When purchasing sample cd's for mpc2000xl...

...should i be buying cd-roms or audio cd's?

Either. CDROMs contain data files that can be loaded into memory via a SCSI CDROM drive. audio CDs need to be played through a normal CD player into the MPC record inputs and then manually sampled one-by-one.

nm

When I do the audio CD I open the Audio CD in Sound Forge, then choose the track then I AUTO REGION (automatic chop according to your settings - your choice though) then save to ZIP and transfer to MPC. All digital. It takes a while to get the whole CD chopped. It's WAY slower going than the DATA CD, but a little faster than the manual thing, only thing is if you don't have a way to transfer then you are stuck with the manual way of doing it. A pain in the rectum but better than nothing.

Ideally, you should buy sample CDs with WAV files. This isn't always possible because sometimes the sample CD you want is not offered in WAV format. It might be sold in only Kurzweil and Audio formats, for example. In that case you buy the Audio version format CD. Then what? Waste time sampling from it? Not if you can help it.

A better solution is to buy an application like Adobe Audition and use its batch file conversion utility. In a matter of minutes you will have a new folder full of WAV files converted from your Audio CD files.

If you can't afford Audition or you don’t like software, then OK. But you will save hours of time and effort by using the utility instead of trial and error sampling.

The second benefit of using an application like Audition is you can quickly chop the samples. This is important. Some tracks have several different samples on them separated with breaks of silence. They have to be chopped into files for use. If you already own Audition you can chop the ones you want and turn them into perfect loops.

Quick tip. Go buy some records to sample from instead.......

you know a SCSI CDROM drive???????


please could you explain whats the difference between a normal cd rom drive and a SCSI CDROM drive.........

sorry for being dumb

Not being dumb, every starts somewhere you know.

SCSI CDROM is faster than Normal CDROM drives and has a different connector.

there is a great program called CD-XTRACT that can convert akai sample cds to wav files

very useful if, like me, you dont have an external SCSI power-case for your scsi cd-drive (left over from a scsi-heavy computer rig i was using for a while)

i dont have patience for SCSI gear in PC's anymore. IDE drives with SATA and 8meg cache make SCSI in pc pointless.


ps, dont buy samples unless you really really couldnt be bothered sampling. at least, buy a good stock kit and dont get too used to buying other samples.

good luck no matter what. its a beautiful and rewarding art this sampling game