Akai Professional MPC Live II – Battery Powered Drum Machine and Sampler With Built in Speakers, Beat Pads, Synth Engines and Touch Display

Product Information

Akai Professional's MPC2 software features all the tools to quickly navigate every musical task from writing music and recording audio, to mixing and mastering. Designed from the ground up, this dual tweeter- woofer system delivers impeccable clarity to keep your ideas flowing through the creative process. The Live was joined by a flagship studio model, the MPC X, and recently by the compact and affordable MPC One. New to Akai Professional’s next generation standalone, multi-core powered MPC Series is MIDI Multi capability, transforming MPC into the ultimate MIDI sequencing studio centrepiece.

Prepare for MPC's biggest update ever, cementing MPC as the most powerful, feature-rich standalone production platform on the market. In addition, the possibility was created to install an SSD hard drive with a few simple steps and thus significantly increase the internal memory.With user-focused upgrades like this, you're more equipped than ever to produce radio-ready tracks with the MPC Live II. The software limitations of Lite seems like heavy handed gate-keeping that will hurt sales for the unit. We tend to focus on the stand-alone functionality of these devices, but let's not forget that the MPC can plug into your computer and become a controller for the MPC software or plug‑in. When Akai Professional announced a software DAW that thought like an MPC back in 2012, the electronic-music-production world went nuts.

When we reviewed the previous MPC Live, we said the software – in standalone mode, at least – felt occasionally convoluted and disjointed, and we stand by that criticism now; there are a lot of different views and menus to navigate, and while much of the workflow is intuitive, some features end up buried amongst sub-menus. On the hardware side, Live II would have hit perfection if it had had a mic/instrument input as well as line ins. The difference between the Akai manual and the MPC Bible in regards to clarity and ease of use is really staggering. While they were at it, Akai Professional also updated their time-warp algorithm and enhanced their Q-Link control system. The MPC range has been pivotal in the world of music production, and the Live II looks set to continue this trailblazing legacy.

In addition to those free plugins, you have the option to acquire paid deep FM synth, Piano/Organ/Strings plugins, great sounding rompler and now a Mini D recreation (an MPC is the perfect GAS killer).