Akai MPC X

ManualsBrandsAKAI Professional ManualsGroove BoxesMPC X

FM VERDICT

9.0

MPC X is hugely powerful, it

works impressively standalone

and as a controller, and it’s

well on the way to replacing

your DAW, live or in the studio

NATIVE EFFECTS: A wide range

of high-quality native effects are

onboard. There’s lots of great ﬁ lters,

compressors and mod FX

FURTHER PROCESSING: You

get LFOs and powerful envelopes,

and you’ll also ﬁ nd MPC3000,

60 and SP12 emulations onboard

EXTENDED CONNECTIVITY: The

MPC X really can be the central hub,

with front panel metering, headphone

amp, and assignable footswitch sockets

SCREEN: The 10-inch touchscreen

is a godsend for editing and

interacting with MPC X in

standalone and controller modes

a protective cover supplied, which

slides right over the screen.

While the screen is pretty central

to the MPC X’s workﬂ ow, the beauty is

that you also have a huge number of

hardware buttons and the

aforementioned Q-Links for live

performing or for directly accessing/

editing all the main areas of the MPC

software when using the machine

standalone and when using the MPC

to control the MPC software in

controller mode, (when tethered to

your computer and DAW). Essentially,

you’re getting the touchscreen

experience, the hardware experience

or both together, so there’s a lot of

ﬂ exibility. Consequently, the X should

appeal to both old MPC users and

MPC virgins alike, though be aware

that as there’s so much onboard in

terms of functionality, the learning

curve is fairly steep. Importantly, the

software is generally stable (the only

bug I found was that the close tab

doesnt work on the effects page), and

If you already know the MPC

software, you’ll ﬁ nd the transition to

the MPC X very smooth.

In use, the MPC X generally works

great, and the new features such as

the looper and step sequencer are

brilliant. Sampling and chopping is a

breeze – the MPC X will ﬁ nd all the

transients in any recorded loop and

swiftly map those chops to its pads.

Any audio can be instantly warped to

ﬁ t any BPM, and the results are

generally impressive. I also love the

‘slice’ feature which allows you to

manually place your chops whilst in

sampling mode.

Capturing audio is easy, and the

quality of the X’s audio interface is

excellent – clear, crisp and punchy,

plus it drives nicely too! I plugged my

Rhodes and bass into the front panel

instrument inputs, set the gain, hit

record and soon had an audio track

recorded, which I could then chop

and edit using the touchscreen and

Q-Links. There are a few areas that

require Akai’s attention though. For

editing audio, I’d love a way to

connect a mouse to give a more

DAW-like experience, but otherwise,

deeper editing (though sometimes

ﬁ ddly on the touchscreen) works well

for most editing tasks. Also Akai, if

you’re listening, please can we have

Elektron-style parameter locking and

conditional trigs and ﬁ lls!

Now the acid tests... First I made

a sequence with eight MIDI tracks

ﬁ ring out to my Roland JD-XA – all

worked great: the timing was tight,

and the feel (and swing) of the

sequencer was on-point. Next I slaved

the X to MIDI sync, coming from

Logic via my AMT-8 MIDI interface.

This worked pretty well, although

there did appear to be some lag and

slight inconsistency of timing each

time Logic cycled around a loop

(compared to slaving my MPC3000).

My next major test was to see how

the MPC X worked as a backing track

machine using stereo stems bounced

in Logic, then imported via SDHC

card into the X. Whilst importing

was a breeze, with ﬁ ve four-minute

stems onboard, memory usage was

already showing over half full, which

left me scratching my head as these

were only small MP3s. It turns out,

the MPC X auto-converts any

imported ﬁ les into larger WAV format

and also, all audio and samples are

loaded into the RAM (along with the

OS), so as a backing machine for a

live show with several longer stems

across several tunes, you will really be

pushing the limits of the MPC X’s

2GB RAM (which apparently can’t be

upgraded). So, for the MPC X to be a

serious live backing machine to

replace a DAW, it’s essential that Akai

implement disk streaming ASAP.

Otherwise the workaround is chopping

smaller loops out of your larger stems.

Despite these current limitations

(which I’m hoping Akai can address),

the MPC X is nonetheless very

impressive and a truly viable DAW

alternative. It’s a hugely powerful

and solid machine that I wouldn’t

hesitate to use for intensive studio

duties and on stage as an alternative

to a laptop. Let’s now hope that Akai

give this beastly machine the

attention it deserves and unlock all its

massive potential!