MPC LIVE II Longterm Review

Finally got around to doing a rambly longterm review of the Akai MPC LIVE II.

Affiliate Links to MPC Live 2:

MY GEAR:

#mpclive #akai #dawless

[DylanParisMusic]

If you enjoy my videos please consider listening to my album and letting me know what you think in the comments / sharing with your friends if you dig it. Thank you!

[sinewaymusic]

100% agree about the MPC being the best "of I could have only one" device out there. I recently upgraded from the One to the Live 2 and I'm not looking back. The battery is such a killer feature, and the speaker is surprisingly useful and perfect for a casual 10 minute jam in between job meetings or the lunch break.

[philippebackprotips]

MPC Live 2 battery operation + speakers + enough I/O midi makes it usable w other battery powered devices on the move.
For me this is the key feature.
Hype is dope for sure.
I wish we had Hybrid 3 on standalone. One can dream.

[jghosttheconscious]

I’m gonna buy MPC live II. I’m coming from Ableton. I use to have an Mpc controller so I’m familiar with the software. Great review

[googlerep]

I think this can pretty much sum everything up for people trying to decide whether to get the one or the MPC live 2 or any MPC for that matter is If you're going to be locked in a studio to make music just use a computer and some cheap external hardware that you can set your knobs and buttons to. With the MPC Live 2 You can use it in the studio or you can take it anywhere you want with you and not have to have any instruments plugged into it and be able to create music. If you're going to buy an MPC the live 2 It's the only thing that makes sense otherwise you might as well use your computer because it's way more powerful. And if you have the MPC live 2 then you can also use that in your studio but you have another option to take it places and use it wirelessly for 6 hours plus being able to have two terabytes worth of everything you could possibly think of on it that's a lot to get to choose from just being in the middle of nowhere You could be sitting in the woods and create a whole set and use your headphones even if you want to to mix. I don't think it's that hard of a choice plus you got way more plugins and io's on the MPC Live 2. Trying to use an SD card to search for things is slow because the drive speed is very slow on a SD card versus using an SSD drive It's 100 times faster.

[DubYaJsWorld]

The battery is everything for me right now. I'm still a beginner but I don't want to sit at my computer. I have to sit there to edit my YouTube videos and I'm okay with that. I want to make my own music for my channel but I don't want to be tied to the computer at all! I just bought the live 2 it should be here Friday. Got it for $780 on eBay, like new. Can't wait to get started or should I say continue, I have the Akai software already.

[CDMESD]

Great review. I am seriously considering the MPC Live 2.

[X-]

Guess you don't use a lot of hardware? the Live 2 has 6 outputs and 2 midi outs, the One does not

[jefgibbons]

Great vid, I'm really close to picking one of these up... LOVE the retro version.Auto-sampler is still better on MPC. Also love the idea of the speaker and the battery ;) Great song too, piano sounds good!

[mitechko]

Keygroups are fine for many things, but there is a significant difference between a keygroup and a proper sampled instrument like Grandeur. Grandeur has 18 velocity layers recorded, where as MPC keygroups can only do 4 layers at most. 4 layers is enough if you just want some piano in the background, but if you are going to have a piano playing expressively as the main voice, the lack of nuance starts to show. There are tricks people use to overcome this (stacking multiple keygroups configured to play at different velocity levels), but it becomes unwieldy pretty fast and requires quite a lot more work.

But I agree with you about the price point of the new plugins. And the sampled plugins like the Stage Piano suspiciously lack any information about the number of samples. The Stage Piano seems to take 20GB of space and has 4 sampled pianos, so that's ~5GB per piano and Native Instrument pianos seem to take about 5GB each, so it kinda suggests that they have a comparable sampling resolution, but actual information would have been helpful.

[HanjoSynth]

Totally agree on the power of sampling. I have been getting deeper into sampling garageband and iOS synths into my gear and it defenitely feels like anything is possble with small amount of tools!

[babysunn]

Awesome Setup, Jazzy House Music... I think You Just Created A New Genre, lol...That Being Said, Your Visuals Is Tight!👍🏽👍🏽!

[middaymeds]

Fantastic video Dylan! I'm totally with you on the newer MPC platforms being some of the most convoluted music production software to use. I come from a background that involves Pro Tools so I'm no stranger to obtuse layouts but damn if I didn't feel like an idiot when I first tried to time stretch a sample to match with the BPM of a song. Hell even keygroups are kind of hard to figure out at first.

[pixelissue]

if Akai would support 3rd party VST's that would be a game changer.

[gatorent.productionbuffrec]

MPC L2 is flagship of standalone/sampler

[shawndiggz]

Great video! I totally agree with you that the $500 bundle is too much to pay. I guess working with what you have is the best solution instead of a gear acquisition. Nicely done!

[IsshmanGarcia]

I made the mistake of buying Fabric XL, Studio Strings and OPx4 individually. I wasn't aware the whole bundle was $500..the link I used was for FabricXL, so and it said $500- but 250 for limited time. So essentially I paid $550 for 3 plugins. I've been in contact with Akai via phone to see if they can retrofit me to the bundle seeing I paid over what they wanted for it. They have sent me on a wild goose chase of email this person, etc...time will tell if they do right by me...seeing as I loyaly purchased over 10 hardware pieces from them thus far. Yes, I'm digging OPx4!

[combobreaker]

honestly don't regret the $500 bundle

[defjustice]

This is a great video. I am still learning my MPC Live 2, and still haven't tried keygroups, but I agree on the MPC Key 61. 500 dollars is a lot. I'll stick to my Live 2. MPC X is the goal later though.

Also subscribed.

[Morenoo]

Hey! Thanks for your review! Your videos are always insightful! I have a question, what do you think about the Force vs Live 2, do you still use them both? Which workflow you prefer or you feel being more creative on?