Audiobus: Use your music apps together.
What is Audiobus? — Audiobus is an award-winning music app for iPhone and iPad which lets you use your other music apps together. Chain effects on your favourite synth, run the output of apps or Audio Units into an app like GarageBand or Loopy, or select a different audio interface output for each app. Route MIDI between apps — drive a synth from a MIDI sequencer, or add an arpeggiator to your MIDI keyboard — or sync with your external MIDI gear. And control your entire setup from a MIDI controller.
Download on the App StoreAudiobus is the app that makes the rest of your setup better.
Akai emails overload -selling new products&soundpacks- are they in a bit of a crisis?
Seems so. I think there new products i.e An electric clarinet & an extra email saying.
Quote “now available in White”. I laughed a lot. Then the multitude of soundpacks.
Then the FORCE (be with you haha) The list goes on. Makes me sad being an MPC Hardware dude for over 20 years. Personally I feel they should have stuck to hardware and software “contollers”.
The Akai MPC2.0 etc not my thing It has way to much going on.
I bought the MPC STUDIOBLACK used it for a week till I discovered the ipad Thankfully.
I hope they are listening and get back to making simple stuff geared towards pro & aspiring beatmakers.
Comments
I think they are hitting homeruns.
Nobody bats a thousand, not on music gear.
I agree 100%. Akai in general has way too much going on with product releases. Their brand has been severely diluted over the past 10-15 years. They spend more time hyping and releasing new products than they do refining and releasing quality products. The MPK Mini is a prime example. The original was solid, popular and for the most part effective for mobile musicians. The MPK Mini 2 took 2 steps forward but 3 steps back. the most glaring omission was the low power mode which allowed it to work with IOS devices without using a hub. Instead of correcting that glaring problem as they promised Akai chose to instead concentrate on releasing new models in different colors. Red with black keys, white with black keys, black with silver knobs, etc. Finally they released the MPK Mini Play which removed some essential control knobs but added a 1980's GM soundset and a small display to view the antiquated sounds.
Akai is clearly a company in flux which is now being driven by product marketing/hype people who are only interested in making a quick buck rather than continuing the once revered MPC legacy.
@Dham indeed. I get marketing emails everday or two these last 2 months
I'd agree that the MPK Mini Play was a big misstep. I try to imagine it as something fun for kids to get them into music-making, but it would have been nicer if they had forgone the GM soundset standard and instead used a wider, more diverse variety of sounds.
It always bothers me when manufacturers, instead of releasing something new, simply re-release products in NEW COLORS!!!!!!!!!1!!!!!!!!!1!!!!!!! Korg is especially guilty of that, and (being that they own them) Vox suffers from this as well.
Absolutely! It still boggles my mind that they haven't thought to add batteries and bluetooth modules to the MPK Mini. That would make it an ideal IOS controller.
And just received another Akai Ad marketing email...
I’ve heard things like this since the MPC 2000 was released, and it was true after Numark purchased Akai in 2005, and even more so in 2008, when they discontinued the 4000 for the inferior 5000. By the time the MPKs were being shipped, the marketing department had completely taken over. I don’t see that same company in 2019. Despite the Renaissance’s slow start, it gave a minor alternative to Maschine, and pushed Akai through to the Live and Force, both NAMM stars in their years of release. I see evidence of a stronger development department, and can imagine folks like Daniel Gill pushing for more innovation, while compromising on marketing-lead directives like splice.com. Still too many bugs and still too big to have as few dedicated programmers as they do, but I see signs of life.