Oh snap nice work! Is the midi bug on the Hapax side or the mpc? I’ve been trying to get the motivation to make an mpc instrument def, this type of stuff helps charge it up 
MPC, long standing issue that was supposed to have been fixed in 2.11.7 and may have been for drum programs but apparently not plugins at least. in an abundance of caution, i always map my drum program pads down to the lowest note value MPC allows (C-2) and go up from there. usually that keeps them out of the range of any notes a plugin or keygroup is likely to play. but now with the easy mapping of key ranges, i might just put a hard min/max on each track to keep them fully separated
1 Like
has anyone using MPC been able to send MIDI Out over USB into Hapax (basically would like the Pad Perform settings, especially Chord Progressions, to transmit into Hapax for recording the chord notes). what MIDI In settings per track, or in Settings, should I be using? Set to receive as USB Device on Ch. X doesn’t seem to actually receive from MPC when I trigger a pad
Wish I could help Chris, but I find MPC to be a bit of a midi problem machine. I’m thinking of selling mine as it’s just going to waste at present.
1 Like
I don’t love the MPC (tries to do too much so doesn’t do anything very well), but I keep my MPC One at the cabin as a fun to use all-in-one musical creation tool when I don’t want to bring anything else there (or just bring my Hapax to the cabin). I can’t really justify selling it because I bought it at the original price ($799) and then bought a mess of drum sounds and packs to go with it, so I’d never get anything close to my money back. Also, when you connect the Hapax to the MPC via USB and use the track edit window, creating multiple tracks on the Hapax to create sounds on the MPC is actually pretty straightforward. What’s nice is that, like using a DAW, you have access with just one machine to do up to 16 tracks of synths, ROMpler, and drums on the Hapax. Simple. Don’t get me wrong, I prefer to use the Hapax with other gear that sounds better than the MPC and gives me better options, but the MPC still has its place in my music creation workflow.
1 Like
anyone work out how to automate things on the MPC from hapax??
i am having zero luck figuring it out
the MPC won’t send the pads over its USB, it will over BT or DIN. FWIW WIDI has been solid for me if the goal is to use Hapax’s usb in. Their mailing list sends 35% off sales every few months.
i think i got it to output pads (with Pad Perform – chord progressions) eventually by setting up a MIDI track into Hapax via USB (don’t have it all set up at the moment so can’t 100% confirm). but it seemed to be working great because i could just change the MIDI Out channel on that track to correspond either to my Alpha Juno or Digitone or PIPES sample playback box and Hapax was recording whatever i triggered from pad perform into the Live or Step mode for each given device on their assigned Hapax track
one way -
On the MPC
Load a thing to control and name it,
Menu > MIDI Control
bottom left choose “MIDI LEARN” tab
upper right enable “Enable Mapping”
upper left click “+” (plus sign)
Drop down Source, choose “Program” if its a synth or samples, then choose which program.
Drop down Target, choose - Mixer gets you vol, sends, etc. Program gets you any parameter from a pad or plug in.
Hit Learn ( -_- ).
Turn your hapax encoder.
It saves the map in the MPC project.
3 Likes
Apologies digging up an old thread, but do any of you who work with MPC OS and Hapax happen to have a definition file made upy? Even if it’s just for the qlinks/basics
that new mpc one g2 is lookin mighty good paired with hapax since it now plays custom wave tables with plenty of usb midi control and streaming 24 track audio! stem separation. and auto sampling, 256 voice polyphony, macros, insane lfos, layering, mixing… its a match made for drum and bass production! im selling old crap asap! im so excited hahaha! im such a geek for this shit 
it does everything i wanted tracker+ to do and more! TAKE MY MONEY akai!
i don’t think the problem, even with the OG MPC One which I was easily able to sequence on multiple USB MIDI tracks with Hapax, was ever the specs. it’s Akai choosing to make mapping anything to external MIDI devices/controllers an absolute bastard, at least compared to any other similar gear
1 Like
i see your point now.. heres is ai’s response when i quoted what you said:
'The MPC3 “Macro” Workaround for the Hapax
To make the sample voice architecture usable with the Hapax without breaking your sanity on every project, use Akai’s internal Q-Link Macros:
-
Inside your MPC Drum or Keygroup track, navigate to the Global Q-Link menu.
-
Map Macro 1 to Cutoff, Macro 2 to Decay, Macro 3 to Pitch, etc.
-
Because the MPC’s main Q-Link macros do listen to a predictable set of MIDI CCs, you can build your Hapax Instrument Definition File to map strictly to those generic Macros. [1]
This allows you to change the underlying samples or drum kits as much as you want; as long as your internal track routing points to those standardized macro slots, the Hapax will control your samples cleanly across different projects.’
theres 16 q-links i guess
ah! but those assignments are tied to the track in focus only. yeah thats pretty painful. ai recommends to stick to the plugins. bummer because i wanted to use wavetable playback on a ‘hardware’ device.
i think ill brave the cc learn method. i may just use templates or get squarp to allow renaming of the automation lanes / lfo assignments. thats all we need for this to work better, yeah? i want to use those wave tables and a ton of assignments across the mix
Hi Chris, can you explain what you mean, I’ve never owned a modern mpc and starting to think about maybe getting one but am in the dark about how the mpc plays with other gear.
only the plugins offered for purchase that run in the new mpcs have fixed cc assignments making them easy to pair with hapax’s instrument definition style, and they respond to cc commands issued by hapax even once you change the active track in focus on the mpc. but the problem is that the plugins are mostly trash except maybe the fm and the minimoog. you cant load your own wavetables to the plugin ‘hype’ unfortunately. but the non plugin based sample playback engine included with mpc allows you to load custom samples and even wavetables with many layers and all kids of fx goodies BUT any cc assignments from hapax midi fx or automation lanes to the mpc q-link knobs ONLY work while that track is in focus, meaning all your automations will stop controlling what you assigned them to once you switch focus to another track making them absolutely useless until akai decides to change this so that you can send midi automation to tracks that are not in focus. the only workaround is to record your automations to the mpc internal sequencer and then switch focus to another track. but then you dont have live control or free running control from hapax, defeating the whole purpose. people dont prefer the mpc sequencer for fiddly stuff like automation, that is why you bought a hapax presumably. so effectively you cant bring hapax’s brilliance to bear on mpc’s shortcomings like you really should be able to, even though mpc tempts with amazing oscillator and fx insert and layering capabilities, unless you use only the plugins
Hey thanks for the info. That indeed sounds frustrating and quite odd hopefully they will fix that in the future. Not sure I would get one knowing that now.
1 Like
It works perfectly for me with an all new MPC One G2 with 3.9. The way is to create an instrument definition in advance where you just decide which cc you want to use for what. Than you have to learn this for your fav plugins/tracks/effects and save it in a template. Switch Monitoring of the tracks to In or Merge and your good to go. Works like a charm here and there are really many many plugins that sound fantastic.
1 Like
a project template? im not fond of most of the plugins, but they do sound ‘good’ if theyre what you are looking for.
so you mean you need to decide what tracks will contain wavetables and what fx you want to load beforehand. yeah thats not ideal at all. ill be interested after its changed though! i mean its a good price for a hardware unit that plays wavetables and has deep fx.
Hey everyone, just saw this topic, and since I’ve spent what now probably amounts to a couple of weeks trying to get the Hapax and MPC to play nice, thought I’d join in.
One thing to note: I’m only using the MPC as a sampler with built-in fx, not as a sequencer, with a secondary use case as a pad controller.
Hardware setup:
Hapax going through an iConnectivity mioXL via USB, MPC connected to the mioXL also via USB, everything also routed to the DAW if needed. Controllers into Hapax are MPC pads, an Arturia Keystep 37 (for notes) and an Electra One (for knobs/writing automation).
Hapax project setup:
3 tracks on the Hapax, 2 drum tracks for one-shot samples (drums mostly, some fx/one-off stuff) and a separate drum track for loops and other misc stuff. I use a total of 3 instrument definitions, one for each track: MPC 1-8, MPC 9-16 and MPC Loop
Each of the first two tracks has 8 rows, 4 on one MIDI channel, 4 on the next one, each row has note pitch, with default notes set 32 notes apart starting from 16 (row 1 sends note 16, row 2 sends note 48 etc.) This allows me to control note pitch in +16/-16 semitone intervals. The fact that there are 4 drum tracks per channel means I get 20-ish CCs per drum track to use for parameter control for each. I’ve mapped stuff to them such as filter and amp ADSR, Cutoff 1&2, Resonance 1&2, 3+3 FX parameters (wet/dry, assignable 1, assignable 2), sample start, sample end etc.
MPC project setup:
16 keygroup tracks, one for each one-shot sample, mapped in groups of 4 to the same MIDI channel, each separated by assigned keygroup notes. Track 1 gets first 32 notes, track 2 gets the following 32 etc. I use keygroup instead of drum tracks because this not only allows me to control the note pitch from the Hapax easily, but also gives me 2 filters and generally finer control over each track.
There are a few more tracks for loops and other stuff, using the other 12 Midi channels - still working on precise mapping for them, will update as I go.
This setup gives me 16 one-shot tracks,each with 20+ parameter (plus semitone) control via CCs on the MPC, as well as up to 12 more tracks for loops and extra stuff if needed. The cost on the Hapax side is 3 tracks. I use the Electra One as a parameter controller, but something like Novation’s Launch Control XL would also work beautifully, giving you 16 pots plus 8 faders to control any parameter on any MPC track almost instantly.
It’s all still a work in progress, at some point I’d like to investigate the feasibility of using NRPNs for parameter control, but I’m not sure if I want to dive that deep, especially since I’ve got an Akai S3000Xl and an S900 which are due for an upgrade and they might take over a bunch of sampling duties. Either way, this whole thing was built and iterated on/off over a few weeks.
I’m doing a major studio refresh for the next month or so, so no time to finish it (there are still rough corners and unfinished work with the projects, both on Hapax and MPC), but if anyone is interested in the project files and instrument definitions, drop me a PM or reply to this post and I’ll upload the whole bunch as soon as I get it done.