Hi this is Chris Barker I'm here at NAMM 2012 on the Akai stand and we're looking at the
brand new range of MPCs, starting with the MPC Studio, so tell us about some of the new
features and this brand new product. >>The whole mission of the studio was the
renaissance are to bring the MPC workflow and sound back to the computer environment,
we all have to use computer based sequencing now, it's just part of making music these
days, but what we're missing, what we don't get with generic mini controllers is the workflow
that made Akai and the MPC line successful. So what we've done is we've come out with
a pair of control surfaces and a matching software set that help you have the original
MPC workflow and sound quality that you just can't get running with the standard DAW.
So the sotfware that we're going to use is the VST audio units or R-Task plugin in any
DAW that you have, it comes with 8GB sound library that includes all of the classic sounds
from the original MPCs, plus a whole lot more, plus a lot of the extra sound libraries we
used to sell seperately, so a huge asset right there. >>Completely the same as the originals?
>>That's right. This unit's really portable, about an inch high, touch sensitive control surfaces,
you have 4 banks of these 4 knobs that you can cycle through the pads light up in multiple
colours, classic MPC pads, excellent sensitivity, the screen experience with the studio and
the renaissance is identical as well and so you could really accomplish, it's familiar to
any MPC user striaght away, you could accomplish your entire sequence just looking
here but the screen also gives you great assets when it comes to time stretching, slicing
is really really easy, same with drag and drop, pad assignment, loading up plugins you
can, if you have a favourite VST compressors, renders that you want to use in here on your
pads, you can do that as well, so not only is it a VST in your DAW you can use your VSTs
or audio units in here as well. >>Hi so we're here back on the Akai stand
and Andy's going to take us through some of the features of the MPC Studio, so I'll hand
you over to Andy. >>Right hi there, right ok, so what we've
done here is we've integrated, everything, all the classic features, that everybody has
known us for since 1988 across the whole MPC range and that integrates seamlessly with
the control surface here, so anything you do on here is replicated on the software.
So we obviously, we have the 16 pads, we have our bank programmes here so we can access
8 banks now where it used to be 4, each bank will hold 16 samples, we can go through our
16 levels, we can do our full levels for when we humanise our hi hats, we have our note
repeat over here, we have our classic erase button so when the sequence is running you
can physically hold the pad and erase the feature. Tap tempo and the cursor, everything
is replicated like I said is replicated in the software. Now some of the features that are in the software
which are also on the LCD screen are things like when we go into our programme edit, you
can see that there's a 4 zone layer, now this came about when the 4000 was released where
you could layer up to 4 samples per pad, you can also use the traditional way of simultaneous
triggering so you can have 4 samples triggered from one pad, or trigger another 4 pads on
top of that, so you can have a massive amount of layering going on. And then added to that
on the right hand side here, we have pad insert now what pad insert will do if you're creating
your own kicks and snares and say we have 3 kicks layered, we have a top, mid and a
low, we can then take a UAD, EQ or a compressor and you can insert that onto that one pad,
we can put 4 different types of AU, RSTS or audio units, ESTs whatever onto that pad.
And you can do that on every single pad or you can go into programme mix and you can
assign like a bus compressor, so if you've got the Abbey Road stuff, whatever you want
you can bus up the whole drum track from that section, so that kind of integration is what
so many people have been waiting for and to have it in a, you can run this stand alone
or as a VST or an AU inside Logic or Cubase. So that's some of the key features,
>>What about import and export?
Import, that's really cool, very simple. If we finished our beat, we can go to export,
I might still have a 2500 or a 5000 that I'm using, I can import everything I've done as
that programme or we can take it out as an audio mix, as a stereo bounce or as individual
tracks. So if I've run 24 individual tracks, I've got 24 channels, you've got different
formats; mp3, aiff, wavv different bit rates, different sample rates and if you've got compressors
and EQs on obviously if you bypass them they'll be untreated etc etc. So you can kind of see
how we've integrated the workflow into the technology world that everybody wanted.
>>And is there a UK retail price? >>For this, it's £399
>>And it's coming out in the Summer yeah? >>I think we're going to confirm availablity
in the next couple of weeks, when it's going to be available but it's going to be very
soon but it was very important for us to show the product at this NAMM show to get customer
feedback and we've got some great things happening in these products so yeah they're going to
be hitting the market soon.