I’m using an X on 2.9.1. Could it be the hardware? I thought they all used the RK3288.
Currently have the X synced to the sloppiest Elektron I own (M:C), and it records to the audio tracks no problem.
Okay, with a 6’ Hosa MIDI cable, recording stops. With a 3’ Roland Gold series, no problem.
Are we talking actual birds here or do you mean your kids? 
I thought MPC’s can’t do synced sampling when not being the master MIDI devices? That’s one thing I really disliked about them. Mind you, I used them a few firmwares ago.
For my next groovebox, I recently decided to go with an Octatrack MKII Black over the MPC One/Live 2. While there is overlap between the two products, both excel in different areas. IMO, the Maschine+ is more of a direct competitor to the MPC, and I already own it. At least on paper, the Octatrack appears to provide me with more new options in the studio, and I appreciate the fact that it is not a touchscreen product.
Another Octatrack bonus is completing my Dark Trinity MKII setup, and workflow synergies with the other Elektron products.
This works fine if you only need 1 page of non-4/4 time signature that fits into less than 16 steps. It’s hard to work with these non-4/4 pattern lengths because the pages are always 16 steps long. If you want 2 bars of 3/4 time, you need a pattern length of 24, but the downbeats won’t line up with the 1st trig on every page.
So if you have 4 bars of 3/4 time, the downbeats are on steps 1 and 12 on page 1, step 9 on page 2 and step 5 on page 3. You can’t copy and paste pages because it’ll disrupt the 3/4 rhythm. It’s the same on the Digitakt, Digitone and Analog Four, too.
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Don’t sleep on the Force! It is already a beast and Akai has turned things around with the updates.
The downside is that it can be truly overwhelming so take it really slowly.
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Ive owned a Mpc live and i am currently an owner of the Octatrack…
MPC has a LOT of things going for it. It has great utility with long and easy sampling, polyphonic sample playback, usb host, great effects from air, automation lanes etc.
One of my favorite things was the midi implementation (once i understod the intendent use) midi on the Mpc is a bit different, it has all the midi CC on its page so it transmits every single CC, I was first annoyed at this because it changed some patch settings on my synths without me wanting to… however it became clear that the real use was to plug midi out from the synth back into the MPC so that the synth transmits its knob positions… when you have it set up like this you can record note AND knob movement on your synths, which is really awesome.
The reason why I parted with mine was because it was kind of boring. I’m more of a experimental musician and the MPC was very vanilla in every way… however I contemplate going back to it from time to time…
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Birds.
My kids are way too old for them to want me to put them to bed (expect it will be the other way round a few years down the road).
I just tried mounting the OT as a USB disk on the MPC, works great can shuttle samples from OT to MPC, it does not appear possible to save samples from MPC to OT as there is not an option to save an individual sample in the MPC browser AFAIK.
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So regarding the inability to record on an audio track on the MPC when Octatrack (or any other midi device) is master, I decided to try the MPC desktop software - exact same behaviour, it drops out of record, so this leads me to believe this is a software problem that Akai have not been able to resolve or are unaware of, I send a report to Akai technical, we’ll see if I get a response.
To my mind this is quite basic functionality, not some exotic feature, yet I’m wondering why it is not more widely reported.
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If you assign a sample to a pad it is then possible to save that sample to card or USB device.
Bit of a faff but I have not found another way (yet).
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There’s literally 100 things on the MPCs that make me wanna hurt people.
I keep wanting to love it, but I can’t.
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I look at it like I people look at the octatrack, there’s a ton of stuff to ignore if not necessary for your use…
you might not fall into this category but there are many people these days thinking that the mpc is a great daw just because people keep calling it that… but I’ve never seen a dissatisfied mpc user who uses it for it’s core features as an instrument, basically what the octa-heads say about the octatrack
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Fully agree, I think that If you get a mpc to get a DAW then you would probably be really dissatisfied…
While it probably is the most feature rich hardware instrument out there, it is a far stretch from a daw
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Funny enough I think it (seems, so far) quite ok as a DAW for me - in the tracking synced long audio files together side of things, out of all the hardware devices I have tried up to this point it actually seems the most capable in this regard, the Deluge and MV-8800 being the other fairly close contenders, but the MV is too slow and bulky, and the Deluge is a bit awkward to use like this. The Octatrack can even do it but I don’t want to use it like that, as it is not its strength due to the pattern based nature and long linear tracks are more difficult to utilise in patterns, it can be done but you really need to organise it and prepare things in advance due to memory constraints.
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Black box is killer for This though. I havent had any issues recording into it…
Yeah I quite liked the BB but it is a bit bare bones compared to MPC for this kind of usage for me, only 16 recordings, not much fx eq etc.
I’m an old school MPC guy. JJOS is best OS.
Understand they are completely different animals.
The newer ones are just too much time on the touchscreen for me.
Feels like Im using an ipad with an mpd, but with weird roadblocks.
Just me tho. At the end of the day, whatever gets you to make the good stuff come out of the speakers is all that matters……
(Also not an OT user)
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i need to read up on trig conditions again cause people keep saying they are not possible w/ an mpc
that surprises me