MPC noob with a few questions.

Hello all,

I'm thinking about getting an MPC1000 but have very little experience with hardware sequencers and have a few questions. I come from the Ableton Live world but am frustrated with the instability of it all. I want to go all hardware. I'm in a band so I won't only be playing this so I'd like to be able to "set and forget" certain things. Here are a few questions I have:

1. If I have a few different patterns (loops) I've created on the MPC and I want to switch to the next pattern in a song, does it play right away? What I mean is that in Ableton you can trigger a loop and it quantizes it's start time to begin at the end of the current loop. Is this possible?

2. I can't find much info on storage for the MPC series. I know there is flash memory, card memory, and HD memory. Do they all do the same thing? Does one hold samples while the others hold song files? How much is necessary?

3. How easily can you apply real time effects on the MPC? It doesn't seem very "knoby" so I wasn't sure if this was one of its strong points or not.


I hope I posted this in the right forum. Thanks!!

Ian

There is in fact different operatig systems on the MPC 1000. Akai OS and different JJ OSs as well. I use JJOSXL and is free to download and trial if you get a MPC 1000.
1. yes you have option to do suddenly or after end of other sequence
2. CF Card and hard drive store everything. RAM is what is used for sample and sequence playback
so you need both. 128 RAM and at least CF card. I have 3 gig on my hard drive of projects and samples and programs. it is like how a computer works.
3. mpc 2500 has more q links but even with 2 you have a lot of control. more so with JJ os - see JJOS section here for more about what it can do, but it is really good. 2 foot switches as well for live control. In JJOS XL I can set pads to trigger preprogrammed MIDI messages, program changes and heaps more. Sliders can do MIDI CCs as well

Thanks for the info. Another question:

I read that the MPC 1000 doesn't have "MTC sync". Does it still transmit Midi Clock? I'm hoping to use this as a master clock to sync all of the keyboards.

yes it does send midi clock. 2 separate midi outs A/B means two chains as well and 32 channles.