Watch this BEFORE buying MPC LIVE MK 2!! - 5 things to know

hi this is the middle live synthesis and I want to make a quick video about what things you should consider before buying an MPC live and Katie here goes [Music] what's up everyone how you guys doing hope you guys it staying safe in the quarantine isn't writing you crazy I know my quarantine has been pretty productive actually been having fun with my synths hanging out with my daughter with my wife and it's pretty pretty fun this has been a great year for acai and MPC users in general there's a new MPC live mk2 that just came out well new a few months back we have MPC one so good times for NPC users and for people who want to get into it for the first time for the people who already have NPC's it's great because now we get new firmware updates it's really cool when you already have a piece of gear and just start getting free updates so I'm sure there's a lot of people still complaining because there's a few things that they left out but come on honestly it's a free update I mean what's better than that so you just heard about the new NPC's excitement comes up you're filled with gas the thing is if you're new to NPCs which one would you have the MPC live or the MPC one if you want the MPC live do you want the MPC live MK one or is it worth the extra bucks to get the MK 2 I wanted to make a quick video straight to the point what my thoughts are on the MPC live what I want to talk to you about in this video are five things you should know before you get an MPC live mk1 or mk2 especially mk2 this is the video that I wish I had seen before I bought my life and I think I would have bought the ex straight-up if I had seen it or right now I would have bought maybe the NPC 1 I'm not trying to convince you not to buy it I still think it's a wonderful piece of gear but there are things you should know and things you might consider at the end of the video we're gonna do a little roundup and who I think the MPC is really for I'm not being paid by Akai to say any of this this video is sponsored by my day job so one of the main benefits of getting an MPC life is because it's portable right but it's not that portable it's pretty big and it's pretty heavy this is the backpack that I normally use and when I fit the MPC life yes it fit in here but I couldn't take anything else with me this is my other backpack and once again it fit in here and I fit a laptop but nothing else the mk2 is even bigger and even heavier if you're talking portable since this is a portable simple this for me is portable that is what portable means to me with the MPC you're taking your MPC in your backpack but that's the only thing you're taking the MPC live is more of a transportable station but I'm not sure it qualifies for what I want as portable just my two cents on that now consider this the MPC live has a touchscreen so you're not gonna just throw it in your bag so you either have to like wrap it around something or you're probably gonna have a carry case now with a carrying case the one I had for example basically defeats the purpose you're taking around an extra bag and I don't know and my books that's not that portable I guess yeah I mean it's portable you can take it with you but it's kind of a hassle the other thing is this thing is heavy and I'm not talking about like when you're picking out a 15-inch laptop or a 13-inch laptop I'm talking really heavy finally on the portability issue we all have this fantasy of making tunes on a plane or I don't know on a bus or on a train the thing is this thing is pretty big and I tried using it on a plane on a train and on a bus and honestly first it attracts a lot of attention second of all it's pretty wide so if you're on I don't konna me I was bumping into the person next to me which happened to be my wife and she wasn't very happy about it if you're on a bus you're probably not gonna want to take it out anyway because it's gonna draw too much attention and chances are you're not gonna make it out of the bus with your MPC life so you have to ask yourself what does portable mean to you this portal of me is small does it mean light if so I don't think the MPC is up your alley does it mean that you can take it anywhere yeah sure most of us have this like fantasy I personally have it you know of making these sweet tracks on your couch or on your bed and just drifting away and yeah first of all that doesn't happen very often if you live with someone for example your wife you have kids boy girlfriend chances are if you're on the couch or if you're watching TV with them they won't appreciate you making music while you're not talking to them I don't know maybe just me if you have kids bright lights buttons touch screen that's just like moths to a flame I mean kids love MPC they love everything that makes noise and shines so chances are if you have a kid especially a small one you're not gonna be able to do much on this because if you're on the couch your kid's gonna be on the couch with you that's not a bad thing I personally enjoy that pretty much but I'm not gonna buy something just for that so what I want you to think about is do I really get that much time alone on a separate part of the house where I have my couch where I have like this place where I can space out or is it more of a fantasy kind of thing because in my case it's complete fantasy I've never been able to do that okay so all of us have seen lots of youtubers jamming beautiful parks and abandoned train stations the thing is I don't live near any places like that so yeah I have a few places down the block where I could go but the thing is this thing is flashy probably people are gonna notice it and there is a chance I might get mud it's not a very positive thought but I'm not sure I would comfortably whip out $1,200 in a park where I somebody could just take it from annum I don't know about you so when I had the MPC live I never took it to the park I never took it to a place where her basically someone else might want it so what I would recommend is I have a nice long thing talk it over with your pillow and say am I really gonna be able to jam out in the wilderness by myself while a drone films me because I don't have a drone and I don't have wilderness nor abandoned train station so if that's your situation maybe the MPC live isn't that hot do you need that speaker I mean are you gonna go out and jam with people on the outside do you have another speaker do you have a bluetooth speaker because the MPC live does have bluetooth how often do you really need the bad that's pretty important too I thought I needed it and the thing is I live in a city most of the time I can plug in every anywhere planes have electric outlets trains have electric outlets yeah maybe on the bus but as I said before on the bus you're probably not gonna be able to use it comfortably anyway maybe you're different maybe you get to hang out in places where you don't have outlets and that's cool I really wish I could do that too but if that's not the case maybe the battery isn't that important now how do you get the notes inside the MPC live obviously you have the pads now the pads can be either drums or keys you know musical notes and with the new pad performed it really opened it up I mean I really love composing on it now because basically you're always in scale there's no wrong notes and it always sounds amazing whatever you're doing so it's really fun and basically you can waste hours on that but what I want you to think about is that's a two octave keyboard and the feeling of the keyboard is completely different than the feeling of playing on pads so are you mostly a finger drummer or do you like piano style keys if you like pianos and you're like really used to just playing in the notes on a piano you're basically gonna have to buy a MIDI controller and that's another thing you have to fit in your backpack now I used to have the MPC live with the key step the normal one and they didn't fit I had to have different bags for each one and that just blows the portability issue completely and what's more once you have the MPC live hooked up to the key step or maybe a mini lab it gets even bigger so it's not a very portable setup at all it's pretty big actually so considering the size of the MK 2 with a keyboard I think the option of the MTC 1 with a keyboard will be one less expensive and two it's probably gonna be smaller and more portable now what do I mean by this there are people who love composing and making beats on iPads I am NOT one of them personally I like the feeling of knobs and buttons way more than a scream first of all you give the screen really dirty and that just I hate that second about when you're pressing the screen functions you're blocking the text on the screen and that's another thing a pet peeve of mine but more than that it's the muscle memory you can't develop muscle memory on a flat screen what you need are buttons and knobs and you know that this button goes here and this knob does that and it always does kind of the same thing and that's what makes the MPC X for example a completely different product than the MPC live or the MPC one having the knobs everywhere and having a physical button for everything just sped it up way much more than I thought it would and when I bought the live I didn't buy the MPC X because I thought it was overpriced and I really couldn't justify paying that much more money for basically the same software what you have to consider is basically there are two different machines it's like using Ableton with a mouse versus using it within Ableton push and for those of you who have had the push - it's a completely different experience it just speeds it up much more and it's it's much more enjoyable at least for me so not having physical controls was one of the big issues for me why I ended up selling the live now the mk2 has a few more buttons and that makes it I think it's gonna be much more enjoyable also the new 2.8 firmware lets you see what the cue links are doing like with a quick display and I think that was just a great fix on it but you're still limited to those four cue links and each time you press the button the function changes that for me was a huge workflow killer and basically why I stopped using it and that's what made the MPC X a lot more enjoyable so my personal thoughts on this is that having more physical controls like for example the MPC 1 should result in a much better user experience and a faster workflow the last thing I think you should consider before buying an MK 2 is the price tag now I think it's pretty fairly priced I mean it has a speaker it has a battery it's a great piece of kit but with the same money you can buy an MPC one a MIDI keyboard a portable battery a rip cord and a Bluetooth speaker and basically you have a huge set up and it actually cost less you probably already own a portable speaker you might even already own a battery pack so if you think about it what are you really gaining with the MPC Live mk2 besides the speaker and the battery of course if you use the RCA inputs and that's important for you yeah you're pretty much screwed for everyone else I think the MPC one will the battery pack might be a better option if you really want an MPC last thing I want to talk to you about is alternatives I'm not trying to talk you out of an MPC I love the MPC workflow and I think that if you want MPC either the MPC one live or the X are amazing tools you will make great music on them and I personally use the MPC X it's right over there and I love it I use it every day but I think that nowadays there are more alternatives than there were ten years ago notably the deluge I think that's like the closest competitor for me at least because it has synths incorporated it's a sampler it has a looper which is much better than the looper on the MPC the deluge can the dalish deluge the deluge the video the deluge can stream directly from the disk which is something that the MPC users have been asking for since day one and well here's hoping for a firmware a 3.0 if you enjoyed these kinds of videos please click that like button and consider subscribing maybe I'll make a series about these I love talking about gear so if you guys are interested so am I so in closing do I think you should buy the MPC live mk2 well you'd have to be rich single have access to some sort of like a man cave where you can be alone and have no fear of getting mug if you're outside so yeah this is basically Batman's MPC

Channel: The Midlife Synthesist

Views: 51,807

Keywords: mpc, mpc live, mpc live mk II, mpc live mk2, mpc x, beatmaking, akai, akai professional, akai pro, sampler, new gear, music, music producer, mpc 2.8, tutorial, review, mpc live review, mpc one

Id: ofPXNXaEyzE

Length: 13min 2sec (782 seconds)

Published: Sun May 24 2020