The competition - Akai

And if the flagship ish is dope, I would gladly pay for it without hesitstion.

 

replace your ren what?????
this is a most perplexing situation. I was gonna brush my shoulders off on principle but now you have intrigued me to no end. I must put hands on this and see what it do...

 

for the right beatmachine price is of no consequence

 

This is truly the only way to decide. For me, outside of dedicated buttons that I love, there is nothing that the MPC Ren provides that can't be accomplished on a Touch.

However, if Akai comes out with a bigger model everyone is hoping for....I will have to find the Touch a new home.

This is an exciting time for those of us that love to create our own music. I believe these companies are listening to user feedback more than ever. They are also looking at out doing one another. This is a win-win for us.

I bought the Push2 mainly because I see it as an alternative to an MPC. But as I learn it, I take notes to send to Akai to say...."hey...my MPC would be awesome if he could do this."

 

I'm going to see if I can try one out tonight, this dude does not seem that enthusiastic about his though, nobody looks like they are having fun.

 

sadly i do agree; i think the laggyness needs to be addressed but yeah dude dont look to hyped

 

lag on a touch screen is not a good thing but I don't think the lack of enthusiasm with all of these videos is do to screen lag, they don't seem to be that jazzed about the workflow, and they always talk with allot of pauses like rest notes where they are silently saying wtf or something. I hope it feels just the opposite though, I always want to like a beat machine that comes out no matter who makes it.

 

I know Hellfire. He is not going to be giddy like a little girl in the video. smh

He gave an honest assessment and actually likes the Touch. While he doesn't believe it replaces the Ren (officially...it is not a replacement. Hints at something big are out there). But I believe it easily replaces the MPC Ren for what I like.

While the Ren has dedicated Mode buttons for which give you one tap access to a specific set of modes...you have to navigate the 30 year old Display with cursor buttons. So the 1-2 seconds you lost from using the Touch's Menu based system...you more than make up for it with the speed of navigating params on the touch screen. Touch and adjust vs tab around the display and tap a button.

The lag of the touch screen can be improved but it really isn't that bad. Pay attention to the video. If you look closely, working in certain ways with the touch is less effective then using the available hardware controls. Why would I try to zoom and add a non-accurate slice with my finger tip when I can dial in a specific location with the Data Dial then tap a button to accurately place a slice?

 

fair enuff some peeps are understated even if something is dope so i hear that; far as replacing the ren this dude agrees with your assessment

 

FYI for people curious, skip to 13 minutes in for that part...

 

Man I bet you wanna make that maschine purchase lol.

 

Yeah. Just watched the video. Pretty much the same assessment as far as navigating around the Touch.

 

I honestly like it, and also like the UI a lot. I'm scared about that lag, but considering the LCD is like a second monitor to your computer, I believe that's why it has the lag. Although I've noticed that finger touch inputs don't lag. It's just the speed of the LCD Update that's annoying.

I've wrote to Pete (one of the devs) on Twitter and I was suggesting they declutter the UI of the desktop client also. The guy who designed the touch UI did a good job!

I bought the Push 2 in the meantime (they delivered faster ) ) But I like where Akai is going with this. It has a freaking sound card build in. How hard it is for NI to do that? I only need a Line / Instrument input.

 

PS: Remember that at a Microsoft Conference, they've shown a Ren 2 Which had a big touch screen. People said it's a standalone Ren, but after seeing the touch I guess that's the same thing. too bad.

If the touch was a standalone unit too... man that would've been awesome.

 

its weird cos my opinion goes back and forth with this unit but based on the dlpeace vid the touch looks like a good buy when he was scrolling the sample edit it seemed as though there was hardly any lag.

but on andy macks vid there was too much lag; and the hellfire vid the lag was somewhere in between.

So i need to just try the unit out in person for myself

 

I pointed that out earlier.

Tap to select = No lag
Tap and drag an object = You may experience the "lag' everyone is talking about
Tap and field to select then turn the Data Dial or Qlinks = No Lag

 

Use a studio or ren = no lag

 

Those are obvious options. A new product doesn't make the existing products irrelevant.

By the way....I have an MPC Ren for sale as I no longer need it now that I have an MPC Touch.....