Hi guys,
If any of you own an AKAI MPC Live or X, please check out and subscribe to this guy Tubedigga, excellent non manual based techniques and workflow stuff, I’ve learnt a ton since owning my MPC Live, plus he’s pretty funny too - and many ofd the videos apply to other MPCs too: https://www.youtube.com/tubedigga
yeah there are still several issues with the live that keeps it from being all that it can be although some has been fixed. i would say OT is deeper in many ways. but i really dig the live and will keep it and await firmware changes.
Have OT black for 3 years. Excellent hub of my variable live setup. Tubedigga very helpful.
OT excels at Parameter-locks, scenes , Banks , and therefore , live manipulation. Live sampling of real instruments tricky but very good when gains and bit rate set correct.
Recently bought MPC LIVe…never previously owned an MPC ( but I do have an SP-404 …different animal )
MPC learning curve easier / quicker to negotiate. So much fun. Touch screen was excellent upgrade. It was made to rather easily sample many sources like perc hits or keyboard or guitar phrases instantly to pads . I always use preamp as DI or mic to preamp for all acoustic or electric instruments ( guitar , bass, upright bass) …but only minor input gain adjustment needed on MPC.
MPC difficult setting up alt Meter like 6/8 or 12/8 …I use African and N-Afr influences in my sequencing. I did 6/8 but not sure how 
This links to a 1min , vid on IG …DUB in 6/4 all original instruments…guitar, electric bass , bass synth from MnM sampled into MPC Live. 
So far MPC plays well with other machines, esp small desktop synths and glitch boxes.
OT is variable with odd / unique little desktop synths. Has to do with the type of “note off” messages . 
Thanks for sharing, looks interesting, let’s see if he can convince me to keep my Live. But he also seems very quick to accept the machine shortcomings which are quite annoying to me, like the terrible, terrible defaults values everywhere (for example, the Dry/Wet in effects).
And he made another one later called “THE AKAI MPC LIVE IS ALSO A SYNTH” (yey, throw your hands up for capital letters) where he dismisses his conclusions and ends with “The Akai MPC Live blows any other grovvebox out of the water”. 
I often wonder if such slickly produced video blogs, and their promoters, are designed to look casual and unbiased but are actually providing their services to the likes of Akai to develop their online strategy to woo users from other platforms.
Akai instantly had a range of ‘happy users’ fitting a range of user stereotypes pop up out of nowhere before the box was even released.
Nothing wrong with that so long as it is openly declared.
Deja vu ? I guess the matrix is acting up …
Hi, so it seems people are talking about me on here too which is nice 
Yep, the shortcomings are pale in comparison to the good stuff but depending on what they are, then they may not give you confidence to buy. I’m trying to be unbiased as much as I can, but I really like the machine and obviously have a preference toward it over others on the market.
Things such as the default FX values are minor gripes for me, I’m trying to not focus on the negatives unless they are real deal breakers - a lot of complaints and moans I see about it are from some (NOT ALL) people who want perfection and appear to be a bit young and spoilt - you have to deal with them in an adukt way and convey the info so they learn and don’t get more defensive and spoilt 
The conclusion dismissal was supposed to be humorous in a way, I felt good about the Live at that point in the video and got a rush and wanted to big it up. Loved my old Octatrack, but the sound quality never really did it for me, so the Live is my preference at this point.
I’m certainly not being endorsed by Akai - as yet. I have approached them as I am getting tons of comments from people saying I’ve convinced them to buy the Live or X, and I could really do with the support.
They do not run any affiliate programs as far as I can see, and their marketing team is seemingly hard to crack - but they are apparently reviewing what I’m doing. I have no intention of pulling the wool over people’s eyes about a product I don’t genuinely believe in. My videos are recorded on my iPhone and I have not been on holiday for three years! Etc…
I’m a father and whilst I get a bit of freelance audio work here and there, I’m trying to make my YouTube channel a decent source of income for myself and my family. I’m certainly not affiliated with Akai Pro, and not masquerading as a casual unbiased MPC fan. I do love MPCs but as said above in response to TooDee, I am happy to highlight it’s shortcomings as there are a fair few - but overall it’s a great box.
Hi guys,
If any of you own an AKAI MPC Live or X, please check out and subscribe to this guy Tubedigga, excellent non manual based techniques and workflow stuff, I’ve learnt a ton since owning my MPC Live, plus he’s pretty funny too - and many ofd the videos apply to other MPCs too: https://www.youtube.com/tubedigga
Plova is my long standing Elektronauts account on here which I didn’t have the password for on my phone last night, but wanted to spread the word about the channel so posted again from my desktop.
Nothing suspect, same person, different account
It’s not always easy making a niche thing go viral - so using all available avenues to get exposure.
Actually, I bought one and went from being excited about it (the first 2-3 hours) to disliking it very fast. No machine is perfect of course, so it all comes down to whether one sees the negatives as deal breakers or outweighed by all the positives, and that comes down to personal preference (as it often does with musical instruments). For me, it doesn’t, but I completely understand how the problems I have with the machine might not be so problematic for other users, as the Live is definitely very powerful and capable.
I thought your videos were doing just that, which is really hard to pull when you like/dislike a machine, and we all know we can get passionate about our passion
So I subbed to your channel in the hope that I’ll either see enough positives to outweigh the negatives, find workarounds that do not mess with my creative process, or convince myself I tried hard enough and can sell it. Either way, your videos will help. And thank you for coming down here explaining your point of view
Cool, thanks for the sub, it’s much appreciated. Peace.
You can only have one - this one is now closed
First of all, I believe you and there’s no debate or whatever, but out of curiosity, did you have both the 24 bit settings activated? We’ve been discussing this lately… 
Hi Mike, I hope I’ve understood your point about 24 bit depth - but this would have very little effect regarding the improvement of the sound quality in the context I was referring to either machine.
The main drawback for me with my OT MK1 was the lack of outputs and whilst the MPC Live only has the two extra outputs (5&6), it has many sub layers to mix with (pad level, layer level, program level and so on).
These aspects of the OT hindered me as things can get crowded very quickly, particularly when using one box do everything which I prefer to do. That’s just my experience of course!
So I struggled to make full, pro quality sounding tracks on it, but again, used just for drums or glitchy bits and bobs, with 2 or more other bits of gear doing bass etc split out to a mixing desk, it was much better.
Beyond that, in my experience the tactile nature of the pads does influence the sound. I also think the tappiness (is that a word?) and travel of the OT MK1 buttons were slightly distracting and I felt somewhat disconnected from the sound.
If I listen back to tracks I made in the OT against tracks I made in my old MPC 1000, 2500, 5000 and now Live, they are thin sounding, muddy and crowded.
I do miss the OT but it almost became a luxury as it was only really serving me a box I could use as a high end FX unit, a magical box of tricks to generate ideas, or a great glitch machine when playing live.
Hey there,
I wasn’t really trying to make a point, I’m just curious.
I wouldn’t be surprised if you can squeeze a better sound from the Live than an OT, I’ve never heard one in person though.
It’s just that recently someone was almost about to sell the OT and flipped on both of the 24 bit settings and it changed their mind, and others have expressed the same.
I could see the settings possibly providing a clearer mix regardless of how many individual outs there are, so I was just curious if you were using the OT in 24 bit.
I’m honestly super neutral in this even if I’m an OT head, I’m just rounding up data…
Thanks for taking the time to respond…
Cool - huge respect as a fellow father of three that you are putting out such nicely produced work!
Keep it up.
While I’m at it, my 2c on MPCL vs OT:
I’m quite attracted to the MPCL’s promise of being ‘all in a single box’ approach and was thinking of getting one a while back … was even on an early bird pre-order so could have save a few £££. But I backed out literally a day before shipping.
However MPCL does seem like a different paradigm to me than the OT. OT is like a rewarding multi-faceted grinder with lots of depth and alternative working modes and flows that encourages you to mine your samples and sequences for quasi-unintended passages of (personally perceived!) greatness. Pristine audio quality is not the goal, but it ain’t half bad and gives you raw material you can spice up if you want in post production. It can sit on my desk infront of my daw and yet, standalone I can get totally absorbed in the OT.
The MPCL is like a highly portable mini-daw and great as that is, it doesn’t give the same visceral reward as an OT. Nor, alternatively as a portable DAW, in my view, does it really cut it. I either want all the DAW power or little of it. I can upgrade to a real clunky full daw & mouse and all the connections and CPU on my home set-up or use my laptop with almost the same power. Even the MPCL touchscreen urges me to think instead of using a midi pad controller and ipad with beatmaker (or a gazillion other apps): which I haven’t yet gotten into, and preserve some modularity depending on space and travel needs.
The most real OT ‘challenger’ (if there needs to be a challenge, and nobody is saying there should be) to me remains the OP-1. Again due to it having its own personality quirks and uniqueness, like the OT.
I’ll keep eyeing the MPCL … as an MPC1000 owner in the past I’m glad to see the standalone market coming back to life.
Very much horses for courses and I prefer to be at one end of the spectrum or the other (OT/OP-1 vs full daw) rather than in the middle, which is where the MPCL seems to live.
mpcl offers more than any standalone mpc of the past and way less than any daw. its a classic mpc on steroids. its definitely not too much as its been designed to work for even the biggest dummies who just want to cut up samples stolen from other peoples compositions… THE worst use of a sampler that i can think of.
if you cant get something out of an mpcl then youre doing it wrong.