Akai Professional MPC Live II – Battery Powered Drum Machine, Sampler and Beat Maker With Speakers, Drum Pads, Synth Engines, Touch Display, and Native Instruments Integration

I came from rack-mount samplers. So the MPC is a steep initial learning curve if you’re new to pads, like me. But learning is made easier because it's an instrument that you will want to pick up and use. It’s tactile. There is a gorgeous rubberised coating across the top of the MPC, which means it’s not cold to the touch. Great design. The speaker is good too, with excellent punch.The benefit of this instrument is it’s very flexible. Can be part of a small studio set-up, can match with a DAW, can stand alone, can be used as a sketch pad or for serious work, and if you’re a working producer it can travel with you. It’s got heft, but still portable.When you buy one, just one tip for the impatient user: closely follow the battery charging protocol for first use and give it a long life. Read the basic instructions. Then get MPC Bible if you need (and wait till MPC3 software version if you can hold on).I would ideally like to see Roger Linn's signature on MPCs - even if it’s just for Special Editions - and his contribution. His name not being on the front plate is the one thing that disappoints at this price point. But in every other way, it’s well designed and made. I have no buyer's remorse, and would recommend this instrument from Akai.

For years I've flirted with the idea of trying an mpc, and in a moment of spontaneous must have it, I decided I was finally going to order one, in fact a one+.After opening the Akai One+ box, I was pleasantly surprised to see a nice colour high quality card with an image of the One+ and all it's function buttons explained on it, nice touch Akai.The One+ is a very nice looking piece of equipment, the red livery isn't a bright red, but a deep sumptuous red like a plum tomato, and everything is laid out very logically, with a lovely clear touch sensitive screen that is pretty responsive and very legible.The pads themselves I found a bit hit or miss, and I couldn't get them to trigger very accurately, but after a small tweak in the sensitivity settings, they were absolutely amazing.Then there's the WiFi for downloading your purchased plugins, and Bluetooth too.Booting up the One+ for the first time, I had that sinking feeling that I would be lost, and wouldn't have a clue how to use it, but that idea was quickly diminished and in literally no time I was knocking out beats.Over the last few days since it arrived I've delved further into what it can do, and I'm finding new tricks and workflow techniques that just seem to emphasise just how good this little red box is, I find myself spending hours in my living room, headphones on, just getting lost in music, and that's where I'm happiest, my wife describes my look as perma grin when I'm playing around on the One+.The mpc One+ plus can run 8 instances of Akai plugins, which are very good I may add, and multiple expansions including one hits, samples, and drum kits, and initially I thought this was quite limiting, but oh, how wrong I was.Not only can the One+ run it's internal goodies well, but it can also control external midi gear very very well, I've had an Access Virus Ti and a Roland JD-XI connected to it, and the world of what the One+ can do suddenly becomes a universe.And then there's the sampling, where you can record in audio and manipulate it to your hearts content, pitching and stretching and chopping, it's just fantastic.I'm kinda mind blown with the One+ can do, and this is the baby of the mpc family from Akai, so I can't even begin to image what it's bigger siblings can do, but for me, I'm a happy chappy right now, enjoying making beats and tunes.I'm an Ableton guy, and I know the One+ can use the link feature, but I've not even got that far yet,Are there downsides to the One+?Well yeah, but more gripes than real flaws, the headphone jack input is a bit lackluster, it's a bit wobbly and causes sound drop outs, and I'd much have much preferred it to be for 1/4 inch jacks, but really in the few days I've had it, that's all I've found so far.I love the One+, and I'm sorry Akai, I should have bought an mpc years ago, my bad.So my final closing statement can only be...... Wow, I love it, it makes music and it makes me smile, and that's really all that matters.

First of all, I've been producing hiphop for over 20 years. I've got an Roland MV8800 ( incredible machine even now it's dated ), FL studio, and have used the MPC one, MPC ren.This MPC X SE is really special, 4GB over the 2GB of the original, retro colour scheme, has £500 of plug in/instruments included, BURR Brown converters for even better sound. MPC 3.0 currently is amazing, it turns the MPC into a real DAW like FL or the MV8800.Special thanks to Amazon for putting this up brand new, ( all peels intact, never used, or registered) for half price, yes half price!! Amazing deal for a 10/10 sampler.

I bought this rather than a high spec looper pedal for my guitar and am so glad I did. I have a digital work station but prefer to do all the recording on the Akai as it is quick to try things out. I then transfer all the tracks to my laptop for final editing. It took a bit of getting used to setting up my first project, but once you get used to the workflow it is so quick to try things out. I audition using the looper play8ng a section of the track in as a background loop. I then record in the looper and save it out, then import it into the track as a sample. Once you get the sequence of activity clear you can create lots of tracks segments ready to slot samples in. You can use the empty framework as a template for further projects. There are many other ways to use this product you can use it as a live station cuing prerecorded segments or even mix this with live input once you have learnt how to record a sample and assign it to a button. Love the free instrument samples, I chose string wnsemble to give my tracks some orchestral backing. In summary, highly recommended but be prepared for a learning curve and new way of pricing a track together. I recommending watching a few of the videos showing how others are using it. Essentially this makes recording fun and much closer to jamming .

Am still getting to grips with fully how to use, but it's such a great versatile machine.The sounds are great, it's pretty easy to get started, portable as you can run off batteries, and the built-in speakers are pretty good.Lots of Expansion possibilities, Buy it, you won't be disappointed