MPC & HAPAX – A love story with missing notes

Hapax
1

After several years of exploring virtually every type of synthesizer, sampler, drum machine, groovebox, tablet, and VST, I have now reached what I would call a milestone. I wanted to create two perfect worlds for myself, where music production is truly enjoyable and I am not held back by technical obstacles and complicated workflows.

World 1 (PC): Mac Mini M4, Hookpad for songwriting (100% web-based), Ableton as DAW, Ableton Push 3, Launchkey Midi keyboard, TEControl Breath Controller, Stream Deck, ACE for AI vocals.

PXL_20250601_083116663~2
PXL_20250601_083116663~21920×1446 221 KB

In this world, anything is possible. But you get distracted and end up sitting in front of a screen all day again. And you spend a lot of time maintaining software agents from Arturia, NI, Roland, etc., have to update your system all the time, and then you don’t make any music during that time.

World 2 (No PC): Hookpad again for songwriting, AKAI MPC Live II controlled by Squarp HAPAX.

PXL_20250601_064910010.MP~2
PXL_20250601_064910010.MP~21920×1446 333 KB

In my opinion, the combination of HAPAX and MPC Live II is almost perfect. Important to note: MPC must be Clockmaster (otherwise plugins and effects won’t sync properly) and three physical MIDI connections should be set up from the HAPAX to the MPC so that 8 plugin and multiple drum tracks can be sequenced flawlessly. Because the only thing that really annoys me about this otherwise brilliant combo is the note-off or MIDI channel overload bug in the MPC. With an MPC One, this is a total showstopper. With a Live or X, there is a workaround to switch to other MIDI interfaces as soon as the bug occurs. The channel number can be left as it is (which is cool because then learned MIDI CCs for automation don’t have to be relearned).

As an example, I control 3 drum tracks via MIDI DIN A, 4 synth tracks via MIDI DIN B, and 3 more via USB MIDI in a template. With a little luck, the bug doesn’t show up anywhere and working with the entire system is really fun.

Speaking of automation: it works absolutely brilliantly with HAPAX and MPC.

Have a nice Sunday

John

PS: And if you don’t own already one get a HAPAX NOW! The HAPAX is THE most important machine on my journey. It’s just the perfect sketchbook and it can do so much in such an easy way.

PS2: I will open InMusic-Ticket 27453276 concerning the midi bug. Some are guessing Akai has planed to fix it by 2040 :wink:

2

What you see on the 2nd image is world 2. Sometimes I’m creating world 3 with it and then I use the HAPAX to control Ableton which is also great fun. But the HAPAX and the MPC on this image are basically working independently from the PC. Btw. the Focusrite Scarletts Gen 4 are cool because they can be operated without PC.

3

the only MPC plugin i’ve found doesn’t respond to incoming sync from Hapax is Flex Beat. if the MPC’s project/master bpm matches the Hapax bpm, effects and plugins all stay locked in my experience

4

try Air Delay Pro :wink:

5

It’s also possible to use an intelligent midi device like a mio or a teensy (diy) to split midi channels into separate USB wires. I have a microcontroller from adafruit to try coding this but there has been some hint that Akai might FINALLY fix this in the next update and I’ve not been motivated.

6

John,

Thanks for this post, I just started down this path 3 weeks ago. I’m a long time Akai user (2000xl) that was excited for the One but have found the sequencing capability very lacking. My one improvement mirrors yours. There is a lot of MIDI channel capability between the Hapax and the MPC but I think we need an expanded MIDI USB connection to do it. Dstengle mentions Mio but I also like the CMC MIDI boxes for interconnecting a lot of midi devices over USB.

Have you ever thought about an instrument definition for the MPC? I’m curious what you do from a Project / Program perspective?

DSS

7

Hi DSS
great to hear others are also in the HAPAX/MPC boat :wink:

I have a simple track definition for the MPC with default CCs for Volume, Sends, Filter cutoff and resonance and a few variables (name them Effect01 to Effect20 and Macro01 to Macro20) to map/learn in the MPC.
Then I have a template with 8 plugin tracks set to “In” configured with the HAPAX midi channels/numbers. The template corresponds to an Hapax template fo course. Also I took my time to map all Sends and Volumes and filters already. Further there are 3 drumsets and 1 empty drumset for recorded samples. Thats basically it. I just have to push two buttons, one tap on “user template” on the startupscreen of the MPC, 10 seconds to wait and the set is ready to have fun with.

Best
John

8

That’s helpful John. I have started something similar. I have a Hapax1 project that I load on my MPC that contains corresponding tracks for each MIDI channel. I mostly use my MPC as a sampler cause I have a couple of other synths to connect with. So drum tracks and vocal samples definitely go on the MPC. I do stack the “programs” or in 3.0 “tracks” with a lot of samples as I like to be able to perform live and so I can have a set worth of songs that don’t require the loading of new programs or crowded MIDI channels.

To your point I’m excited to get the full utilization of MIDI USB so I don’t feel crowded to only 16 tracks on the MPC.

I have done some of the MIDI Learn on the MPC for CC’s but I think I need to sit down and really map a default of Hapax CC lanes to what I want them to correspond to by default on the MPC.

DSS

9

Hi All,

What exactly is the bug on MPC midi? I’ve literally just dug out my MPC one to use for a live gig in a couple of months, and was hoping to use it as a sampler (I stopped using the MPC because I hate the sequencer with a passion), and perhaps some synth parts too.

But if this is going to be an issue I might just launch the thing out the window and get something else. But if it just effects synth then I may use it as a sampler still as it’s so cheap for what it can do.

Using it with Hapax, has so far been a joy, so this could really kill it off for me.

10

Craigy,

Just a caveat, I wouldn’t call this a bug. More like an incomplete implementation for MIDI over USB.

You will be able to connect your MPC to your Hapax just fine. I connected the TRS MIDI out/in to my MPC and that gives me one cable or 16 MIDI channels of communication.

Both the Hapax and the MPC also have USB connections. These transport also one MIDI “cable” of 16 channels. The discussion about MIDI is that the USB format allows for more “cables” and we’d like to have more of those USB virtual MIDI cables to control more tracks on the MPC.

Just want to make sure that the Hapax is an awesome instrument paired with the MPC and is working great for me as a sampler.

Thanks,
DSS

1 Like
11

in a nutshell, MPC (One, Live, X, Force) does not properly wall off MIDI channels from incoming note messages. such that even if you only assign one channel/track on Hapax (say Track 1, MIDI channel 1) to trigger note values on the MPC, any corresponding note values you’re sending out from Hapax on Tracks/Channels 2-16 will choke off that same note value in MPC Trk/Ch 1.

which isn’t necessarily so bad given that you can map all the MPC pads to MIDI note values all the way down to C -2 (I throw my samples down there and usually don’t have to worry about conflicting notes from other gear) but especially once you start incorporating the MPC synth plugins or keygroup samples then it becomes a right bastard trying to map note values in the middle ranges that won’t get choked off by the other stuff on other MIDI channels

1 Like
12

Great thanks, I don’t tend to use MIDI over USB as it causes outer issues (noise, ground loops etc.) which MIDI doesn’t do as it’s opto isolated. This shouldn’t be an issue with Hapax, however if you connected more than one device to Hapax through a hub then this could cause problems.

I’ve always found the number of tracks on the MPC quite limited for plugins, I think you can only have 8?

13

Chris Roland,

I was able to get an MPC track to only listen on one MIDI channel. In Preferences–> MIDI/SYNC Settings I have the following:

  • Set the MPC (MIDI DIN IN on the back of the MPC) Control to on.

At the track level I have the following:

  • Under MIDI Routing
  • MIDI Input Port: Select MPC (matches the MIDI/SYNC preference above)
  • MIDI Input Channel: Select the channel your using from your Hapax Track
  • MIDI Monitor: In

I also want to use the MPC as a controller and it’s a lot of finagling to get it to send MIDI messages out to the Hapax pattern. Still trying to figure out the correct settings for that.

DSS

14

Thank you, and hmmmmmmmm.

These are yet more reasons for me to hate the MPC, why can’t they get anything to work properly.

I’ll have a play and try to re-create this behaviour, it may be ok for what I’m doing, as it’s ambient and I’m using lots of random note drop outs and movement to everything anyway, it may just add it’s own extra randomness.

Is it when the same note is played at the same time on different channels? or when a note off from another channel is received?

15

That’s not the faulty behaviour anymore I think. Well at least I can not reproduce this anymore on a Live II with MPC OS 3.5 and I read about the change on the MPC forums too.

The bug has become different: Now as soon as a certain “traffic” hits a Midi Interface you get randomly missing notes. Actually even worse because it’s difficult to work around it.

But with the Live II you luckily have 2 DIN Midi Ports and the USB-Midi. If you carfully distrubute the Midi traffic over this 3 channels you can handle quite a little orchestra :wink:

Great thing is you can configure automation per channel and later switch the interface and the channel remains the same and so the automation is still working.

I have to say even if this is a pain in the arse I think 8 plugin tracks in addition with different drum- and keygroup-tracks are for most things enough and the MPC is a fantastic machine. The only thing that can compete with it is a PC-DAW. Of course you can put a few hardware synths and grooveboxes together and route them trough effect pedals etc… but that’s even more pita than a few MPC bugs.

And honestly… the following effects and instruments are really really great, easy and fun to work with: Air Delay Pro, Flex Beat, Mini D, Fabric XL, Jura, Hype, OPx-4 and the DrumSynth. The DrumSynth alone paired with a few effects is absolutely fantastic.

I have still some hope Akai will fix the midi “engine”.

1 Like
16

I mean I agree with you about all the good stuff on MPC, and yes I would like to use it as it replaces loads of other synths etc for my live setup (I already carry a modular), it just baffles me that such a mature platform can have such ridiculously basic bugs.

Also agree that the only thing that can compete is a DAW, and I’m definitely not using a computer for live, that’s just too painful in my opinion.

17

I just received an answer to my ticket concerning the AKAI midi-issues from InMusic. And I have no words how stupid one can be. Read yourself:

Hi John,

Thanks for reaching out to me! I’m Rich from the level II team. I apologise for the delay in correspondence, we were closed over the weekend with a high number of tickets and I just want to assure you that your message is important to me. I apologise for your experience with the MPC Live II.

as soon as I reach a certain amount of midi notes it starts overwriting existing notes

This sounds like your recording is reaching the end of the loop marker, which is bringing the recording back to the start.

Have you adjusted the loop start and end points in Arrange View? I am referring to the same info written in page 17 of the user guide.

If this is different to the issue you’re having, please can you send me a video so I can take a closer look? Videos are too large to attach, so please use a public google drive link or similar.

MPC can not be synched from an external device because the effects will not sync properly.

Are you referring to MIDI sync? If so, this is to be expected as MIDI does not send audio data which is how effects would usually be sent.

To use external FX from your other gear, please connect their audio outputs to the 6.35mm audio inputs and record as an audio track.

I hope this helps and if you have any further questions, please feel free to ask.

Kind Regards,

Rich
Technical Support Specialist - Level II

inMusic Europe Ltd

2getheraudio | AIR | Akai Professional | Alesis | ▲lto Professional | BFD | Denon DJ | Denon Professional | ION Audio | M-Audio | Marantz Professional | Marq Lighting | MixMeister | Moog | Numark | RANE | SONiVOX

On Sun, 1 Jun at 4:47 AM , John Wilhelm john@johnwilhelm.ch wrote:

Dear Akai

I’m really disappointed. I wanted to come back to Akai and use the Live 2 as a companion for the Squarp Hapax Midi Sequencer.

I want to control several plugin- and drum-tracks of the Live 2 from the Hapax. I can do this with every other synth MC 707 from Roland, Elektron boxes etc. But with the MPC as soon as I reach a certain amount of midi notes it starts overwriting existing notes etc. Very very annoying especially because Akai knows about this bug for a very long time.

So the question is: Will it be fixed and when?

Another anoyying bug btw. is that the MPC can no be synched from an external device because the effects will not sync properly. So this option is pretty useless too.

No bad feelings and best wishes from Switzerland

John

PS: The Air Delay Pro Interface is still broken too…