What’s the closest on the MPC to Logic’s Retro synth? I happen to think that one, for all its simplicity, sounds really good.
It’s a very straight forward, great sounding subtractive synth. Doesn’t have many features, but it sounds great.
The “standard” subtractive one is Tubesynth. It was one of the first 3 along with Baseline and Electric.
2 Osc (4 shapes), 2 LFO, up to 4 voice poly, filter env, amp env, assignable env, mixer, LP filter, etc.
It doesn’t seem to get a lot of love though.
I haven’t done any sound design with it and I’m not enough of an expert to be able to say whether it’s actually any “good” though.
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Hype is probably the closest, but it’s different to Retro Synth.
There could be new synths coming to the MPC this week that’ll increase it’s standalone capabilities… but overall, it’s best seen as a sampler/workstation, it’s synth engines aren’t really what it’s about. They’re ok, and they’re as good as you make them. Meaning, there’s a LOT of processing power where you can resample and work on sound design outside of the plugin synths themselves.
I think Solina, Odyssey and the Mellotron are all really good sounding without much effort.
Personally I find Hype, well, too ‘hyped’ sounding and don’t think I’ve ever used it in any music.
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Me personally, can’t get good results out of the MPC synths. They just don’t hit as hard as my samples, hardware synths, or VSTs. BUT! If I resample a hit or stab from the MPC synths, I can really work with that. Not sure why it’s that way for me, but it is. I’m good with that.
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Hype doesn’t do itself any favours by having hundreds and hundreds of presets that tend to be aggressive-sounding, and not being documented in any meaningful way. It can do very nice pads and textures, and even with the macro-centric UI you can do a lot of interesting things. It really benefits from exploring the init patches at the end of the presets to get a feel for how the various engines (and combinations of engines) work.
It would really benefit from a little extra attention to basic features like modulation - not much is required, but it would go a long way. And a “missing manual” needs to appear from somewhere.
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just scrolling through Hype (all of them!) for the first time last night, I agree. 2/3 of the patches felt duplicative – sometimes literally, the patch names kept blurring together – of each other. but a generally solid “big synth” kind of sound, if you need that shiny digital sheen on a track
The reason why it didn’t click with me and I hardly use it is hat the default knob assignment/grouping seems a bit off compared to the other Mpc synths. It’s not bad per se, just to me not as programmable as the others.
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Yup the onboard synths/fx are ‘ok’… missing something but some useable stuff lurking around in them. Esp for lo-fi etc…Most of these sounds are onboard synths/fx -
To me there’s a lack of finesse with the Mpc’s FX & synths. They just do what it says on the tin, but without any special character or nuance.
It’s an annual tradition at this point.
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Then…we must EMBRACE it 
I don’t think people get or try to dive too see into the unit. But this is a good demo https://youtu.be/-gjuWkAHNhg
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Absolutely.
Maybe also get one going on the MPC Keys thread!
Yeah the whole MPC concept would be advanced beyond belief if they just concentrated on modulation matrix and give it a rest with presets and cheap plugins……but maybe thats not as profitable……
Yeah comparing like for like back and forth with Ableton 11 suite standard plug FX and Akai’s id have to agree.Biut there is a kinda raw ness to Akai’s (lol) which could be a good thing (it is an MPC after all but…….if you just concentrate of MPC plug ins without comparing they sound pretty alright.imo.
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I must admit, synths are very underwhelming and kind of shallow.
They’re kind of like these Reaktor instruments in NI ecosystem. They’re useful, immediate, shiny and polished but they are boring.
You’re right and I think this is key.
Apart from the reverbs, I have no complaints about the effects or the synths. I’ve made one of my best releases so far using the internal synths and effects and nobody came up to me to tell me they could hear that the wobble on that track was made with the hype synth or that that other sound was obviously the Mpc odyssey…
As for deeper synths, we’ll see, but I have high hopes for the Op-4
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Do you not think it slightly odd that it wasn’t announced to be in the new OS coming in a few days? Assuming it comes pre-loaded in the keys.
Almost the same for me. The reverb just doesn’t get quite there, where other devices have better reverbs.
The second lackluster effects for me are the filters. The internal filters of the drum programs sounds dull to my ears and the resonance is way to high, even on lower values. The AIR Filter sounds okay, but not great. Coming from the awesome filter of the OT, it’s hard for me to get into the filters of the MPC.