Akai MPC 1000.

I just wanted to say I have always wanted one since I have seen Peter Phillips (Pete Rock a.k.a. "Chocolate Boy Wonder") in Scratch Magazine in the early 2000's (21st Century). Does Anyone else remember?

I remember...

the MPC 1k is a great box too... though I'm happy to have the maintenance issues behind me

NearTao wrote:I remember...

the MPC 1k is a great box too... though I'm happy to have the maintenance issues behind me

Hey since you mentioned it, you think the MPC's are samplers or grooveboxes? Just wanted to know from someone with history in Akai Pro. I know they're samplers and MIDI sequencers. But they call them samplers, drum machines, sequencers, etc. Groovebox is typically a label on Roland Global products of past/prior days.

MPC’s originally were drumsamplers with a powerful midi sequencer that were designed to be drummachines with the ability to sequence outboard gear as well. Beatmakers also used the MPC to sample, chop, loop and flip phrase samples, especially when the sample edit capabilities improved over the years making the MPC a nearly one stop shop to make full beats and songs, and becoming much more than just a drummachine or sampler. When Roland started to use the term “groovebox” I think lot of people start calling MPC’s and similar machines grooveboxes as well with the lack of a better term.

Menco wrote:MPC’s originally were drumsamplers with a powerful midi sequencer that were designed to be drummachines with the ability to sequence outboard gear as well. Beatmakers also used the MPC to sample, chop, loop and flip phrase samples, especially when the sample edit capabilities improved over the years making the MPC a nearly one stop shop to make full beats and songs, and becoming much more than just a drummachine or sampler. When Roland started to use the term “groovebox” I think lot of people start calling MPC’s and similar machines grooveboxes as well with the lack of a better term.

Thank you for the insight. Have a good night

i think the term groovebox usually indicates a piece of gear which contains a sequencer, drum sounds and drum sequencing features and at least some sort of synthesis, be it sample based or virtual analog or whatever. so probably the only mpc's which can be labeled grooveboxes are the 5000 and the current line. but its arguable, because if you have a full fledged sampler you can use single cycle waveforms as oscillators, then you have filters, envelopes, lfo's etc... so we can say that even the 4000 and the 1000\2500 with jj can be labeled grooveboxes in some way... but in my mind the mpc is not a groovebox because of its very different sequencer. a groovebox usually has a pattern based , very limited XOX style sequencer, which is limited but more performance realtime oriented, while the mpc has a great classic sequencer, more similar to a DAW or computer based sequencer, where you can edit events in a microscopic way,more composition\production oriented, but is less performance oriented, it's harder to compose or transform musical phrases on the fly while on stage compared to classic grooveboxes or drum machines...