The competition - Akai

Bro you speak the truth. The Fantom G is a perfect example. It could have been the best Fantom to date. The stripped it of the Fantom Xs sampling capabilities and dropped support almost immediately. There were no meaningful software updates. On top of that, it couldn't use SRX cards (12 available). Instead they came up with a new ARX card ($400 ea) format..only making 3 of them. WTF! Yes, I am still pissed I invested $2500 for that workstation.

 

never buy a product based on features promised in the future as NI have proved as have Roland; so cant blame the companies for that if an item is not profitable why should they continue to invest in a sinking stock,

 

Yeah that's true Kore 2 was and is a beast, I think the software is much better than the Advance keyboard but the hardware wasn't great, NI definitely dropped the ball with that product. But that's only one product, Roland does it too often.

 

I had already purchased the products before they started making the promises, I think they pulled the plug on too many products before they should have, if Roland would've create Maschine it wouldn't have made it past V1.2
When I bought the Varios it was a cool sampler (not super great) but what made it really cool was that it had built in modules that allowed it to be transformed into a Jupiter 8 or a D50 sound module which was awesome but they made promises of coming out with several more modules and at the time that was great but they dropped the product (ok no problem). I purchased the Roland DS-90 speakers and then they promised some awesome updates with speaker modeling technology (I forget what it was now, it was so long ago) and then they just dropped it. I was on the beta team for Cakewalk for Project 5 and they were getting ramped up for development on version 2.0 and also as a beta tester I was privy to information about a super synth that they were working on that was supposed to really turn heads, around that time Roland bought the company and shut down Project 5 and cancelled the super synth, the developers were pissed. Roland creates great products but supports those products very poorly. IMHO

 

fair enuff but in this above case u was already enjoying the product irrespective of what new features were promised;

 

wow. so it was Roland's idea to cancel Project 5. those bastards! and here, i was angry at Cakewalk for that all these years. i loved me some Project 5.

 

companies are all about that money, but everyone is expecting a new mv series but considering the recent roland boutique and the success of the bos sp range; it may be more of a middle ground product rather than a full blown mv9000.

roland may be better off coming with a mv3000 but if they can apply the analog circuit modelling successfully to simulate the filters, a/d inputs/ outputs as well as the internal signal flow of the sp1200; mpc60 and s950.

**** is all over never mind all the other models they are proposing; so as tempting as the touch looks right now thankfully the unit is available in the uk so that stops the gearlust.

but even if I was to buy now and sell in august Id loose no more than 50 but when that joint comes out in the uk I will try and stay away from the music store.

this year has been a year of gear sluttery, before this I had not brought anything for about 2 or 3 years.

 

Yes you're right I was enjoying the products and I probably wouldn't have gotten upset if they didn't make promises. It's like when you were a kid and your parents promised to buy you something for your birthday and when your birthday comes around they say "we decided not to get it", you're going to be disappointed but if they would have never promised then you wouldn't be expecting it. That's probably a bad analogy.

 

Yep that's what I was told. I thought Project 5 had real potential and with a little bit more love and development I think it could have caught up to Ableton. IMO

 

The MV series samplers were great, I had a friend that had one, I wanted one badly at the time but never bought one. Roland are innovators so I am very curious to see what they bring to the game with their product. With NI, Akai, Ableton, and Roland all competing it only means good things for us consumers, we will continuously benefit from it.

 

but how likely do u think they will continue the mv series?

because that series was discontinued about 3 or 4 years ago; and the market conditions that caused them to pull the plug have not changed that much.

why would they think that the standalone market is now profitable if it was not 3 years ago?

also roland's recent revamp line was the roland boutique range that was super miniature; perhaps that is an indication of where there new market focus is? as they done mini synths and maybe they now seek to try their hand at mini samplers

I think there is a huge market for mini samplers that are standalone and that connect to a pc; considering that roland pioneered the concept with the sp606 they might come with another boss /sp product instead of an mv

 

True, I do not believe it will be an MV series sampler, actually I'm not sure what it will be but Roland is very innovative so I'm sure whatever design or concept they use it will be nice. The Analog Circuit Behavior technology is interesting and if they can make a sampler production unit that has ACB modules that with a press of the button allows you to switch it from a Roland sampler to a modeled 808/809 drum machine to MPC 60 ACB modeled sampler to whatever. This what give it something different from any other sampler drum machine, and if they add a bunch of features that consumers want then they may have a bonafide winner on their hands.

 

Oh come one let's be fair about this. While it was sad to see Kore not get any further updates. NI did update it for 64-bit support before they eol'd it and it's not like the software stopped working or anything. Also on top of that Kore was what $400 bucks or something when ti was sold vs a $3k machine, that Roland dropped the minute they had something else to sell.

 

Oh come on let's be fair, as you say, well dropping support is dropping support, regardless of initial cost of product. regardless of company, and its not as if the Roland products stopped working either!

Every company will & have done this regardless of whom they are, wether it be musical instruments, cars or any other product, when its over, its over. No point bashing one company over another, they are all as bad as each other at doing this.

 

Crossfade/xfade sample from the 4000 and JJOS's
realtime timestretching
Plug In fix for Melodyne (it crashes on scan)
More outs or able to use multiple instances like MPC Essentials.
Chop by pad instead of F buttons.
Drag and Drop audio/midi like Maschine

These are the only things left for me.

 

Yes,but Kore was a product that had several years of support before it was dropped. It wasn't like NI dropped it overnight. They gave everyone fair warning about what they were going to do, gave free soundpacks to all customers, and gave them a crossgrade. So no it's not the same thing. As a kore user, I was disappointed that it got canned but I thought NI did treat the situation fairly if anything.

 

Still dropped thou yes....... In my experience Arturia are the biggest offenders of this....

 

over at the mpc forums they are acting like side chain compression is rocket science, the akai software shouldn't have had this from the start

 

For me, that feature was at the bottom of my list. From the start, I wanted all the legacy MPC features which made me like MPCs to begin with as well as improved sample editing/chopping. MPC Software 1.8/1.9 added most of all the sampling features I desire. Wish these were added 3 years ago.

Side chaining is a feature that I would expect in the future if/when Akai updates the Mixer. The current Mixer doesn't have internal audio routing which would be desirable for side chaining. Side Chaining, IMHO, should be implemented directly from the Mixer Channels (like classic Neve consoles) or by adding Side Chain Inputs directly on the GUI of supported plugins.

Curious to know how everyone else desires Side Chaining to work in an MPC....

 

Side Chain- as simple, flexible, and easy as possible. Not just compression either Side Chain everything.