MPC 2000 Classic soundquality.

Technical questions for the MPC2000xl and the MPC2000
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Re: MPC 2000 Classic soundquality.

By m56p87 Wed Dec 05, 2012 6:06 pm
Wal Martian wrote:Yes I was talking about the gain knob. Yes turning it high does raise the noise floor and introduce some noise into the signal. I was experimenting with high gain sampling last night with a break off a Journey record. I turned the gain knob almost all the way up, maybe just past 3 o'clock. Then I used the gain on my DJ mixer (actually I use a KP2 for its phono input) and I brought up the signal until it was bouncing around 3/4 of the way on the MPC screen. I do like to leave headroom, but doing it this way I was utilizing as much of the MPC gain as possible without distorting or introducing too much noise. I sampled the drums at 45RPM +10 and pitched them down in the machine and bam some nice crunchy very hard drums.


Yeah your definitely gonna get some coloring that way, but mostly due to the
pitch up and pitch down. Witch will make use of the pitching algorithm in the machine, and lower the sample rate. Try sampling your drums at 0db or -1db then pitch them down, you'll get al roker in the 80s fat! The compression I get from overdriving really makes things fat and crunchy cause it thickens up the drum and exaggerates any noise or grit. My original point was just that the preamps by themselves don't color the sound to much. If you want some really colored amplification I would use a really old preamp instead of a dj mixer, the old preamp I'm using for my monitors does some really funky things to sounds. Especially if you use any of the bizarre EQ options on some old preamps.
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Re: MPC 2000 Classic soundquality.

By Wal Martian Wed Dec 05, 2012 8:17 pm
Pitching down or not, the amp in the gain knob colors the sound quite a bit. The classic is 15 years old, old enough for me. I run almost everything around -10dB to -20dB right until the final mastering stage. I wouldn't use an old colourful amp for my main monitors either. I want my monitors to have as flat of a response as possible to let me know my mixes will translate in any environment.

Re: MPC 2000 Classic soundquality.

By Solowbeats Wed Dec 05, 2012 10:20 pm
Wal Martian wrote:Yes I was talking about the gain knob. Yes turning it high does raise the noise floor and introduce some noise into the signal. I was experimenting with high gain sampling last night with a break off a Journey record. I turned the gain knob almost all the way up, maybe just past 3 o'clock. Then I used the gain on my DJ mixer (actually I use a KP2 for its phono input) and I brought up the signal until it was bouncing around 3/4 of the way on the MPC screen. I do like to leave headroom, but doing it this way I was utilizing as much of the MPC gain as possible without distorting or introducing too much noise. I sampled the drums at 45RPM +10 and pitched them down in the machine and bam some nice crunchy very hard drums.


Leaving headroom while sampling has no effect. You can hit the level so it fills the screen. You're always able to turn your volume down in trim mode or your track volume down if you want to turn it down a notch. But your saturated sound will be unaffected by this.

When I sample a drum loop ( turntable>dj mixer>sp 303>mpc ) I set my levels on my mixer and sp303 so it won't clip on those 2 devices. Then I just play around with my recgain knob on the mpc until I get the sound I want. And if that means that my levelmeter goes all the way left to right, so be it. With the 2K you get away with it.

-10 db, -20 db..... This should be done by ear anyway. You're not mixing 23 tracks in Pro Tools, You are soundshaping when you sample.

Re: MPC 2000 Classic soundquality.

By szr Wed Dec 05, 2012 11:26 pm
vinyl_junkie_1620 wrote:I have an old 2000XL and like the S-3200XL/3000XL/2800 and so on you can drive the inputs very hard and no hard clipping.
This series of Akai is the only one I've ever seen something like this on, my EPS 16+, S-5000, MPC-60 don't do that


I've done alot of experiments with overdriving inputs on something like 18+ samplers over the last year or two.... anyway the sample input overdrive masters where (all cann take seriously hot signals ad reward you with smooth saturation):

s950
asr10
eps-m
sp12
dynacord ads
eps16 (only at 44.6khz .... digi distortion at all other rates)

the 950 is insane how much you can overdrive it, and the results are probably my fav out of all.

All the other akais I tested could take a slightly hot input signal...but not much more without digital clipping/sounding ugly....

didnt test a mpc2k classic though.. but I wasnt impressed with the mpc2kxl on this front..

Re: MPC 2000 Classic soundquality.

By m56p87 Thu Dec 06, 2012 1:36 am
Wal Martian wrote:Pitching down or not, the amp in the gain knob colors the sound quite a bit. The classic is 15 years old, old enough for me. I run almost everything around -10dB to -20dB right until the final mastering stage. I wouldn't use an old colourful amp for my main monitors either. I want my monitors to have as flat of a response as possible to let me know my mixes will translate in any environment.


I wasnt saying use it on your master, I was saying I use on my master... And if you track out of that your hearing the final product.... :idea: I'm not trying to take the magic out of whatever your doing for you...I'm just being straight up. There isn't much coloring going on from the amplification, there is some coloring from the ADC/DAC but the gain knob isn't coloring your sounds.... Sorry
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Re: MPC 2000 Classic soundquality.

By Wal Martian Thu Dec 06, 2012 3:08 pm
m56p87 wrote:
Wal Martian wrote:Pitching down or not, the amp in the gain knob colors the sound quite a bit. The classic is 15 years old, old enough for me. I run almost everything around -10dB to -20dB right until the final mastering stage. I wouldn't use an old colourful amp for my main monitors either. I want my monitors to have as flat of a response as possible to let me know my mixes will translate in any environment.


I was saying I use on my master... the gain knob isn't coloring your sounds.... Sorry

I was saying I would advise against an amp with alot of coloration going to your main monitors. The flatter the response from DAW to amp to speakers to room the better your mixes with sound and translate. I would disagree that the gain knob isn't coloring the sound, or any less than the converters. Sending an electric signal through a physical component will always change the signal.
szr wrote:I've done alot of experiments with overdriving inputs on something like 18+ samplers over the last year or two.... anyway the sample input overdrive masters where (all cann take seriously hot signals ad reward you with smooth saturation):

s950
asr10
eps-m
sp12
dynacord ads
eps16 (only at 44.6khz .... digi distortion at all other rates)
That's dope I'd love to hear the results of your sampler shootout, you should put something up on youtube.
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Re: MPC 2000 Classic soundquality.

By Wal Martian Thu Dec 06, 2012 3:13 pm
Solowbeats wrote:Leaving headroom while sampling has no effect. You can hit the level so it fills the screen. You're always able to turn your volume down in trim mode or your track volume down if you want to turn it down a notch. But your saturated sound will be unaffected by this.


-10 db, -20 db..... This should be done by ear anyway.

If you record a signal too hot with too much gain added it will clip and distort. If you turn this down later in trim or with pad velocity it will still sound distorted, just quieter. Try it. I would recommend recording samples with the level meters filling the screen around 3/4 of the way.

Re: MPC 2000 Classic soundquality.

By m56p87 Thu Dec 06, 2012 4:26 pm
Wal Martian wrote:[color=lime]I was saying I would advise against an amp with alot of coloration going to your main monitors. The flatter the response from DAW to amp to speakers to room the better your mixes with sound and translate. I would disagree that the gain knob isn't coloring the sound, or any less than the converters. Sending an electric signal through a physical component will always change the signal.


I'm not asking for your advice... Besides how would I hear what my master is going to sound like without hearing what the final mix is actually sounding like... Back to the point If you could post up your evidence for all this coloring done by the gain knob I'd really love to see it. By all means show me how wrong I am... Just because your sending a signal through a component dosnt mean there is a negligible difference to your audio.

Think about it this way... If I'm running a signal through a straight preamplifier.. By your logic it should sound dramatically different if I boost the signal before the preamp or with the preamp itself. Yet somehow doing this on the preamp sitting right next to me dosnt produce a noticeable difference and my preamp is probably 10+ years older than akai's "magic gain knob" amplifier.

Re: MPC 2000 Classic soundquality.

By m56p87 Thu Dec 06, 2012 4:27 pm
Wal Martian wrote:
Solowbeats wrote:Leaving headroom while sampling has no effect. You can hit the level so it fills the screen. You're always able to turn your volume down in trim mode or your track volume down if you want to turn it down a notch. But your saturated sound will be unaffected by this.


-10 db, -20 db..... This should be done by ear anyway.

If you record a signal too hot with too much gain added it will clip and distort. If you turn this down later in trim or with pad velocity it will still sound distorted, just quieter. Try it. I would recommend recording samples with the level meters filling the screen around 3/4 of the way.


:lol: :lol: :lol: people have been overdriving their analog inputs to great effect for decades yet somehow you know better? The trick isn't recording it with a ton of distoriton, its about finding the sweet spot between cold and hot... 3/4 of the way is under the sweet spot of any machines overdrive threshold, and overdriven or not you can still get a better signal to noise ratio than -20db with clean audio.
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Re: MPC 2000 Classic soundquality.

By Wal Martian Thu Dec 06, 2012 5:19 pm
m56p87 wrote:I'm not asking for your advice... Besides how would I hear what my master is going to sound like without hearing what the final mix is actually sounding like... Back to the point If you could post up your evidence for all this coloring done by the gain knob I'd really love to see it. By all means show me how wrong I am...

This a forum, I will continue to post my opinions, techniques and advice, take them with a grain of salt. If you want to hear the difference between some different gain knobs try a cheapo behringer product then try a better brand such as soundcraft. To me there is an obvious audible difference.
m56p87 wrote:The trick isn't recording it with a ton of distoriton, its about finding the sweet spot between cold and hot...

Finding the sweet spot is a great way to put it. I've described my sampling technique feel free to use it or keep sampling your way, obviously both ways work.
Wal Martian wrote: I turned the gain knob almost all the way up, maybe just past 3 o'clock. Then I used the gain on my DJ mixer (actually I use a KP2 for its phono input) and I brought up the signal until it was bouncing around 3/4 of the way on the MPC screen. I do like to leave headroom, but doing it this way I was utilizing as much of the MPC gain as possible without distorting or introducing too much noise.

Re: MPC 2000 Classic soundquality.

By m56p87 Thu Dec 06, 2012 5:50 pm
Wal Martian wrote:This a forum, I will continue to post my opinions, techniques and advice, take them with a grain of salt. If you want to hear the difference between some different gain knobs try a cheapo behringer product then try a better brand such as soundcraft.


I'm not trying to stop you from posting your opinions at all man, I'm just trying to spread the correct information. Technically your right everything in your signal chain will effect your audio, but that dosnt meant its actually audible. The thing is, if you buy a behringer euro rack or a soundcraft desk and you hear a difference... It's not from the amplification at all. There is numerous components that effect that sound, most of which is each mixers method of EQing (espcially fixed band eq's) or driving the analog components. But a mixing desk isn't like an analog low pass filter where you get audible coloration from simply pluggining it in to your signal flow, and any coloration on older mixers definitely wouldn't come from the gain knobs...

I have no problem with others posting their techniques and opinions, but when they start posting incorrect technical information... I'm going to correct it.
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Re: MPC 2000 Classic soundquality.

By Wal Martian Thu Dec 06, 2012 6:30 pm
m56p87 wrote:... everything in your signal chain will effect your audio... ...There is numerous components that effect that sound... ...analog components. ...any coloration on older mixers definitely wouldn't come from the gain knobs...

So everything in the chain effects the audio, all the analog components except for the amps in the gain circuits. I'll keep that in mind.

Re: MPC 2000 Classic soundquality.

By m56p87 Thu Dec 06, 2012 6:56 pm
Wal Martian wrote:
m56p87 wrote:... everything in your signal chain will effect your audio... ...There is numerous components that effect that sound... ...analog components. ...any coloration on older mixers definitely wouldn't come from the gain knobs...

So everything in the chain effects the audio, all the analog components except for the amps in the gain circuits. I'll keep that in mind.


I mean yeah if you copy and paste what Im saying into complete obliteration then yeah sure whatever. What I was saying was using an EQ is much more sonically dicernable than turning the volume up... And that even if you have an analog EQ on channel and don't use it it's still there... it's settings are just turned to null any difference much like how low pass filters color the sound even when turned to null settings. I suggest actually learning about how different analog circuits work instead of Internet conjecture. Amplification is purely just applying voltage from a power supply to raise volume...unless you reach the threshold of the actual components themselves any difference in audio is neglible with most modern preamps.

You could definitely construct an amplification circuit to distort your sound, and do all sorts of cool audio stuff with messing with different types of amplifying circuits.but talking specifically about the mpc2000 preamps.. If you use it at 9 o clock or 3 clock it's not gonna color your sound at all if your below 5db.

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