MPC Stems: Akai Pro brings Stem Separation into Iconic Sampler

Akai Pro, a leading manufacturer of music production equipment, has announced the launch of MPC Stems – a new feature for their iconic MPC series music production hardware and software. MPC Stems aims to revolutionize the sampling process by using stem separation technology to break down samples into different musical elements.

Sampling has been an integral part of hip hop and electronic music production for decades. It involves extracting a snippet of a recorded song and repurposing it into a new composition. This process of “crate digging” from vinyl records has evolved into a craft mastered by generations of renowned producers.

With MPC Stems, Akai Pro is facilitating and accelerating this sampling workflow. The feature allows producers to separate any sample into its drum, bass, music, and vocal components with pristine quality. This gives beatmakers enhanced control to pitch, layer, process or remove stems individually while retaining cohesion.

In an introductory YouTube video, Akai demonstrates how this streamlines chopping samples and constructing unique rhythms by manipulating the isolated stem layers. They convey that while sampling has a rich history, MPC Stems ushers in a new era of experimentation and personalization.

The technology is positioned to assist both emerging and experienced producers to discover new creative possibilities from old recordings. Musicians can fashion truly original tracks through stem mixing, rather than just small snippets of existing ones. This technology also has a great use case in live sets as well.

Akai concludes that MPC Stems will soon be rolled out to the current generation of MPC Controller and Standalone hardware. By integrating stem separation into iconic gear, Akai is future-proofing sampling as both an art and science for the next wave of producers. More info can be found here.