Akai MPC Keys 61

The Lounge Other Gear
#270

Unlikely … as a software dev, I’d say most users are pretty ‘equal’ in what they expect.

The difference is most likely ‘workflow’.
bugs are usually from particular sequences of events or concentrate in certain areas.
if your workflow happens to lead you down a certain path, you’ll be hit , if not you won’t.

This is why different users have different experiences of the same product.

Similarly if a particular bug, is important to the way you work, it can be a show stopper … but to others it’s just not a big deal.

but overall , all users (rightly) expect a product that is reliable and can work in the way the feature set implies it can.

5 Likes
#271

Yes that’s pretty much what I was saying in the YouTube comments, it seems it is coming from the way he is using it more then anything… but I get it should be 100%, but let’s not pretend he is the only serious musician to use it… it might not work for him, but it has already been on the biggest stages around the world for a year plus now with no huge show stoppers. It is being used regularly by some of the biggest names in music. Give me a break with the “we are not professional enough” crap.

2 Likes
#272

It’s like you can’t help it. What you’ve now said is just as bad. Why have such an air of superiority about something that so utterly pointless and unfathomed. Some bugs mess with some users more than other users.

It’s like me saying “some users just can’t get over these issues and blame their tools for their own bad workman ship”. I don’t know you from Adam, I don’t know how you use something, I’ve no idea of how much these issues might effect you. Passing comment like that would make me look like a prick.

Sorry, I don’t have an issue with you, but I can’t stand listing to people putting other people down for no reasons other than, from what I can only assume, to make themselves feel superior.

6 Likes
#273

…let’s just agree on the fact that this once rocksolid akai brand is nothing but a shareholders buyoff fusion brand these days, with heaps of promised but still unfinshed business…

it’s a more and more common practice these days, to release unfinished products and leave ALL beta testing to the consumer/custumer/user/musician…with that little prayer in the back of their mind, that some vaster majority of their custumers will be hobby musicians “only” anyways, that will never face even the most obvious bugs…

so far so “good” in modern consumerism, matter over mind age, if u, as a brand at least listen, learn from those who actually do that job for u by spending big bux on ur only half way usable product, and then do something about it, to fulfill and reach ur once promoted as promised goals…but this brand tends to fail big time in all this…
with a, by now, pretty long history over all their various latest productlines, to still and simply get things not really done even 1 year later plus!!!, after first release date…or even never deliver at all up today…

i still love my old original akai mpc…and the second chapter ones, running jjos…a firmware that was also not created by “akai” themselves, but by one single handed guy who made it a small business to finally unlock the real potential of their hardware…another former developer of their team, they hired but fired before…it’s a shame…

a shame for real, especially if ur into hardware instruments, where ur totally independant from other influences u could not control, cause u might depend on windows or mac osx to make ur custumer happy…instead, there’s no one else to blame but U, akai… bad business habits will come for ur holy grail profits sooner than later… that’s nothing but realworld market rules…

3 Likes
#274

I disagree… making the assumption that profits are leading the development of products at Akai, or any other well-established manufacturer, is immature/conspiracy-theorist type thinking.

You don’t develop a device as complex and evolved as the MPC because you’re chasing $$.
I’m sure a lot of the creative brains/devs behind it are on a salary, and have a different drive.

I personally think the noise/volume coming from customers/users online is what drives a lot of companies to get beta devices out these days, maybe too early, with an eye on fixing/developing along the way.

Elektron are good at this, better than most from what I’ve seen in recent years. Their updates are way less frequent, but solid when they land.
But I don’t think anything they do is as complex/expansive as the MPC either.

So, it seems to me, that there’s a cycle of people complaining about things that need updating in firmware ASAP(!!) that moves into people complaining about said updates.
I don’t think I’ve ever read someone saying they’re content with a ‘live’ version of firmware on a current production device.

Then, the rose tinted glasses come on for a discontinued device years down the line, it’s quirks/annoyances aren’t often referenced… the focus is on what it did/does, not what it didn’t.

3 Likes
#275

:man_facepalming:t2:
It’s other peoples’ faults then?
Okayyyy. Double down.

No one’s taking you personally, just calling you out a bit for sprouting BS musicianship snobbery, when it’s not even relevant.

As Bruce pointed out, if you’d changed what
YOU said to refer to live performers being more strict on the reliability of gear, no one would have had an issue… and that’s something most of us agree on.

I’m so pro it hurts by the way. :call_me_hand:

4 Likes
#276

…sorry, but that’s pretty naive and simply not even near to any hard facts…

besides, todays “akai” is nothing but re re branding for naked marketing after a two times bancrupcy history and now just part of a candy coloured brand cake within a big chinese conglomerate retailer that’s more into stox than well thought products that can last…

thinking, this brand is still that company it was and not at all in the game for profit, while still harvesting old concepts of a once great japanese company, only making grrreat new products for a better tomorrow and the personal happyness of musicians is…well… don’t wanna give u real reasons to feel offended…again…
so leave it as it is…here…for further nitpicking consens u might wanna consider reddit…

meanwhile, too many good reasons why elektron are a real deal in any comparison charts u might wanna come up with futher on…

oh, and by the way…the main difference between pro and hobby is not the quality of their efforts, but the fact that a pro wants to see an investment in proper sonic tools work as promoted, no matter what, while the hobbyist defends a not that clever investment at all costs…

1 Like
#277

Elektron? Give me a… Are you kidding? Can you even program a song on any elektron? I know I can’t…

1 Like
#278

sorry, I agree with @CCMP

there are many technical/project management reasons why maintaining/upgrading older ‘legacy’ software is harder… than releasing new shiny things which doesn’t need to care about past compatibility (or users sensibilities to a particular workflow etC)

it’s not ALL about money… of course, dev requires certain investment (in resources = money), nothing wrong with that (programmers need to eat :wink: ) , but there are also many structural issues, and also decisions about direction…when to make radical rewrites etc.

have Akai got the right ‘balance’ of investment … no one here knows, you’d have to be on the dev team, to know if they are lacking resources… or just struggling with an ageing code base, or original devs moving on to new things.

frankly, look at any (software/hardware) product thats been around a while, they all go thru peaks n’ troughs in stability…
Microsoft Windows/Apple macOS/ most gaming franchises… even Elektron call it a day on products after a while (e.g. octatrack)

for sure, consumerism does make all product have shorter lifespans… and that means companies cannot invest for quite so long in them (support costs, recouping r&d costs) , but thats also a function of technology advancement - tech is moving much quicker.

so frankly, I dont buy the rose tinted - ‘it was better in my day’ … less consumerism blah blah.
Im old enough to know that was not the case…

Do I agree with Benn’s underlying, "we should not be beta testers’
yeah, to some extent, though its also kind of inevitable given the short lifecycles.

BUT, I do think companies are using far too many non professional testers for QA.
sending a product early to YouTubers/Musicians is not how proper testing is done, and frankly some of the bugs Benn highlighted were the kind of thing you’d expect with this ‘casual testing’ approach, and the things Id expect pro QAs to pick up on.
Companies need to get back to having proper professional QA’s that know how to test, and only release once they sign it off.

is Akai doing this ? we dont know for sure, but it feels like their QA needs reviewing.
when a bug is released into the wild… not only should you ask - “how can we fix it?”, but almost as important is “How did we not notice this before release?”
(and guess what… this is also what I expect proper QA teams to do , but you wont get from ‘casuals’)

10 Likes
#279

Jeesh… so go and find an alternative, use something else, it’s not hard… you’re not offensive, just talking speculative rubbish.

(Is this what Reddit is like?? I never use it…)

4 Likes
#280

…speaking of elektron again…u mean that european company that develops solid music hardware that are built to last, boutique style full on, take care of their products for years and years to come, instead of reinventing the one same concept again and again for a next new product to sell out before ever finishing it once for real…?

i can finish tracks with 20 year old akai products…oh, and i can finish tracks with swedish gear, too…ooops and out.

#281

Exactly this, I thought I’d made that clear, obvs not to some.

#282

I’ve worked as a QA for music tech. If I’d worked on the Keys and saw that video… I would probably just quit out of embarrassment tbh. Those looked like bad bugs that should have been caught by systematic testing, unless there’s something wrong with his particular unit.

3 Likes
#283

I’m going to hold up this mirror for a while, take your time…

1 Like
#284

:joy: :joy:

#285

…it’s all soooo…emooooootional… emoji awarenessssssss…

let’s sample this… :vulcan_salute:

and hey, goys and birls…need a nap now…

#286

100% this.
This is why I referred to Elektron, in this context, I don’t think they let things go ‘public’ until they’re ready. I think this is the best long term approach.

Akai’s pre-announcement of the last firmware was interesting… you’d think you’d have it rock solid if you were going to draw that much attention to it… but, it was definitely a case of consciously maximising FW2.11 as a marketing/promo tool… which is slightly weird IMO.

1 Like
#288

lol, yeah… though as a dev, I try not to judge too much… its easy with hindsight to say its obvious.

also, this is not a new product, so its hard to know if this caused by a firmware update, that had a change that should’t have affected audio (but did).
as a QA, you’d know its not viable to retest every feature for every tiny update, and thats sometimes how these things can slip through esp. with the pressure from users to get regular/frequent updates.

(of course, with automated testing, you can avoid some of the issues - but that is often hard to retro fit to old code bases)

none of this is a valid excuse for any company.
rather, some thoughts on why we see this so frequently, and its not that simple to fix…

Ableton did really well in this area… at some point they hit a lot of instability, and they took a step back from new features, and concentrated on bring that back… tough call, no new features for quite a while - but at the end of the day, stability is valued by customers.

pretty sure if you read the Octatrack category here… you will find users are still finding bugs…
after how many years? … are you expecting a fix soon :laughing:

#289

…u got ur defintion of fun…obviously… i got mine…

the usual suspects hail the usual frequencies…

while sure…there is no such thing u could call a bugfree life…

#290

all companies use new firmware/features as a marketing tool… esp. for ageing products.
its a win/win…
existing users love it, see it as validating their investment ( -> brand loyalty)
gives ‘media’ another reason to take a look (aka promote) at the product again.

and of course, the marketing side assume the dev/qa will do a good job :wink:
(they have no insight into if its going to be ‘rock solid’ or not)