When I first reviewed the MPC Live I saw it as a drum machine with melodic features tucked under the surface. AKAI have steadily brought melody to the fore culminating in the MPC Keys, a fully blown keyboard workstation with the drums now to the side of the piano. It’s a significant shift in strategy that pits the MPC against the Fantoms and Montages of this world. ‘Courageous’ (as they’d say in Yes Minister).
The MPC ecosystem allows you to compose on your computer using the software DAW, then move over to the hardware with all the samples, plug ins and patterns intact in a very similar environment. AKAI have been careful to also develop VST versions so you can use any recent AIR instrument in your preferred DAW knowing that it will eventually sound the same when it reaches the stage.
Therefore note – I bought these plugins because I wanted more sounds available on my MPC. Compromises have been made by AIR to work on that hardware. Purely as VSTs they’re not able to complete with the best titles – so I’d perhaps not recommend them for general use.
OPx-4
OPx-4 is a 4 operator FM synthesiser which I suspect is based on one you get on another manufacturer’s groove boxes. It has the usual operator modulation but much of the texture comes from shaping the individual operators with ‘pulse-width’ and ‘formant’ controls. There’s also a fair bit due to filters and effects. AIR promote this as easier to use – perhaps true for a neophyte but puzzling for old 6-op me. The demo patches weren’t explaining much until I figured out the role of the large number of external controllers that make it a very punch-able MPC instrument. Even when you init a patch it still expects you to be belting a pad with your fist.
A nice touch is that you can place a sample at the start, like the old days of the D-50. Simple, effective. But only preset waves. Poo. The example sounds are very nicely done and show the OPx-4 as being very capable once you figure out the thought process.
Fabric XL
There are several Fabrics on offer only because the MPC has roughly 1Gb of free RAM. Go right ahead and run the biggest one if you’re on your normal DAW – but take care if planning for the hardware (XL will fit if not too big a project). Fabric is a simple thing really – there are two main layers each with a library multi-sample, with a third layer just for the same D50 style chiff as on OPx-4. Not particularly interesting to describe and a bit similar to previous AIR ROMplers like Hype but they are very well chosen sounds and the effects section has some very pretty treatments that sweeten the deal – notably a resonator that puts your sound in a room or a speaker.
I’d like to use my own samples. Sure – you can layer four of your own in the standard sample track, but it would be really nice to have the interface available to rapidly tweak the intersections of your own noises.
While both plugins are perfectly suited to the MPC keys I think there’ll be less people trying them on the groove boxes, and less again as VSTs. Pity. They take the old drum machine on a giant leap of sound range – I’d warrant you are getting far more sounds than the Fantom for less money – and that’s going to insert cat into pigeons. Now let please let AIR have some time outside that system, I’m sure they’re pining for much grander schemes.