The interface and UI on the Kronos is probably the second worst I’ve ever encountered, with the first being the Nautilus without a data slider. I’d never attempt to use it for anything but a preset machine, which isn’t what I hoped for. It’s up for sale if you want it.
That said, they’d never do the same thing for me. The MPC is all about the sequencer for me, and the new synths and FX like halftime and Flavor are a bonus. Everything revolves around the MPC for me. I’d never attempt to sequence on the Kronos.
Things have just evolved, IMO and the Kronos is so dated (from a UI standpoint). It’s probably better than the one I had on my M3, but that didn’t bother me in 2007.
I’m probably part of a very small group of people that would admit to loving menu diving on synths. My first was a Wavestation EX and I constantly felt I was discovering new things going through the menu’s.
When I first used a Jupiter 6 & 8 in a local studio I didn’t like what I heard or how they operated. It’s mind boggling for me to consider that now.
And with the Oasys I was in menu diving heaven. It just felt like a Sci Fi fantasy
Some “influenvers” certainly got their MPC Key from AKAI directly, surely at a substantial discount. I’m sorry, but one can’t be impartial when sponsored by manufacturers. Ben Jordan buys his own gear and said the truth. 2.11 has tons of bug which makes the device unreliable for live performances.
It’s one thing to introduce new functions that are buggy, it happens. It’s another to add bugs to functions that weren’t buggy before. AKAI / InMusic is doing the latter and people shouldn’t stay silent just because it ruins the narrative…
AKAI/InMusic is no stranger to releasing terrible devices, like the MPX8/16 which are also a buggy ass mess and AKAI is still selling them, despite claiming it’s “legacy gear”.
The other thing that’s weird is the argument that “the companies image is at stake” or whatever weird corpo love thing I’ve seen going around. They are a large company. If Behringer is the Walmart of Music gear Akai is the Target. And they have at least since the beginning of the MPC software line with the Renaissance been releasing buggy software and not fulfilling basic feature requests like legato which took them like, almost 10 years to implement?
They will be just fine. It’s ok to like Akai and the MPC and it’s also ok to recognize the flaws.
Between this thread, the MPC forum, and reddit, I’m convinced that MPC users are the most argumentative group of electronic music gearheads. Jesus Christ.
We all know if this same exact device (and lineup) wasn’t labeled as an MPC it would be forgotten like many other groove boxes. But because they are leaning on their legacy (I don’t blame them) people eat up the MPC lineup because, especially for newcomers, it’s probably the most recognizable brand to pop up.
But yeah, the mpc community seems to be filled with the largest amount of fanboys for any piece of gear I’ve seen, very reminiscent of a video game console war mentality. Obviously not everyone is like that, I see it much more over at Reddit and Youtube, but consistently thats what I see. Theres no one “best” piece of gear and yet many MPC heads would say otherwise.
The Syntakt had lots of discourse when it came out over it being unnecessary. It did not entirely get a warm welcome. And the shill himself Ave Mccree called it “basic” (before making some of the worst day 1 demos of all the YouTubers).
of course there are more mpc fanboys, they have been the largest share of the market for decades… it’s a mathematical inevitability… and this my dear watson, is elementary.
