Retronyms and AKAI have released iMPC Pro 2 – a major update that adds new track types, support for Audio Units, extended MIDI support and the ability to create complete songs – essentially turning the app into a mobile DAW.
“This evolves the mobile beatmaking app concept into a more complete song creation tool,” says Retronyms co-founder JP Walton. “It has synchrony with what Akai has been working on with MPC desktop and their hardware as well.”
Here are some of the key new features in iMPC Pro 2:
- Audio Tracks: Within the audio tracks, you can time warp, pitch shift, and rearrange your audio clips in real time. You can choose from multiple input sources to record, including external mic channels, hardware audio interfaces, and IAA. Import existing projects from iMPC Pro and add your vocal tracks easily.
- Audio Unit Tracks: You can now load any Audio Units instrument into an Audio Unit Track. Control your AU instrument with a classic piano keyboard interface and an iMPC interface with note variation, Flux Link, Note Repeat, 16 Levels, and more. The app also features an improvement to the workflow for song creation. Song sequencing is faster, more powerful, and more flexible.
- New Sound Kits – Each kit includes 16 samples, featuring sounds from 808’s to melodic hits and stabs. iMPC Pro 2 also comes with 5 additional Sound Packs: Essential Club Collection, Classic Cuts, Dub 2 DnB, Melodic Collection, and The Diploma.
Features:
- Audio track recording (record from built-in mic, external mics, audio interfaces, etc.)
- Real-time time-stretching and pitch-shifting (warp tracks and clips to match tempo)
- Ableton Link and Inter-App Audio (IAA) support
- 64-track mixer with EQ and 4 FX sends (Reverb, Delay, Chorus/Flange and one IAA effect)
- Redesigned user interface
- Audio Unit plug-in support
- AudioCopy and AudioPaste support
- Directly upload tracks to YouTube
- Sample audio directly from music player apps such as Spotify
- New Song Mode makes full song production more intuitive than ever
- 100% new sound set, with five additional free Sound Packs
- Advanced waveform editing
- Enhanced MIDI support
- 4 Mute Groups
- Extensive undo/redo capabilities
Pricing and Availability
iMPC Pro 2 is available now on The App Store for $24.99. Existing iMPC pro users can upgrade to iMPC Pro 2 for $15.
$25 for a mobile DAW seems fair. Big Gadget and Caustic fan here, would I mpcpro2 be redundant for me?
No. In fact, you can sample from Caustic and Gadget to iMPC Pro 2.
Just don’t expect any free updates. When they come out with v 3 be ready to buy your impc again…
$15 for the upgrade to rich for you?
yes. considering what they delivered previously $1 would be too rich.
“and 4 FX sends (Reverb, Delay, Chorus/Flange and one IAA effect)”
Would’ve been nice to have customizable send tracks in which one could use AU effects.
What about MIDI out?
Also – why haven’t they done any demos or tutorials for this? I’d like to see how it works before I buy it.
no thanks – i don’t trust them anymore after iMPC “pro”
Seriously! I already paid them for this app and it felt like they never finished that version, why are they trying to make me pay again?
BeatMaker 3 seems better in every way As far as can see….am I mising anything?
No, I have both iMPC pro 1 and BeatMaker , iMPC pro has a half finished feel to it and beat maker is streets ahead in everyway. I can’t imagine they will have closed that gap especially considering the poor job they did on iMPC pro I wouldn’t spend the money to upgrade to 2. Spend the money on BeatMaker instead .
nice to see an update but charging the people that we’re screwed over by iMPC “Pro” is ridiculous. count me out.. Dumb.
I wish that Akai hadn’t abandoned their SynthStation app – it stopped making sound at some point and I don’t think it has been updated or fixed since then… 🙁
Fortunately there is not a shortage of great software synths on iOS!
Synthstation APP still works on older iPads. Still working on my iPad2. It has just never been updated for newer iPads.
The iMPC Pro was a complete dog and I felt totally ripped off. WTF is there a new version to pay for, when the previous iteration needed/s so much work to make it useable.
Theres every chance they’ve done something good, but I won’t get involved because my past experience was so negative. This should be free for iMPC pro owners. Man, I’m so grumpy about the whole thing I’ve made an internet comment!
I dunno. It’s a very nice update. The workflow is so much more fluid than the previous version and the inclusion of AU instruments makes it very good composition tool.
I’m digging it so far. Nice work.
We must all remember that the path to recovery is always the most challenging.
I’m willing to give Retronyms the benefit of the doubt for now.
Junk developer. Better off with Beatmaker 3 or just wait a little longer and get Nanostudio 2.
Im just going to say this.. Im an amateur producer, I work in IT, Mis-Information annoys me. I see alot of hate in this thread.
At least get some facts straight.. Everyone has the right to their own opinion, but saying it wasn’t updated, or calling them crooks is just a straight up lie.
They released over 6 major version updates across two and a half years plus several sub updates for bug fixes. I know.. I signed up for testflight when they made it public and I would submit those crashes to them so they could make the changes to fix it.
I didn’t get paid for it, I didn’t get any special discounts or shoutouts from Retronyms. Ive had emails back and forth with several designers and even the co-founder himself. That alone is what made me realize that these guys actually give a shit about their product, they arent out to “take your money and run” .
Ive used it every day since July 2014.. Its a great asset. It wasn’t perfect.. I had to find workarounds to load samples ( because of APPLE limitations.. ) Yes the editor and preview would crash often but they fixed majority of those issues, you have to give them some credit for that.
You should really think about the work that goes into these apps, the teams that answer emails, and the people that actually report and send data to fix the apps, instead of just being one of those people that bitches about it, dosent report it, and proceeds to just trash-talk and be butt hurt instead of doing something about it. If you like another product thats fine.. to each their own right? At least have some facts to back your statement up if you want to be credible.
I can understand if you are angry that they didn’t make this a free update but they at least offer a discount to existing users. They rebuilt the app pretty much from the ground up to reduce the footprint and have something new to build on.
When Pro came out everyone bitched about no Audiobus .. They are doing audiounit support now as well as other compatible formats and still support ableton. APPLE is a platform that dosent even allow apps to talk to each other, or have a filesystem thats even viewable.. What they did I think is pretty impressive considering how APPLE has to micromanage everything and limit devs.
Considering an MPC X is $2200 and MPC Touches are still $400-600.. Paying $15 to $25 to pretty much convert your iPad to the next closest thing to those ( which is SUPPORTED by AKAI and compatible with MPC Controllers) is pretty much as good as it gets for people to make music as a hobby or on a budget.