Transcript

For the music makers who never want to miss an inspirational moment, meet MPC Live II. This self-contained, battery-powered production unit delivers the full MPC experience, anywhere.

While it’s tempting to talk about the many things an MPC Live II can do, it may actually be better to start with what it doesn’t need.

You see, this is a standalone MPC… in just about every sense of the word. It has an onboard CPU & storage, which means no computer required. It’s got a 6-hour rechargeable battery, so no power adapter required. And it even has onboard stereo monitor speakers. That’s right, this is a truly portable standalone MPC, just like the Denon PRIME Go is a truly portable standalone DJ system, or the Numark PT01 is a truly portable scratch turntable.

There’s been a trend towards this kind of “play anywhere” hardware… and the MPC Live II is a welcome addition to this trend.

Up top it has a 7” high-res multi-touch display, which supports gestures like double-tapping, and pinch-to-zoom on waveforms. Over to the left you’ll find 16 velocity sensitive drum pads which are black on the surface, but show RGB backlighting around the edges. This is done not only because it looks cool, but also because it won’t blind the user, while still being bright enough to be useful.

The four knobs over to the right are touch-sensitive too, undoubtedly working in concert with the screen for a nice, smooth user experience.

This handy new portable MPC needs storage options… if it’s going to be truly handy and portable. So, it’s got 16 gigabytes of storage built right in, plus a full-size SD card slot, plus 2 USB 3.0 slots for thumb drives, plus a SATA drive connector… enabling you to install a laptop hard drive and hold more variations of the Amen break than you could ever use in a lifetime.

Flipping around to the back of the unit and having a look will reveal quite a bit about the Live II and what it’s intended to do… which is a little bit of everything. The left half is almost entirely taken up by analog audio connections:

You’ve got a headphones jack, as well as a switch to enable or disable the onboard speakers. That way you can create beats on the airplane, while flying on-location to perform your creations on the side of a mountain or whatever, where you can take the headphones off and enjoy the freedom of wireless finger-drumming.

Next to that are 6 quarter-inch audio outputs, which you can use to… well, output audio in whatever manner you deem necessary.

Of course, there are audio inputs, too. There’s a set of quarter-inch line inputs, as well as a set of RCA phono connectors so that you can sample directly from vinyl. There’s a little dial back here that lets you adjust the input level, and there’s a ground peg in case you use an old 1200 or some other turntable which requires it.

As we move towards the middle and right, it becomes obvious that the MPC Live II is simply moonlighting as a portable device. For it’s day job, it’s perfectly content to be the command center of your home studio.

With the latest MPC firmware 2.8, Akai introduced what they call “MIDI Multi” capability. As you can see it has two MIDI inputs and two MIDI outputs. But it also contains 8 CV outputs… well, technically there are four jacks, but using splitters, you can control 8 devices. These CV, or “gate” outputs pre-date the MIDI standard but can be used for connecting to analog modular synthesizers and similar equipment.

Fuse this together with the MPC’s deep internal MIDI routing capabilities, and what you end up with is a device that can control and synchronize all sorts of gear together. And it doesn’t stop there, because there are also these two USB ports. And yes, you could use those to access a thumb drive or something, but you can also bring USB-based MIDI controllers into the fray.

Plus, on top of all this, the unit supports the Ableton Link protocol… which means that with a single click, you can sync the MPC to Ableton or some other compatible program (e.g. Traktor). And as long as you’re plugged in to this ethernet port, or connected via Wi-Fi.. (oh yeah, this thing has Wi-Fi and bluetooth as well), you’re pretty much good to go.

Finally, the MPC Live II can be used the good old-fashioned way. It can be connected to a computer using this third USB port and be used as a controller. It comes with MPC Software 2 which lets you run as a standalone program, or as a VST in your favorite studio software… plus it comes pre-mapped to Ableton Live for an instant performance and production setup.

There’s one last integration I want to talk about, and that’s with Splice. Splice allows producers to easily collaborate with friends around the world, while also backing up their music projects. It’s also a way to access millions of high-quality, royalty-free sounds and presets. This service is natively embedded in the MPC Live II, and you’ll be able to access your own Splice library directly from the unit. If you buy one, you’ll actually get 3 months of free access.