I must disagree with that.I have both a Maschine and the MPC Live and there is absolutely no contest at all which one is more capable of complex sound design.. the Maschine is a way more capable system for that. Everything in it is better in terms of sound design. It has much more complex synths, effects and up until version 3 of MPC, Maschine had a much better sampler.I had a Maschine and I didn't like that you can't really do sound design with it... I like the MPC a lot better to make patches from scratch.
In terms of synths that come with MPC vs Maschine, it's still absolutely no contest at all. NI Massive, the original, is still a supremely capable synthesizer that completely stomps on everything available in the MPC world. FM8 is way more powerful than OP4. Monark is way better sounding than the moog wannabe from Air. etc. etc.
Unfortunately version 3 of MPC software also came with quite a few big downgrades compared to v2. So until they fix those, it's a bit of a mixed bag.
Having said that, AKAI has definitely demonstrated that they are way more dedicated to their platform than NI is to theirs.
While NI's synths are really nice (I love OG Massive!) the act of editing sounds through the Maschine's controller requires a lot of paging around and it's really tedious to the point I just wouldn't do it. Same for the Komplete Kontrol keyboards, they are nice for small tweaks but creating a sound from scratch is painful, and sometimes plain impossible (Reaktor) or there are parameters you can't reach.
If you're editing in the computer that's something else but I find making sounds on the MPC much more enjoyable and functional. That's the main reason I still own the MPC and all my NI controllers have been sold.
Which synth sounds better is a completely subjective thing... I find the synths on the MPC very musical and fun and I don't have any complaints with the sound but I mostly use Jura for standalone sketching.
I'm still on MPC v2 so I don't have first hand experience with the v3 downgrades but I haven't read any complaints about the sound design aspect I'm talking about. The only "downgrade" I'm aware of that is holding me back is the missing time signature functionality. But apparently that's coming back soon.
Statistics: Posted by spacepluk — Mon Feb 10, 2025 12:34 pm