Finally - MPC 2kXL is now the brain of my studio

finally
three months after buying it i managed to configure everything the way i wanted.
It has been some hit and miss trying to get my rack sampler back in the biz (yamaha A5000) but now I finally am where I wanted to be since I decided to get an MPC again.
So now MPC2000XL is running the whole studio, and the computer has been disconnected from the MIDI "circuit".
I even stopped using the 909 sequencer and I'm using it as a sound module, so I have all the sequencing in the MPC and I don't have to bother about which pattern was in use in the 909. I don't miss the 909 swing, i like the MPC's very much!
It's interesting how my sound is getting rawer now that I'm working with the new oldschool setup.

whats your setup like? what kind a gear u using with the XL?

it's 3 synths, 2 drum machines, mpc, rack sampler, compressors and fx

i used to have it all set up to my mp like that ....scince i mooved i havent completly set up my production side of the studio cuz im not sure when im moovin next .... but this time off of that set up got me thinkin if i should go back to that when i get to the new spot or should i just hook up all my synth wit my midi inteface ....

got some pros and cons to each method but i track all my beats out eventually n e way so if i just focus on makin the drum track and the sample flip ,,,track that out
then lay synths, bass and whatever else ... it might be easier for me ITB specialy being able to use a computer screen to edit midi info !!! .....but ur right you do get different styles of beats with diff methods! ..... do u track out ur stuff afterwords too? im sure you do but just curious is ur mp master or slave ?

well it's kind of back to the roots for me, I started making music without a computer ages ago, I was using a roland MC303 to sequence the sounds on the A5000 and to send midi clock to the 909, so it was pretty much all about getting stuff in the sampler, sequencing with no visual feedback.
After a while I feld the need to have a visual feedback and got a computer, came to the point of only using the computer but, after gradually integrating hardware again I wanted to go back to my roots so to say, hardware only but with more skills and several years of experience.
I'm currently having the MPC as a master, it sends clock to my fx racks for synced delays and to the machinedrum, plus notes to a juno106, alphajuno2, sh-101 and the 909.
I have some limitations I don't feel like living with, like the fact that in order to edit sounds on the alphajuno, either you use the infamous alpha dial, which allows you to change only one parameter at time, buy the PG-300 programmer which is very rare and costs more that the synth itself or, like I was doing before, use some plugins which are able to translate MIDI CC into sysex, having been the alphajuno released at the dawn of MIDI, it does not respond to MIDI CC. AFAIK the MPC is not compatible with sysex either, so I'm stuck editing sound in a very frustrating way. I know the synth inside out so I still can program my patches, but I want to to able to automate some stuff as well.
The juno 106 is sysex only as well but at least it has plenty of sliders to edit its sounds, I can live with that.

I'm likely to integrate an old laptop in the setup just for three tasks:
-a standalone instance of an editor for the alphajuno (a nice freeware), with dedicated MIDI interface, just to be able to edit the synth (MIDi will be send to a merger which mixes the computer MIDI control and the MPC notes)
-a standalone instance of an editor for the juno106 (which I will be buying soon), doing the same things as the alphajuno editor
-via PCMCIA SCSI interface send samples to the A5000, I'm sick to using ZIP drives to swap samples.

Tracking and mixing is done with an analogue mixer, a nice soundtracs topaz project 8, a 32 channel / 8 buss console.
Either I just record the main out of the mixer as a straight stereofile or, by more complex material or mixes I'm not really happy with, I send up 16 outputs of the desk to my computer and do some edits on the computer.

I like having the computer more as a tape machine and concentrating on old but reliable machines to make music.

sorgekind wrote:finally
three months after buying it i managed to configure everything the way i wanted.
It has been some hit and miss trying to get my rack sampler back in the biz (yamaha A5000) but now I finally am where I wanted to be since I decided to get an MPC again.
So now MPC2000XL is running the whole studio, and the computer has been disconnected from the MIDI "circuit".
I even stopped using the 909 sequencer and I'm using it as a sound module, so I have all the sequencing in the MPC and I don't have to bother about which pattern was in use in the 909. I don't miss the 909 swing, i like the MPC's very much!
It's interesting how my sound is getting rawer now that I'm working with the new oldschool setup.

Good, pat yourself on the back. You've earned a banana sticker.

Ill-Green wrote:Good, pat yourself on the back. You've earned a banana sticker.

o word son u handin out banana stickers just like that ....shhhhiiiiiiit