that information and that might come in the in a future update like a song mode update I know a lot of people requested that so with all that functionality and being able to sequence MIDI devices or hardware devices and all that obviously that's all in the MPC one and it actually works out really well I do like it set up for this what I typically do is I'll have when we're doing a jam I'll have the the track mute page open so I can trigger stuff on and off and this is basically how I have it set up to be able to trace stuff so I'll be like you know bass drums some sort of keys a pad and some weird lead sound maybe some samples means voice samples or something like that it's a really convenient way to setting it up and it's similar to what I do on the detach when we're jamming I have detected mute mode and all these are technically the channel is on or off so these first four channels they're off now now they're on so it's same type of thing I'm here I can do this one little grip though is when it comes to the attack it's extremely responsive because there's no velocity on these pads forgot to mention that there's no velocity in the bets you can always go in in just the velocity later the pads in the APC 1 are responsive but sometimes don't really respond without being really somewhat aggressive and I know you can adjust velocity curves in the hardware maybe I need to go in and do more of that if you guys have any recommendations on or maybe a video on the best way to just velocity curves for MPC products I'd love to see it so I don't know if you guys have something like that but a little gripe is sometimes it'll miss on here and the detect like it doesn't like I can be like this and sometimes it just he doesn't grab it so I don't know if that's a software bug or it's just me being weird yeah when it comes to n-b-c 2.8 that was recent that came out it's this becomes very powerful for being able to just quickly throw all your gear together you could have all your gear set up on like these 16 pads right here and be able to mute the stuff on and off and with that flexibility comes B need to program all of it so you have to go in dig in and be very selective about the software and you have two menu dives like I said there's things in here where you're definitely gonna have to dive to the menus and you have to dot your i's and cross your T's because you will forget stuff and be like why does that not work in and you're digging into the menu and you're like oh that's why that's not working because I didn't set up properly whereas dig attacks is pretty straightforward right away you plug in your MIDI stuff and you're good to go now another feature the NPC one panas I think is a real game changer is the CV ounce I think this is brilliant you have four pairs of CV gate outs and all that and you can sequence them directly in the NPC and it's super super simple you just literally click CV and you can choose the type for the notes last note highest note lowest note if you're playing a chord you can choose the CD port one through eight and then you can choose the gate ports one through eight you got CV you got a gate right there you can even set up on modulation wheel out right there you like modulation wheel number three and you can also set up velocity as well we'll go to gate four so there it is you have pitch gate modulation and a velocity all set up good to go on four ports right there I think that is incredibly slick if you have modular gear you pick up an NPC one it opens up quite a bit of possibilities for you it might be thinking the digger tank is getting left them dust and by itself it is getting less than dust but if you buy an extra device for like a hundred bucks you can actually augment it some capabilities the see video CD I have cables already plugged into it because it's kind of a pain this is a pretty slick device powers up via 9 to 12 volt DC and you can program it on a website to tell it how you want to set up and you just go MIDI in you can even have the eighth to Jack eighth Jack minion right there and what you get access to is a bunch of gates and see the information modulation information while you do have eight ports with the NPC one if you were to have a device like this then technically you have 16 yeah you have 16 ports right there so you have ABCD 4cv information control voltage and then you have a crapload of gates and other options on there so if you do go with this you technically have more options and you could also even hook this up into the NPC one for more flexibility because what I have right here this is these are technically drum triggers for my own for my modular and that's why I didn't unlock these because it's kind of a pain to blow in and out so when I do hook this up to the the trigger I just go in a side reading some device just jackie and all the triggers right there and then it's good to go i've used this on few genomes can remember how me specifically with the detect you know worked out super smooth this is definitely a great solution if you are considering using the dig attacked with modular gear like super smooth capability you can have a clock out on this also i forgot one of these visit clock outs so clock out then drum triggers and then cv stefan all that I mean obviously probably to use drums in the deep tech but it's nice to be able to trigger jeweler drums from time to time and again it runs about 100 to 150 bucks so keep that in mind if you are thinking about them so how about performance tools like filter sweeps and effects and all that type of stuff the NBC one has a dedicated XY interface right here and as you can see it says insert XY program you get an insert and then you can also set this up so you can do like beat repeat on one access but you can change all this stuff too so I'd be like phaser delay yeah these are all technically free sets so you'll change the stuff on the y-axis usually the y-axis is gonna be something like cutoff or resonance or feedback or something this is it's very like DJ tool ish if you're looking for something like that so if you want to take the NPC platform like the MPC one are alive to a club and if you already have a full-on sequence or an arrangement set up you're gonna be able to let it fly solo for a bit and mess with the XY feature on there on contrast the deke tank does not have anything like that whatsoever but it does have something that's different which is cool three jacks is more of like a creative sound design type of thing pattern a this one yeah yeah so let's go save pattern if you hold it at the track button to be able to manipulate all this stuff so [Music] and reload so what is happening right there when you if this is like a one of these shortcut things on Digg attacks when you hold the track button it's saying that all eight tracks are going to get affected by whatever you change while holding that button first thought is you're gonna destroy everything right Oh something that I didn't mention which is worth mentioning right now the way this saves information is it's all real time it's like directly saved to the hardware so whenever you make a change on there if you turn off the electron gear and then load of background it's going to recall where it was where the state that it was that which is super handy and also super dangerous because if you used to that and you start doing that other gear you're going to lose a bunch of information but in order to commit something saying like this is technically the pattern and if I ever wanted to recall it this is what it would be you go function and then yes the state pattern so it's that safe pattern now so I can now reload that pattern in any given time function and know which says reload pattern that means it's gonna pull from that memory and completely restore everything obviously you can save projects as well but again it's technically saving in real time so the only time will actually be overwritten or lost is when you write over it so the track ability sort of goal let's use the filter on there [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] so that gives you a taste the NPC one cannot do that just straight up effect I'm pretty sure if I'm wrong about that obviously let me know in the comments but I don't think there's any functions in there too broadly change everything all at once like that and I'll admit it's not exactly the most useful global effect if you're doing live performance type of stuff and it's more like I said a DJ set clearly the NPC 1xy feature is gonna be what you want that's that's just straightforward it's bread and butter type of stuff but if you want to make some really like creative type of leaps into places that are gonna make you uncomfortable then the detect is is right up your alley you want to get uncomfortable D tags where it's up but in terms of a traditional look filter suite or cutoff or saturation type of thing it doesn't technically have that for the master effects it does have the the compressor and it is a good compressor but you're not gonna get some sort of tube distortion transformer push out of it or anything like that so you do have to hook up something else like the analog heat and in my opinion electron analog heat is a fantastic device and both of these devices benefit dramatically from having a hook to the two bus because just having a device off to the side that you can control filter on so you can automatically sweep off the top or throw some extra bite with distortion is going to benefit both of these boxes they're both going to love getting an extra distortion or filter stuff from the analog heat and it works with over bridge too and we'll get silver bridge in I think the NBC ones in terms of global performance type of stuff that being said if you are doing live arrangement type of things where you're messing with stuff and then kind of performing your arrangement then I don't think this XY tool is very useful because it takes up the screen you can't you have to switch to it every single time so you definitely do shift like this to switch in and out now you can obviously latch this if you want to like stay right there and go to your things it's just a feel like there's quite a bit of juggle on there so if you're in the track view for muting stuff like if I want to mute these tracks it didn't actually meet that one why you do that in music so if you let's say you want to do that like if you go into the XY say it's it doesn't hold on to that maybe there's a setting in the software that it tells it to is stick to whatever pad thing you're on but I find that personally annoying because I'd really like to be able to do the XY effects right here and bring stuff in and out via the pads and it doesn't appear that that's possible which is a shame I think it's time to talk PC integration with these boxes so let's talk the attack first electron over bridge software it became a bit of a meme for a while there because I felt that it just wasn't gonna come out they when these boxes came out they originally advertised over bridges the solution where you gonna be able to connect it up to your PC and do magic with it alright all these things are gonna become available you're gonna be like whoa how is that possible and then a year or two went by and nothing well it finally came out of beta and so it's official over bridge 2.0 release that is stable and I dunno it's been stable for a while and I know people have been using it technically but recently with the 2.0 that came out I checked it out and over Ridge is actually really freakin cool stand-alone audio interface version that's cool and all but when you look at it as the plugin of overbridge and being able to loaded up into something like Ableton Live which is what I do overbridge opens up a huge amount of possibilities because as it is right now you have a left and a right output on the Diggy tact and that is limiting obviously you have eight channels on here sometimes you want access to say two channels and they can they could be affected completely separately and you want to get around this problem of only having these to send effects on here overbridge is your solution basically it gets treated as a VST plug-in and your Dom so you go into Ableton you load it up and then you'll be able to see it the plug-in interface and it controls I believe in many 9% of the features that are in the dig attack and this goes for the Diggy tone be analog rhythm and the analog for I highly recommend you guys check it out if you do have these devices selling Ableton you'll be able to send each individual track to its own routing if you prefer or you can just have the standard output come through the channel on on Ableton and the other really smooth thing is you just plug in one USB cable so just boom USB cable and they're playing your PC and you're good to go you do not have to configure any audio information for it to work properly inside Ableton when you already have an audio interface hooked up I personally have ammo to eight to eight yes and that's my main audio interface and so that's what Ableton looks at and when I use the VST plug-in for the dig attack to dig down or anything like that it just treats it as a VST plugin so smooth so I'm able to get all eight channels out of there and I can record them separately I can affect them separately and I can also route them out the outputs of the MOTU and then affect them separately via hardware I can set them each to individual guitar pedals and then round them back into my board a for additional processing and all that what's nice is you can just plug in via one USB cable you have all that information routed right there you got the audio you got MIDI all that it's taken care of and it's existing cohesively with other audio interfaces and not having through some weird hoops another thing as well that's really nice is the clocking ability with over bridge enabled is super solid so if you go into Ableton and turn off the clock in the MIDI interface in the Ableton MIDI panel turn off clocking for a detach on that make sure clock and transport is on in the overbridge plug-in and then it's a solid BPM like it does not waver another super smooth feature of over bridge when you're in the plugin interface is you can actually go into the factory sounds on here and you can actually browse them like a normal VST plugin and just audition stuff you can drag and drop it into these channels on here the only caveat that I've found so far is it does introduce 50 or so milliseconds to delay into the audio engine so it's not light on the engine when you load up into a / bridge plugin so you do have to work around that somewhat but it's just a really smooth workflow if you do have over bridge set up and use something like Ableton I find it extremely fun and also fixes a lot of my problems with the attacks when it comes to effects being able to process things separately and what if I want to record individual tracks by themselves all that like it just it basically solves all that the cavea is that i have to have that booked up to a QC but i could also do all the work on detect somewhere else and then bring that to a pc and break out all the stuff easily and not have to worry about are i need to mute this and now hit record and i meet that hit record i can literally just load up all eight tracks how i want and then hit record and then we're done and when the recording end mess with stuff and do some weird like sound design and shaping so again like smooth super smooth and it works also many other products the Dinkytown analog heat the analog rhythm in the analog for so in my opinion overbridge top-notch really like the integration now let's talk MPC software unfortunately I did not have a smooth of an experience with the MPC software in fact I wasn't even sure if I owned the MPC software for a while there I thought I had to spend an extra 200 bucks there to get the MPC software because I couldn't really find anywhere on the webpage that said if you own an empty you own the software so I was like huh so I ended up downloading the trial first initially to clarify yes you do own at the npc software if you register your your NPC one what you have to do is you go into your panel you register it and then you scroll all the way down is a whole bunch of stuff in there and the primary get registered products and you'll see NPC 2.8 and believe I mean I'm confusing myself as I talk about it yeah you scroll down you see NPC 2.8 and then it says get serial do you like get serial so that's how you get a copy of MPC software if you own the device it's so convoluted I thought I had to spend 200 bucks on it i legit thought i was like damn I bought the hardware so before I realized I actually owned it I did do the trial so I had downloaded it load it up and then I lock I log is a security encryption type of key tool that I personally don't like but to find it super annoying anytime a software company wants you to jump through hoops to license their software when like pirates if they really want to pirate something they're gonna crack it anyways so it's like you're making me a consumer like pain customer have to jump through hoops to go through that stuff so I personally don't like I log cuz I've had problems in the past I can look past it but just won't let you guys know moving on that load of the software then I go in the MPC and in in order to do that I think you go menu and you click on NPC right here and it'll say whoops yeah don't save it will say looking for computer so it can become a controller and now we're super smooth so on the MPC software it loads up and it looks very familiar to what you get on on these on the setup right here and a lot of the controls and functions are laid out in like a Windows style and it seems very straightforward yeah that's cool it works like this basically becomes a glorified controller for the MPC software and keep in mind this is all up to date as well I'm on 2.8 I tried this on 2.8 so once all that's working I'm thinking okay let's load up a jam that I did and see a little in computer because what I'd like is to be able to send out those tracks into multiple outputs or separate stems like I would with the dig attack with overbridge because that's in my opinion one of the big powers of it in fact my biggest gripe right now at the NBC one is not being able to have multiple outs if I could hook up a separate audio interface great if it came with additional outputs that'd be awesome too and I know with the line or the live - those have four additional outs but it's also nearly twice the amount of money so it's like an extra five hundred bucks or so five six hundred bucks if I went towards the a live - so that's kind of defeating the purpose of some of this so I digress though what I want to do is load up the software and then be able to utilize multiple outs from that okay like that's the logical goal so jump to the software and I go in to browse and I notice it's only showing me my PC hard drives like okay well where's the NBC one stuff so I'm searching and none of it is showing up the internal hard drive thing PC one is not showing up on a PC nor the SD card is showing hub which I find super strange like you're not gonna reveal the SD card when I plug it in via USB all right what is this an oversight as a bug I don't get it so I google it and it seems other people are having the exact same issue and I couldn't get a clear understanding if this was how its intended to where you're you have to basically plug in a separate hard drive via the USB and then jockey the data back and forth or you know hook up the SD card into a SD card reader so that involves me unplugging that what kind of a SD reader if I don't have one already and putting into the computer that way like if those are the hoops that I have to go through in order to transfer a project then I'm already demotivated from this process because it in my opinion the cool thing is being able to take a project to and from easily write like you if you want to start on the MPC one I mean you want to test some stuff on the PC or maybe grab a couple things and then bring it back to the MPC one that would be a great workflow right well it does not seem easy at all unless you have it unless you have a few extra peripheral setup right there the other bridge everything connects in accesses the data on the attacks immediately like it's all on there all the patterns you're not having some weird like now it's on a PC type of thing the attacks is controlling the overbridge software and it's emulating and digging attack or something like that know is all still existing on the dig attacked and the over bridge is making a communication channel or portal ever that allows you to see what's happening on the hardware I was really hoping the NPC one was gonna be that way or the Pillai brand ECX whatever it does not appear that way it seems that the MPC software exists on the PC and that doesn't allow you to use the vs seasonal that but it kind of defeats the purpose for me because if I'm gonna load up a PC I'm going Ableton Live just straight up like it's gonna be in Ableton Live and I know that the MPC software can exist as a plugin inside of Ableton Live if I have to transfer the project to my PC every time I want to use it inside Ableton line but when I like if I'm doing some stuff and I bring it over to a studio like a new studio and working or something like that and then I have to transfer that data to that PC that's already a pain in the ass like I know it seems kind of silly to be like oh you're making me jump through these hoops right now and because like all this technology is offering so much incredible potential already but when I know that these other devices transfer data via USB are just the sheer fact of revealing the storage devices on the PC by plugging in the USB connector like that alone makes me go huh really like why why can't you just expose that so I can then easily access those things on these devices so that's in my opinion is a big strike it's a big inconvenience because when you're in the middle of a creative spark anytime you have to suddenly go get a hard wood drive or some sort of adapt sure and get pack your PC but then in whatever anytime that's happening that's creating road bumps in my opinion to getting the job done again it would've been so cool if you could just plug this in and a technically acts as all the information is on the NPC one you have access to it directly in the MPC software and loaded up as a plug-in on Ableton Live I that would have been super smooth but unfortunately that's not it it's nice to have the option in case you do make a extremely complex project on here and you need to transfer it to break down the individual stuff so you do have the option at least it's out of these two if you were looking at it from a software standpoint I think overbridge knocks out the park and is incredibly intuitive and interesting in addition to whatever you already have going on on the PC if you don't have a Dom then you do get MPC software and I haven't done a lot of work with it I know some people really do like that software so you do technically get a dog in addition to a piece of hardware that can act as a controller and if you are looking for that then that's technically a $700 solution and when you compare other things like Ableton isn't exactly cheap and if you were to be able to push the push to and that's pretty expensive controller so I think Ableton labs a better DOM personally and I'd rather produce music in Ableton Live but if you're new and meetha meetha dawn want to use something like the MPC live or the MVC one with MPC software then that totally works so that is technically a good solution if you're starting up and on top of that you do get an audio interface as well if you were to get Ableton push 2 you would not have a audio interface but then you'd have to buy that separately so as an all-in-one solution with the software the audio interface all that it's actually pretty attractive but the the data back and forth Falls pretty flat so I guess you can't have everything right also if you consider either these devices for the audio interface aspect do keep in mind you still need a preamp or a DI to be able to get instruments into them because they're line level inputs on there they're not they're not microphone level inputs or they're not instrument level inputs you have to have something to convert the signal into the proper line level signal for these devices to communicate with that personally I have a Mac II off to my son that route so I audio and stuff so you can use something like that but there's lots of options out there but you do need to keep that in mind if you're thinking about this strictly as a audio interface with the additional features and all that so yeah final thoughts on PC integration over Bridge super smooth if you already have Ableton Live or something like that then I think it's the perfect integration option if you don't have a dog I mean MPC 1 is a full-fledged op or the MPC software in general so that brings us to the what do you need for the bucks question are you looking for a complete dog to create produce arrange and finish your projects the NPC software and platform will give you pretty much name 5 percent of the way there actually 100 percent technically the digger tax is not a dog it's great for sketching ideas it's great for doing arrangements it's great for being the hub of your studio if you have a lot of gear already that need the sequencing fact it's pretty much my go-to sequencer if I'm not planning on doing any additional sampling like it means wants to do harmony vocals on something that's gonna be technically a jam the NBC one is great for that like just straight up you can do eight bars twelve bars sixteen bars or just four bars whatever you it's not controlled or limited NPC one wins on that side I'm just looking to sequence stuff really quick or get going super fast and dig attack wins right there do you want two hands on the creation tool that you'll eventually bring it to you in line for Pro Tools either one is gonna be fantastic at this the NPC one will have the most flexibility but the dig attempt will spark the most creativity personally I make beats differently on each device it's just the workflow helps facilitate certain creative experiences and motives and that's really what I like about these two devices the electron sequencer is just going to make different ideas than the MPC sequencer and the NBC sequencer I didn't show that in here but like it has its way about it I personally don't think it's as comfortable as the dig attacks that might just be the fact I haven't worked with it enough but it's not the first thing that I reach for if I'm thinking like simple sequencing or quick and easy sequencing usually I like to record stuff in it and then I find you do adjust some stuff in here I can again it's just you you have so much touchscreen interaction that happens with the NPC one that you're either gonna like that or not the MBC screen I find myself kind of like fiddling a lot that being said a double gets the job done building beats with the dignity and then bring it in with overbridge in Ableton Live is really awesome so that if you're doing beats strictly and then finishing stuff in Ableton Live it man the diggit act really does a great job with that are you looking strictly for a sampler between these two the NBC one is going to win right here I mean the sampling capabilities and the fact that it's stereo you can save it to an SD card you can have tons of sample information you're gonna just an insane amount loaded up in any given time it's gonna win but on the flip side the Diggy tact is super quick on it so you just go into sampling mode and you're automatically off to the races to being a little cup stuff and save it directly to these voices it's going to be more of a simpler version of the stuff but simple isn't bad and sometimes simple can be technically more creative are you looking for a portable be making device no neither of these have a built-in battery I know the MPC live 1 & 2 have built-in batteries but they're also a lot more expensive so both of these definitely have to be powered up the dig attack is 2/3 of the size of NBC 1 so technically it's the most portable and can fit in a backpack relatively easy I think they have both about the singing weight I could totally look on the website for this but I'm gonna do it this way yeah they feel pretty similar the dig attack feels like metal and the NBC one has more plastic I think but in terms of actual portability like if that's really what you're looking for I think something like an OPC would be better technically I mean you could sample with it you can sequence stuff you are limited on the sounds that you have but that's like insanely portable it's like a little remote-control type of thing yeah I'd say between these two the most backpack friendly is gonna be a take tact and honestly I think if I was sitting on like a train or something like that I think I'd prefer to have the exact anyway it's like the the workflow just screams this is how you do it get to the point quickly whereas I would be deep diving into menus on the NPC one um you know setting like that that's how I feel about that in speaking of menu diving both of these technically have menu diving scenarios that happen and especially if you go into like the actual settings of the big attack and all that like you're gonna there's some things that definitely require some menu diving but that being said the NPC one is the most like you're gonna be menu diving for normal things most of the time again any time you're doing effects or if you're gonna be doing any kind of editing on stuff you're gonna be jumping through menus and you're gonna be going through dialogues and saving stuff and going on here type in for naming stuff and all that so I think in terms of layout and user friendliness I do think the dig attacked once you learn the dig attacked is the most user friendly and quick and that's why I set like that train comparison if you are out in public on a train or something like that I think that would be the most comfortable personally if you did have a power source so the other day I think of the dig attack as an instrument sequencer beatbox sampler all in kind of that order it definitely feels like an instrument you know it has a certain feel and thing that emotes out of it the NBC one can do all those things and it really excelled all that stuff too so in picking one of these devices which one is the correct choice I think the correct choice is both man you're creating to be in the do tank with all the performance triggers you know you're creating generative measures and stuff is like changing every eight bars all that stuff and then you sample that directly to NPC one you chop it up yeah morph it you twist it you make a beat out of that and then you send some of that information back in the dig attacked you start pitch shifting bit crushing all that and then doing more sequencing can you start being a larger being of that in terms of raw and inspiration the de tact is going to spark creativity right away and in terms of being able to organize ideas and put it down in a way that makes sense the NPC one is going to excel at that so when you have both of those options going back and forth it's actually a really great set up I mean you can make some really cool sounds out of this and then sample it directly into the instrument sampler and then be able to play that polyphonically in the NBC one and you can control it all via the USB Middies type of stuff that's hooked up in there so on that note I apologize if I just gave you more gear acquisition syndrome my apologies and that's it for this video guys I really hope that I gave you some useful information that can help you decide if you have it on the fence of either one at the end of day if you're into music gear usually you're probably gonna have both at some point and I know some people like the diggie tank and they don't didn't same thing with the MPC platform and all that if you have thoughts and the stuff I'd love to hear it in the comments so leave a comment means and I always read all the comments as well so if you do have any thoughts on our stuff we're always open for discussions and we love talking about music if you liked the video make sure to hit the like button and if you haven't subscribed to the channel yet make sure to hit the sub button ring the bell all this stuff we got more content coming more jams and more gear discussions and all that really enjoying enough making the style of content for you guys if you want to go even further on supporting the channel you can always check out our music on Bandcamp and stream records on Spotify and follow us on Twitter Instagram Facebook all those places see you next time for another video deuces [Music] we don't have to worry about the day we got each other we got each other got each other [Music]

Channel: Tefty & Meems

Views: 67,925

Keywords: MPC One, Akai, Digitakt, Elektron, beat making, review, discussion, comparison, MPC 2.8, Overbridge, Ableton Live, producing, music production, gear, teft, teftyteft, mimi & teft

Id: vWTSOMq88w4

Length: 62min 22sec (3742 seconds)

Published: Fri Jun 12 2020

Reddit Comments

[u/teftyteft]

Hello! Did a comparison of the Digitakt and MPC One and how my workflow differs between both devices.

Cheers!
Tefty

[u/the_real_davenull]

Hey brother, I didn’t even know the MPC one was a thing until I saw your video on the USB midi a couple of weeks ago. I was immediately floored by what I can do, and hunted one down as quickly as I could. It is absolutely incredible, I replaced ableton nearly entirely with that one box. It runs all my synths, triggers program changes on them, switches the drum brute program, and allows me to set up entire sets in minutes without having to worry so much. I can crack out a track in a couple hours whereas producing in ableton took me days, and I have the added bonus of being able to play the songs live without any additional effort.

I will be following you on your channel forever now, you really inspired me to remake my musical presence and it has been fantastic so far. You and your partner are awesome to learn from.

[u/walterhannah]

I like the idea of the MPC workflow, but after all these videos on it I can’t justify buying one when There’s so much overlap with what I can do with Ableton. However, the more I read/watch about the probabilistic triggers and parameter locking in the elektron sequencer I really want one. I like how you demonstrated that here. I’m one step closer to pulling the trigger on a model:cycles.