Reviews and questions about the entry-level MPC500
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By Avene Thu Oct 12, 2006 3:41 pm
Ok, I've this little unit for a couple of weeks now... brilliant! I'm most impressed with the battery performance.. I'm not even onto a second set yet.

Just one real issue.. polyphony. Originally I read it had 32 note polyphony. But using it the other day with only about 8 notes playings simultaneously, or even less, I started getting sounds being chopped off. Muted a few tracks and it was ok.

So I checked the specs in the manual.. For polyphony it says "up to 32 note depending on processing"... or something to that description. So what processing reduces the polyphony down to only 8 notes? The FX are turned off, so they're obviously not doing it. Any ideas?

Anyway, I've come up with a couple of work arounds, so can still get by.. but it's annoying.
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By strength Thu Oct 12, 2006 3:59 pm
word im havin the same problem. i know people on here are gonna say u probably have something assigned to a mute group but its definitly the polyphony. i guess the "up to 32 voices" is probably when u expand the ram . as is it seems more like 6
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By Avene Thu Oct 12, 2006 10:23 pm
Yeah, I've got the ram expansion and nearly all sounds are set to mono aswell. Unless it's just when it's runnig off batteries? They should explain this in the manual.
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By strength Thu Oct 12, 2006 10:44 pm
yea thats weird! might be an os error, they already have an update of it on akai site
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By strength Thu Oct 12, 2006 10:46 pm
are the samples themselves stereo or mono
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By Upright Thu Oct 12, 2006 11:49 pm
That's weird guys. I honestly have not hae a problem. The only time I thought I had an issue it was user error. ...........Huh? that's strange.
I agree that Akai should be more specific on when and how the polyphony is effected.

P.S my problem turned out to be the T.C setting. I change it to 16(3) to do some hi-hat. Later when trying to record a new sequence the T.C setting (still being set to 16(3)) made me think that the polyphony had reached it's max.