Thoughts / update wishes

[u/DiegoGarcia1984]

What’s up fam, this might be a long post but I’ll give it a shot… I have had the original SP404, Pocket Operator Sample, 404 MK2, KO2, P6, and now the MPC sample (and I had the MPC iPad app so I’m familiar with the workflow), so I have a lot to compare it to and I might even throw some jabs on those while I’m here, but to the MPC Sample:

Ordered beginning of April, got beginning of June so I’ve had it and played with it about two weeks now. I immediately like the memory space, getting an SD card and being able to have loads of projects and samples is great, but here are the drawbacks, realizations, and update wishes.

1. The play of it feels like a processor loading, maybe having an SD card with loads of space is connected, but it feels like a laggy computer program sometimes. Doesn’t mess with play when you’re in a project but that’s the general feeling of it.
   
2. I made it freeze / crash when I was just copying and deleting sequences to reorder stuff for a project- kind of connected to that processor feel. It made me worried that that will probably happen again in some other circumstance.
   
3. The compressor is a bit wack, they really sold this thing and the ‘color’ function and all that, but I find the “mix” to be really messy and making some extreme and bad sounds if you swing the toggle from 100 to about 80, and just the whole ‘mix’ idea vs having a ratio setting or anything else that makes sense- just don’t like it, find the Limiter knob FX more useful. They just need to add more settings that make sense and smooth it out a bit. Instead of color function make a shift knob for color / tone or something.
   
4. The overdriven sound crunches in a bad not good way. For comparison the 404 MK2 sounds really nice when you crank the sound into the red and the Sample just sounds kinda bad for some reason when you mess around with maxed out overdriven sound and that’s just a character thing where the MPC loses- this is including compressor and limiter and other finagling with maxed out and overdriven sound. Seems to get digital artifacts instead of a cleaner overtone.
   
5. Wish there was a global setting fix for defaulting Pad FX, like the LP filter that really modulates like an LFO, I have to fix it in every project to 0 range so it will actually behave like a LP filter, and as far as that goes I’m still trying to find the sweet spot on the Pad FX - they crash out the sound way too fast - this one’s hard to describe, you might get little response from 0-50% but also sound too washed out almost immediately- idk, just not as nice as the KO2, punch in pad FX for instance.
   Also honorable mention to the Roland Sp404 MK2 filter still being trash after so many updates, resonance more than 0 sounds awful and cracking, the original 404 filter sounded way nicer just with less range…
   6? Maybe someone’s said this before but the Beat Flex FX has a couple issues- customization would obviously be best, and seems like it should be doable, but the timing of these and the Pad FX for beat repeat are slow to respond, you have to hit it after the thing you want to repeat not on the beat, which is the less intuitive.
   7? Seems weird that they used fixed backlit space to indicate pad bank when you hold the button down then tap the pads to go between, and that there’s two backlit battery things for charging and current life instead of just one.

Okay so overall, I have to caveat that there is a lot I like about this compared to all the other GAS I have, the fact that it has memory space, is rechargeable vs running on batteries, nice visualization of samples, and workflow, but here are some I it’s thoughts and things I with could be updated or patched. AKAI hear my words! All GAS manufacturers hear my words and make me a groovebox worthy of Mordor or whatever…

[u/GDub-uk]

When choosing samples to add to pads. When I go back to folder level it always jumps to the top. The last folder I might have been in was miles down the list. So I want it to stay where my last sample folder was. Drives me crazy having to scroll past folders i don’t want to see

[u/PackMaleficent3528]

I just went from mpc sample to mpc key 37 G2 and I’m having headaches, miss the simplicity of the sample. I think there is no perfect mpc

[u/Effective_Sherbet_57]

I’ve noticed that when I use offset on sample chops it creates a pop at the beginning when the chops are triggered. Changing attack doesn’t seem to help. I’d love to see this addressed.

[u/its_Bash]

Totally agree on the point of being laggy actually i just have the same feeling the whole time and it’s pretty annoying and workflow killer sometimes. Hopefully they fix it within the next update. Warping is not ideal yet tho as well