Akai has announced 2.0 OS for their flagship MPC5000 drum machine workstation, a free download for MPC owners. Now, the MPC itself has long been a bit minimalist in what it does – I think that’s part of its appeal, that it has resisted complexity. But users of the MPC1000 and 2000/2500 have as a result turned in some cases to an alternative firmware, JJOS, to get all the features they want. And Akai has generously looked the other way.

Akai says the 2.0 OS responds to user requests. Here’s what’s baked in:

• Keygroup programs for chromatic, key-mapped samples (that wasn’t in there before, really?)
• S1000/3000/4000/5000/6000, Z4/Z8 import
• Effects automation recording, “an MPC first” (by which I assume they mean it’s the first time on the MPC, as this is commonplace in software, certainly)
• Controller Grid Edit Window for graphical controller automation / event editing (something Roland has touted in the past on their machines)
• “Chopshop” for slicing samples into smaller pieces, with a Zoom feature
• MultiEdit: edit multiple pads at once
• Quantize Track Mutes (something Ableton users, incidentally, have asked for but not gotten, although implementation on a computer is a different can of worms because of plug-ins)

Generally, it looks good to me – not anything that’s so impressive for those of us committed to computer workflows, but looks nice if you’re a 5000 owner. But as a non-MPC person, I’m not terribly qualified to respond. So I leave that to our MPC-using crowd. Let us know what you think, and whether you folks with devices like the MPC1000 and MPC2500 with the JJOS running are jealous – or don’t care.

Free download / more specifics:
www.akaipro.com/MPC5000