Review of MOTU BPM

[Tweak]

Review of Motu's BPM Beat Production Machine
by Tweak

http://www.zzounds.com/a--3745/item--MT ... --showroom


Read the full review:
http://www.tweakheadz.com/reviews/revie ... tu_BPM.htm



Just got it. And i want to tell you, its great. You don't need an MPC to do all the cool stuff you can do with one--if you have this software and an MPD or suitable pad controller. In used to think GURU had the market on the software MPC. And, well, it did. Until BPM came out. You don't even need the MPD controller to get everything out of this software. You can just use the mouse if you want, and tap the software pads while the clock is running. Ot place hits on the grid. Even the software pads are velocity sensitive depending on where you hit the pad.

BPM is complete in and of itself. You don't have to run it in a sequencer as a plugin, though you can. Its almost more fun using it stand alone. Drag and drop is implemented really well. So line up all the directories on your drives that have samples on them, and drag them to the pads.

It will slice files. recycle style, if you like to work that way. I found it can load my MOTU Ethno loops and instruments. If you have Mach 5, it will do those too.

Who is it for?

Obviously, the hip hop guys are going to LOVE this software. But it goes way beyond that. BPM will do any kind of sample based sequenced music. Or just use it as a vintage drum machine in your sequencer. Tons of kits, tons of samples and if that is not enough, drag stuff from your other libraries. It has grooves from the MPCs and classic drum machines. Nice emulations of the 808,909, drumtrax, HR16 and QY10.


http://www.zzounds.com/a--3745/item--MT ... --showroom

Add you comments below!

[Twitch]

Hey Tweak,

It's been a long time since I made a post.. I'm glad you purchase BPM.. Most new buyers will realize that Motu had some problems with the iLoks in the beginning, so ALL should come authorized where you just plug it in.. BPm is a huge step in combining your hardware and software programs, samplers, etc.. together. A lot of people love the drag n drop features of MP3s, .wavs, and various samples right into your plugin or standalone mode. But I just wanted to mention, you may have notice a CPU blast when using inside of your favorite DAW (especially when routing the 17 outs).. Even though it states this in the manual, a lot of users tend to forget.. PLEASE..PLEASE.. adjust your pad polyphony to reduce the CPU load standard default is 16 drop that lower please..Most single drum hits/samples need no more than 2.. Also it is stated, that when you call up certain samples/drum hits along with all sounds to load into your rack by default reverb effect is auto installed, as mention before in the manual please bypass or remove the reverb if you are experiencing heavy CPU loads.. mainly geared towards, Sonar, Cubase 5 and live users.. only a fair amount of logic and PT are seeing this.. to my knowledge. For any new user that wants to watch some BPM videos please go to my youtube channel or website(but since I do vids with Cakewalk, my website Motu videos will be limited)..

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Pqz7jISYnwI


Tweak, I'm glad you got BPM.. it's a great buy.. IF you have any questions.. please ask as I hope to anwser all of them..

Peace

~T~

[gregwar]

i'm getting this! amazing.

[Twitch]

i'm getting this! amazing.

You will love it! If you have anymore questions? Please let me know..

Peace

~T~

[_controlfreak]

Yyyyyyeahhh. Pimp it like _CF does the UltraLite!!

Between Reason, UltraBeat, and Guru, I have a lot of options - some of which "do it for me" about 80%, put together we're creeping up on 90%, but the huge inconvenience factor eats into that. If this will cumulatively improve things, it'll go on the "someday" list, but I'm waiting for more screencasts and demos to see if it takes the cake. Granted, my idea of the "ideal" drum/pattern sequencer probably wouldn't sell more than a dozen copies.

[songa]

how does BPM compare to Native Instruments MASCHINE? ive heard lots of good things about that too...im trying to decide which one i should go for. the maschine comes with a midi controller but a bit more expensive, but BPM + akai MPD = roughly the same as MASCHINE does anyway. anyone have experience on botH?

[nitten]

how does BPM compare to Native Instruments MASCHINE? ive heard lots of good things about that too...im trying to decide which one i should go for. the maschine comes with a midi controller but a bit more expensive, but BPM + akai MPD = roughly the same as MASCHINE does anyway. anyone have experience on botH?

Biggest different of the top of my head, is that you can trigger cue points in Maschine, other then that, it seems like to different roads to the same place.

[cmreal04]

how does BPM compare to Native Instruments MASCHINE? ive heard lots of good things about that too...im trying to decide which one i should go for. the maschine comes with a midi controller but a bit more expensive, but BPM + akai MPD = roughly the same as MASCHINE does anyway. anyone have experience on botH?

Bpm looks great. You want to know what the main difference is ? watch the demo vids. I just watched the bpm one at there site and he clicked the mouse so many times I got nauseous

[Twitch]

how does BPM compare to Native Instruments MASCHINE? ive heard lots of good things about that too...im trying to decide which one i should go for. the maschine comes with a midi controller but a bit more expensive, but BPM + akai MPD = roughly the same as MASCHINE does anyway. anyone have experience on botH?

Bpm looks great. You want to know what the main difference is ? watch the demo vids. I just watched the bpm one at there site and he clicked the mouse so many times I got nauseous

Clicking the mouse is only to show you guys the software.. If you have an controller (ie: Akai MPD, Korg PK, etc) you don't click the mouse at all, I can control BPM either thru my E-MU Command Station, Roland MV, or my Akai MPD32 without touching the mouse... disregard the mouse comment that means nothing.. Software can be controlled..

[cmreal04]

how does BPM compare to Native Instruments MASCHINE? ive heard lots of good things about that too...im trying to decide which one i should go for. the maschine comes with a midi controller but a bit more expensive, but BPM + akai MPD = roughly the same as MASCHINE does anyway. anyone have experience on botH?

Bpm looks great. You want to know what the main difference is ? watch the demo vids. I just watched the bpm one at there site and he clicked the mouse so many times I got nauseous

Clicking the mouse is only to show you guys the software.. If you have an controller (ie: Akai MPD, Korg PK, etc) you don't click the mouse at all, I can control BPM either thru my E-MU Command Station, Roland MV, or my Akai MPD32 without touching the mouse... disregard the mouse comment that means nothing.. Software can be controlled..

Example or not, no generic controller will ever give you the workflow of a totally integrated piece of hardware. That's why there's endless post of people trying to find the right controller ! Please don't ignore my mouse comment......

[Twitch]

I respect that, however I won't argue about this..having a controller doesn't change anything many live (ableton) users have trouble finding the right controller that doesn't stop anyone but it makes it smoother..one of the main difference is maschine doesn't have a true song mode unless it is updated in version 1.5 this means you can not link your patterns into a song you can sequence pattern 1 then pattern 2 but you don't actually have a song that consist of one track. Maschine will only have save sequences of patterns that will make up a song you can't bounce or combine those patterns into a song like BPM can let alone every daw could..NI is aware of the issue don't ask me why it wasn't fix in 1.1,1.2,1.3 and so on version update

[cmreal04]

Nothing to argue about, there's no common ground on this subject based on this comment: "having a controller doesn't change anything"

[SoundsAndGear]

..one of the main difference is maschine doesn't have a true song mode unless it is updated in version 1.5 this means you can not link your patterns into a song you can sequence pattern 1 then pattern 2 but you don't actually have a song that consist of one track. Maschine will only have save sequences of patterns that will make up a song you can't bounce or combine those patterns into a song like BPM can let alone every daw could..NI is aware of the issue don't ask me why it wasn't fix in 1.1,1.2,1.3 and so on version update

sorry bro, that's incorrect lol.

Maschine has always had a song mode, it's called the scene arranger, and just like BPM you chain scenes together which are made up of different patterns.

I have both Maschine and BPM and will be doing plenty of comparisons.

I like BPM song mode because it's a bit more flexible in the fact that once I add a scene to the song, I can increase or shorten the length of it by simply dragging the edge of the scene.

In Maschine, a scene is as long as the longest pattern in it, so if the longest pattern in your scene is 2 bars, then your scene is two bars, you can't make it longer, you can only add that two bar scene to the arrangement again lol.

BPM has 16 scenes, Maschine has something like 64 or so, I never reached the limit but don't use that many different scenes anyway, it gets very confusing in the interface....

I don't want to use that many lol, I really like how you can drag to increase the size of scenes in BPM

more to come on the differences/similarities between the two