By
Lou-One
Sat Apr 10, 2004 10:42 pm
If you got a zip drive for you PC I don't see why you can't store on your PC harddrive.
I have the 1000 and I use a CF reader/writer with my PC. It's basically the same thing as having a zip drive. The 1000 has a USB but everytime you use it you have to stop everything your doing, plug in, do what you gotta due, unplug then go at it again, and you can't do anything with the MPC until you actually unplug the usb from your PC It isn't as convenient as it seems, and it puts a lot of wear and tear on the plugs.
I don't think PC connectivity is much more difficult with the 2000xl. I've actually been kicking myself for not getting the 2xl. The 2xl just has so many more useful feat. that the 1000 just does not have. It does not have timestretch, pitch change, autochrome, ability to add FX card, it only has midi time clock. It does have FX, but they aren't that great and you can only use two of them at a time, so if you choose reverb and compression that's all you are going to be able to use for your whole song. You can only play one sequence at a time. There is no delay as well. If by any chance your stuck without a PC your very limited to what you can do.
On the plus side it's small and more portable, but if you want to do some FX processing to your samples besides tuning and very simple FX you better carry a laptop with you as well. You can upgrade to 128 MB of Ram. That's a lot of RAM! It's cheaper, everything comes standard (except RAM of Course comes with 16 which isn't bad at all) including 4 outs and digital I/O.
The only thing that the 1000 has over the 2000xl is really the amount of Ram you can get. I'm sure 32 is sufficient though! I'd rather have features that help me make and record music better than feat. that will allow me to store shit on my hardrive.
If I were you I wouldn't feel stupid for your purchase...unless Akai decides to add some great shit in a future OS update. I doubt they will! They didn't add all that great stuff in the xl to the 2000 did they! Basically the 1000 is either something your going to use just for drums or as a midi controller...not a real Music Production Centre. Or as a "beginner" MPC like how you would get a cheap casio when just starting to play piano.
Looking at Akai's history I don't think they are going to do much of anything with the 1000. If they make any really useful improvements on it you can bet it's going to be in a new machine....a 1000xl which would probably be priced somewhere in between the cost of the 1000 and the 2000xl. But this is speculation!
