Hello All!! New to this board and MPC World.. NEED ADVICE!!

alright... i've been doing my thing making music ITB with most of the sequencers under the sun.. I have gone through FL Studio, Cubase, Reason and Protools.. I use Cubase SX3 now Primarily and i have for a long time now.. I know it like the back of my hand. We still use protools at teh studio for recording vocals and mixing the tracks down though. But as fate would have it a perfectly good (i think? some of the pads do the double tap thing... you hit them once and they go twice.. dunno) original MPC 2000XL. Unfortunately it still has the floppy disk drive in it and no 8 outs which i would have liked both (it was free so i can't complain). First order of business is to get that damn floppy disk drive out. I would like to go for the internal card reader b/c one of my laptops has a reader built into it and it seems the most popular and convenient. So my main question is... Once i do the card reader thing, get all my drums onto a 1 or 2 gig card reader how will it work? Can I organize my files into folders for categories on the card so that i can browse with a little organization? How difficult is the browsing? I have been using battery 2 for quite a while but never really liked it that much... There was just something about it i didn't like. So if someone could go in depth of the intuity and convenience of the file browser. What kind of files am I restricted to? Is it as easy as tapping on a pad and scrolling through the sounds w/ the wheel? Do you think I will find all this too much of a hassle b/c of i've gotten too pampered by the convenience of Software? I am a complete noob to the Mpc's but not a complete noob to music production. I have Hip hop/Pop Instrumentals at http://www.myspace.com/djsleazye If you would like to check it out.. Hate them or love them I know there are alot of hip hop purists here.. Thanks for your time and Sorry for writing too much.. I would just love to be able to incorporate the MPC into my music after hearing so much about it; I consider myself blessed that it has fallen into my lap. I will print out the manual next time I get a chance but I don't have a printer so I may have to make a trip to Kinko's. Also what is the best way to add an MPC to a computer based production style? uhh i'm tired of typing and probably have already pissed some people off before even hitting the submit button. thanks later.

You shouldn't find browsing files too hard. I too just jumped and got a 2000xl from working predominently with software. The MPC takes .wav and .snd files as samples, and yes, you can organize them in folders. Shift+3 will load the media. I actually didn't get an instruction book either, and I'm coming along fairly well. PM and I'll get a lil deeper.

here's the link below if you need an mpc 2000xl manual it's a free download. when you get to the site scroll down until you get to the mpc 2000xl

http://www.forat.com/service/

Thanks alot... Good to see someone else who is doing the same thing? Do you enjoy working with it?

Love it , Haven't played with it as much as I want to, due to the job, but definately not givin it up any time soon.

So while I'm scanning the folders is there a way i can audition everysound just by tapping a pad and scrolling through .wav's??

scroll to the sound you want, hit f6 (do it), and it will bring up a dialogue box that will let you audition the sound, assign it to a pad, or discard it. And by discard it, I mean go back to browsing, not deleting the sample.

P.S. check you PM's

the "double tap thing" is you, not the machine. Itll stop when you get more used to the pads...

okay i guess i'll just have to practice... Okay well where can the cheapest yet still reliable card reader be found? any more upgrades my mpc may need that i have overlooked (especially since i have just mentioned one)

mpcstuff.com has tons of stuff. Go spend a fortune and enjoy.

So does anyone use SD cards? Or is compact flash the standard?

SD cards rarely work. So CF is the way to go

I use CF cards cause thats what was readily available, the only SD cards I have are mcroSD for my phone. I'll have to give them a shot and try.