MPC2500 vs Live

Yo I think I'll just go live... the DJS1000? Looks to spacy for me man, i mean im sure its dope but to me theres too much going on haha... I'll just go with the Live... I'll figure out a FX-chain for the master that makes it sound more like the 2000XL... Maybe a high end boost, more bottom end, less mid. Idk, any tips? Can I save a preset for the master FX on the Live so I can open a new project and the master fx are already loaded in?

Yeah the 2000XL is nice but it's like TOO old... i might get it once I got some cash again maybe, but if I can colour the sound of the Live that it sounds more gritty and oldschool I think that would suit me well... Add some noise, vinyl-sounds n shit... Yeah haha

Peace

Sharris wrote:I had a question about lazy chop. Can you lazy chop & still affect the chops/slices separately? Meaning, pitch 1 slice up, pitch another slice down, add an effect to 1 slice, but not the others? Things of that nature?

Also is it non-destructive?

If lazy chopping isn't destructive & you can mess with the chops/slices separately that's cool as f^k. Amazing enough, that I would actually consider selling a few MPC's to cop it.

I got all excited about Mk3's slice mode, you can't chop until after you sample, but you chop with the pads while it plays & it's non-destructive. Thing is......I can't affect the samples separately, if I pitch 1 slice up, all slices get pitched up. So I don't use it.

It’s non destructive so you can move the slices after the initial placement.

unfortunately no way to save fx presets on the live yet, luckily the fx are all pretty simple and only a couple of parameters to tweak but this will hopefully get added in next update as is badly needed

aww sheiid... well now lets all hope akai doesnt drop the damn machine and provide long service and updates... because if not, that would suck...

Ayatolli, I think you'll be happy with the Live, it will def make things easier on you.

Thanks for the vid man, I'll check it out tonight (I'm at work).
I'm curious if you adjust start & end points of a chop.... will it effect the chop next to it.
& if you tune down 1 chop.... do all chops tune down. Apply a lo pass to 1 chop..... all chops get a lo-pass. If so, lazy chop isn't my thing. I'll look into it tonight.

Sharris wrote:Ayatolli, I think you'll be happy with the Live, it will def make things easier on you.

Thanks for the vid man, I'll check it out tonight (I'm at work).
I'm curious if you adjust start & end points of a chop.... will it effect the chop next to it.
& if you tune down 1 chop.... do all chops tune down. Apply a lo pass to 1 chop..... all chops get a lo-pass. If so, lazy chop isn't my thing. I'll look into it tonight.

YO as far as i know from my friends Live (correct me if im wrong Live users!) theres a button in the sample edit screen that deactivates or activates that the end point of one chop serves as the starting point of the next. So you can either have a chop with start and end and the next chop will have his own start and end or you can link them and the end point of chop 1 is the start of chop 2.
And about the individual chops having individual pitch/fx on them, you can assign chops to pads and add fx to the pad of your choice i dont know if that was what you were asking tho

Correct me! Dont wanna spit false facts haha

If you're right, I'm in love. I'll do some research, if you can lazy chop AND do that sh!t So far I've found there is always a catch when it comes to features that make things easy for you. Gain 1 thing, but lose another. Which is fine if what you gain is better then what's lost. & that's diff for everybody....esp. when it comes to features & gear

@SHarris

Yes you can lazy chop and effect the chops/slices separately and do pitch shifting.

You can add an effect to one sample/pad and not effect the others.

Yes sir it has non-destructive sampling.

So you might as well get to selling those other MPCs

Wow. Yea. Time for me to sell the old & get with the new, this is crazy! I've been watching Live vids all morning. I think I could get used to the touchscreen, plus I have other shit that I'll use with the Live, so I'll have variety. This is insane.
Being able to chop THAT fast with lazy chop & still have creative control over each chop. I'm speechless. Plus, it's an MPC. I can keep the MPC workflow, which I know & love.

Welcome to the future!

Yes sir. Oh l forgot to tell you. On each sound/pad you can layer 4 effects simultaneously! Say you have a snare on pad one you can assign on that pad/sound:
1.LPF
2.Reverb
3.Flanger
4.Delay

And the effects are decent. I use them a lot cause l sound design drums. Oh and you can layer four sounds to make a new sound. It gets better, say you layered 4 sounds to make one new sound but you wanna add a 5th sound to it, the Live has a function called "Flattened Pad" so what you layered will all be on one pad then you can layer the 5th sound under that.

That's bananas!

I like the effects on it and you don't see me complaining about them. The effects for the 2000XL ARE GARBAGE! I told dudes Akai would come with decent effects. If they put in standalone Delay where you can dail in the tempo its over! You get the Air Effects Collection FREE! You can only use those when connected to the computer. Using the QLinks to edit them is a breeze. I would never go back to the 2000XL and l love that machine. But its old technology and its not F****ing with the Live and surely not the X.

Yiu get MPC Tutor's MPC Bible tutorial book which is over 500 pages you will be straight.

Danoc wrote:Yes sir. Oh l forgot to tell you. On each sound/pad you can layer 4 effects simultaneously! Say you have a snare on pad one you can assign on that pad/sound:
1.LPF
2.Reverb
3.Flanger
4.Delay

And the effects are decent. I use them a lot cause l sound design drums. Oh and you can layer four sounds to make a new sound. It gets better, say you layered 4 sounds to make one new sound but you wanna add a 5th sound to it, the Live has a function called "Flattened Pad" so what you layered will all be on one pad then you can layer the 5th sound under that.

That's bananas!

I like the effects on it and you don't see me complaining about them. The effects for the 2000XL ARE GARBAGE! I told dudes Akai would come with decent effects. If they put in standalone Delay where you can dail in the tempo its over! You get the Air Effects Collection FREE! You can only use those when connected to the computer. Using the QLinks to edit them is a breeze. I would never go back to the 2000XL and l love that machine. But its old technology and its not F****ing with the Live and surely not the X.

Yiu get MPC Tutor's MPC Bible tutorial book which is over 500 pages you will be straight.

This is where MPC’s shine as does the Roland MV series too. Layering samples and fx on pads and either playing them simultaneously or round robin. Huge help for finger drumming if layering hats with each snare and bass drum and other percussion hits. FXpansion Geist did this too. Had a kit for Drum n Bass with perfect layering where just about anything you could finger drum would sound crazy good.

I think I can do this on my Deluge, but would take a workaround by using separate tracks assigned the same midi channel. FX can be p-locked per step and layered. Wouldn’t be surprised if they get that feature in a future update but for finger drumming, 16 pads and layered samples is crazy good.

Yes sir!

Time stretching/warping, manipulating sounds etc on the standalone is dope but gets crazier in controoler mode. Using tje Free synths and Air effects make theses machines shine even more.

I know for me l'm a happy dude

Wormhelmet wrote:This is where MPC’s shine as does the Roland MV series too. Layering samples and fx on pads and either playing them simultaneously or round robin. Huge help for finger drumming if layering hats with each snare and bass drum and other percussion hits. FXpansion Geist did this too. Had a kit for Drum n Bass with perfect layering where just about anything you could finger drum would sound crazy good.

I think I can do this on my Deluge, but would take a workaround by using separate tracks assigned the same midi channel. FX can be p-locked per step and layered. Wouldn’t be surprised if they get that feature in a future update but for finger drumming, 16 pads and layered samples is crazy good.

I was about to get a used 2000XL last year until PettyCash told me l might wanna wait on that. New MPCs were coming. I was like dam serious?

My finger was on the buy it button. Something told me you need to be patient.
So l waited and then came the news. I saw the specs didn't know if the nrw machines were finished. I made up my mind and all the thoughts of getting the 2000XL was OVER! When l saw those spec and what that live could do lt was game changing for me.
The important things in order was for my flow:
1. I wanted back that MPC sequencer.
2. No latency!
3. I could export stems to a USB drive and bring it into my DAW. (That eliminated tracking out, MMC, MTC, and freaking cables!)
4. The explode feature for tracks in the sequencer and on exporting. You can't do this on the 2000XL. Plus this saves you a serious amount of time.
5. 7.1 inch touch screen. l was ecstatic about that.
6. Portable with a battery and smaller size.
7. Standalone and Controller mode.
8. 8 banks instead of 4.
9. 6 outs, 2 USB 3.0 ports, 2 sets of midi, 2Gigs Ram, 10 Gigs of sounds, optional addition of a SSD 2.5 hard drive, SD card slot, phono connection , etc.

Ther other functions it does l didn't know about until l got it. And l was like dam! I'm happy!

So l know what it is to say Legacy vs MPC Live/X. It wasn't a hair pulling choice for me.

I like most of the discussion here and I have also had a loooong back and forth between both machines, so I'll make my case for the 2500 (jjos).

When I saw the live and its promotion and the FCKING FEATURES (real time pitch shift / time stretch, are u kiddin me?!) I got into purchasing euphoria. There just seemed to be nothing the live couldn't do. And it looks damn stylish too.

I ended up buying it. After using it a handful of times I caught myself sitting on the sofa and staring at my 25k sitting on the shelf for no apparent reason. After one month of testing I returned the live and stuck with the 25k for the following reasons:

- The 2500 has a soul. The live does not have a soul.
- I hated the flat, non-punchy sound of the live. It just sucked.
- The 2500 is more precise. There is a very slight, but noticeable delay when you hit the live pads.
- The live is too flashy. There's too much emphasis on style. 'let's make some beats' as a message when you turn it on? Come on man. Don't fcking talk to me. You're my slave. I am the ruler. Not you! I am making the music. Not both of us together, ashole!
- When we tried to make some music during a party, eveyone was magnified by it and tried to touch the buttons and the screen. It was an eye catcher. i was annoyed and afraid that someone would steal it. freaked me out.
- As mentioned in the forum, the live is far from being fully developed, while the 2500 is a package where everything works and has its place. It never (and I say NEVER) failed me. Not once. Except for some tact switches, but I am proud to be able to repare them myself. It's a day's work and it feels great to make it work again. If the live's guarantee is over and it stops working, it and 1111€ are gone.
- I feel like the live will be taken over by something else at some point and be forgotten (and lose its value), while there will always be some old mpc heads willing to help with the old models (and their values will rise)
- the 2500 was designed and programmed by music lovers and professionals who knew what they were doing, while the live is designed by corporate designers.
- I didn't hear any solidified musician rave about the live other than in their promotional videos (if you have an example, show me)

I could go on. In sum, the 2500 is a really tight machine, while the live is a computer overloaded with functions and not sounding tight which is what it's supposed to do.

feature-wise the live will win any argument in a landslide. It's a personal choice that everyone has to make for him or herself.

One thing I liked about the 2500 was the master compressor and eq. I took my favorite eq and compressor settings from the 2500 and applied them to the Live. Didn’t sound exactly the same but I liked the results.