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AKAI MPC Beats for Free


Wibbles

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Someone on Reddit mentioned that they didn’t get the link until they changed their home country from Germany to USA and received it immediately.  So if anyone is having trouble getting download link try changing home country to see if it helps.  There might be a bug in addition to the delay that others reported.

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Back on page two I mentioned a SONG MODE. There is such a mode under FILE MENU, VIEW, then Mode and SONG. This is also available via a drop DOWN arrow at the end of the mode icons at the top left of the GUI ( Starting with the House Icon ).

A song is an arrangement of sequences you create which are listed under MIDI top left of GUI under the mode icons.

Another way of arranging a song is using the TRACK MUTE Mode. Here you can record  the muting and unmuting of specific tracks into a complete song. If you have a keyboard with pads ( like the MPK Mini ), each track is assigned to a pad that you can tab to toggle track on / off.

 

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2 hours ago, Starship Krupa said:

How about report it in Feedback Loop, to the Cakewalk developers, to the Akai developers, so they can get together and make it work? 😁

Jonathan Sasor responded with this...

On 7/28/2020 at 6:45 PM, Jonathan Sasor said:

We're currently in the process of reaching out to Akai to look into this.

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7 hours ago, Starship Krupa said:

How about report it in Feedback Loop, to the Cakewalk developers, to the Akai developers, so they can get together and make it work? 😁

It seems like it's already been done, and I don't like waiting. So I'll just work around it, and frankly, committing to a sound helps the workflow better.

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So a Q?

The workflow I have discovered is this.

We start with a 2 bar SEQUENCE ( essentially a PATTERN, can be nore than 2 bars, thats up to you, it defaults at 2 ). You can add up to 128 Sequences ( top left under MIDI / AUDIO tabs )

Each SEQUENCE has up to 8 Midi Tracks + 2 Audio. Each track has a PROGRAM or a VST or a SAMPLE etc.

Then to finish the workflow idea for anyone interested, to create your full track/song you go to SONG MODE ( this is under the downarrow to the right of all the modes listed up top left starting with that HOUSE Icon ) and arrange your sequences accordingly. Same idea as FL Studio with its Patterns and Song modes.

SO the Q - just wondering as I have not looked at this yet. Does this mean each SEQUENCE has 8 midi tracks + 2 audio .. separately so to speak? So for each SEQUENCE you could load 8 different vsts, programs etc? OR is it 8 midi and 2 audio tracks in total? If its the former, then happy days .. this is not a huge limit then ..

 

Edited by aidan o driscoll
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Okay so after some tweaking and messing about, I have figured out how to get the best experience with MPC Beats when using an Arturia Keylab series keyboard, I have the Keylab Essential 49, so I am not sure how well it will fare with other similar models.

  • So the first step is to go to the MIDI Control Center and copy the DAW preset to the User templates section, and then in the copied preset, change all of the encoders to Relative #1. Make sure that the pads are all set to channel 10. It might be a good idea to also have a specific channel set for the faders and encoders too, though that is optional. My advice would be to hard-set the encoders and faders to channel 1.
  • When done, save the template and store to one of the user preset slots.
  • In MPC Beats, select the Arturia Keylab Essential mapping while you have the map select on the keyboard set to the preset slot.
  • Then go to Edit>Preferences, and then go to MIDI/Sync and set Arturia Keylab/Essential to "Master", "Control", "Track" and then set the controller port, which is sometimes called "MIDIIN2" to "Control" and "Track". it should look something like this:
    8a04c718a6f788d7b05519ec19526ea9.png.8490fc10b0978ca256cfdb2e1916ac24.png
  • Now go into the MIDI Learn panel and set the mappings for the pads and Q-Links.
  • The final step here is important, because otherwise, you will get problems with keys colliding with some of the button assignments. So you know how most of the mappings are set to listen to events on either channel 1 or 10? Well, by default, you are in User Channel 1, and that is why you will get collisions where pressing A4 will accidentally undo instead of play a note. The great thing about MIDI channels in MPC Beats is that it doesn't care as long as you're inputting the notes in the right track. So what you need to do is set the User Channel on the keyboard to 2, or anything other than 1 or 10 by holding the "MIDI CH" button and pressing the key that is assigned to your desired user channel. Now all of your notes that you are playing from the keys are at Channel 2, and won't collide with the button assignments, which are on Channel 1.

Happy beatmaking!

Dorian Splash(D Dorian - 132 bpm).mp3

Edited by Freyja Grimaude-Valens
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Messed about with it a bit in standalone mode last night. Noticed the layout is rather reminiscent of SONAR, with the Browser and Help modules over on the right and a multipurpose area down at the bottom.

Couldn't figure out how to adjust the master volume. The mixer was difficult to navigate.

Was charmed to notice that the built-in collection of FX seem to be the AIR Creative Collection minus their UI's. Unfortunately they are only available within the DAW itself. One of the built-in synths seems to be a similarly stripped-down Vacuum, another, Hybrid.

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  • 2 weeks later...
2 hours ago, Xel Ohh said:

Has anyone tried the MPC Beats in the 2020.08?

Wanted to know if that bug was fixed before I download the 2020.08 or if anyone can point to the thread where this is being discussed further. Thanks

Installing 2020.08 now and will be trying. Why dont you do the same? I assume you be installing 2020.08 regardless anyway? So worst case is Beats crashes again and we have to wait a little further :D .. I think the developers are aware of this issue?

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On 8/9/2020 at 5:21 AM, aidan o driscoll said:

Installing 2020.08 now and will be trying. Why dont you do the same? I assume you be installing 2020.08 regardless anyway? So worst case is Beats crashes again and we have to wait a little further :D .. I think the developers are aware of this issue?

Yes they are, and I am gonna test it in a moment.

EDIT: Yes, it still crashes Cakewalk whenever I tried to load a program within it. Though I discovered an oddity. So earlier today, I installed the free Psytrance MPC Demo pack from Drum Depot, and I was able to load the programs under "Programs > Psytrance > Bass" but nothing else.

It should be noted that I am still running under Windows 7, so that might be a factor. Running the 08/2020 build of Cakewalk too. So I guess we still gotta wait?

Edited by Freyja Grimaude-Valens
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Since i managed to get the full MPC 2 software for very cheap. I now have both this and MPC Beats. I have no experience using both (as I recently just got both. I couldn't decide so I got both, lol) and will start to learn using it. I noticed that MPC Beats opens and I am greeted each time with what template I want to choose. It even has a section at the bottom for recent projects. I find this helpful. But when I open the standard MPC, I don't get that same pop-up screen.

Is there a way I can get all those templates to use in the standard MPC. I am also unsure if there is any use of having them both. Do I use MPC Beats then when I am more comfortable with using it, use the standard MPC? Or should I just uninstall MPC Beats and just use the standard MPC and just learn from there? 

I have not made any projects with either of them yet. So there is no risk of loosing anything or whatever.

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On 8/10/2020 at 6:37 AM, Hillmy said:

Since i managed to get the full MPC 2 software for very cheap. I now have both this and MPC Beats. I have no experience using both (as I recently just got both. I couldn't decide so I got both, lol) and will start to learn using it. I noticed that MPC Beats opens and I am greeted each time with what template I want to choose. It even has a section at the bottom for recent projects. I find this helpful. But when I open the standard MPC, I don't get that same pop-up screen.

Is there a way I can get all those templates to use in the standard MPC. I am also unsure if there is any use of having them both. Do I use MPC Beats then when I am more comfortable with using it, use the standard MPC? Or should I just uninstall MPC Beats and just use the standard MPC and just learn from there? 

I have not made any projects with either of them yet. So there is no risk of loosing anything or whatever.

Big difference tween BEATs and MPC 2 is the LATTER has unlimited tracks ( Beats limited to 8 midi/inst tracks, 2 Audio tracks ). Otherwise they are essentially the same.

Maybe the start screen thing will arrive to MPC 2 via an update?

I would leave both installed but maybe start using BEATS initially to get into the how it all works, there are lots of new tute vids on youtube for Beats, many are linked here further back the pages. Then when you are happy with how whole thing works maybe then decide on what to keep/remove?

Edited by aidan o driscoll
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