Akai Professional Battery Powered Drum Machine and Sampler with Built in Speakers, Beat Pads, Synth Engines and Touch Display (MPC Live 2)

This device does everything. It can be a portable DAW that can control and record your entire studio, or it can do it all itself. It has full song making capabilities where you can create midi sequences or audio loops and that can be saved as songs. You can create entire drum kits for the pads (or use the hundreds already included for free!) and make your own beats and sample your old records or songs from an ipod through it's inputs. You can fill it full of your own samples if you want, and even warp them into stepped synths or slow and time warp them. It recognizes every MIDI USB device I plug into it instantly AND it can power those MIDI USB devices from its own powered USB ports. Even when it's running on it's own batteries! No joke, you can chain as many USB powered devices and you want on this thing and the battery will power them all (At the cost of runtime!). Got a keystep? Plug it into the USB and it just works.The speakers are actually really nice and the battery life is about 6 hours on the dot. The overall feel is it's quite heavy and solid. It's all metal and it shows. The touch screen is actually very cool and you can do most everything via button combos as well.For inputting music, it's really geared for beats and samples above all else. The standard step sequencer is nice and easy to use and you'll have drum loops going easy. The grid mode/key roll is a bit harder to use. It's where the touch based screen isn't as precise, so if you want to put a C# note on step 6 you'll likely place it on D and have to select and move it down. It's easier to simply live record your melodies. If you want to do ARPs and such, it has all that built in. It has hundreds of different modes and you select your scale (like major, minor, pentatonic, etc) and then if you want to play chord (It has 64 sound polyphony) arps or single note arps.It has about 50+ built in FX like reverb, compressor, ducker, chorus, etc.It really can do everything. Plus it can sit on your lap on the couch. For what you get, the cost is amazingly cheap, IMO. There is a reason so many people are picking these newer MPCs up like crazy.

I decided to take a chance and buy this machine used for around $400 less than it was new. I was a bit worried it would come all jacked up with ketchup stains and scratches all up and down the machine. However when it arrived and i was able to unbox it, i was shocked at the quality and overall care the machine had seen. It looks literally brand new other than some minor scratching on the main scroll wheel but thats a hard nitpick and you would have to go looking for that. Overall i am completely blasted away that i got a machine so nice for the price i payed. I wouldnt have any issue ordering another used machine at all from Amazon directly. The quality it unreal, it plays perfectly and everything works as it should. As far as the sampler itself, just wow. It does everything, its a stand alone studio in a box. No need for a pc or any other recording gear, this thing can act as the mixer, the mastering daw, the midi controller, you name it, it can do it. It has direct link up cv gates for modular gear i mean its the works. Its also fully expandable , there is a hard drive bay on the back on the machine. This thing is wild.

Built in speakers are very cool. Volume goes loud enough and the sound quality is really good. Best part is being able to use it without the computer. It has usb in the back and you can connect a fash drive to upload your own sound files. You don't need any though, it comes with a Huge library of instruments and sounds. Only downside is the software. It doesn't seem all that intuitive and it takes some work to figure out. Best way to learn is to YouTube what you're trying to do.

Great design! All in one music production device that’s portable so you’re not always stuck in the studio. Makes beat last anywhere.

Great product and fast shipping! Great transaction

I like what this MPC is going for. Positives for me:- Workflow is fairly smooth once you learn the machine- The hardware quality is very nice. Nothing feels cheap about the build of this machine.- Easy to sample, trim, chop, warp, etc.- Touchscreen is really nice and very usable- Pads have a good "feel" when playing (except for the double hits)- Built in battery/speaker are actually pretty neat. I've found them to be very useful and they make the unit very portable.- Expandable memory/hard drive slot is great. I've got more internal storage than I'll ever use. Having used samplers for a long time, not worrying about storage/memory is awesome.- It's pretty easy to jump around the functions and do things quickly on this machine, once you learn how it works.What I don't like:- I get a lot of double triggering on the pads when trying to finger drum. I've never experienced this level of double triggering with any other sampler or controller I've used. I pretty much gave up on trying to use this machine for finger drumming because of it. I have no confidence in doing any finger drumming without getting double hits. That's a huge disappointment for me. Even adjusting threshold/sensitivity on the pads doesn't affect this issue. I might try a different set of pads before completely giving up on the finger drumming with this one.- Moving sequences around and rearranging them on the next sequence grid seems like it should be a lot easier. Same with rearranging tracks.- I get weird freezes and moments where functions just stop working. Restarting the machine helps. Usually only happens if I've had it on for more than a couple hours.So, long story short - I'm finding this machine to great for sampling and programming beats. Finger drummers might want to be careful with this one and look at other option due to the double hits on the pads. Try it out first if you can.

It’s a very nice product fun and it lives up the hype!