A simple question for those willing to help

Hi,
Please understand that I am new to this and that no matter how low the question might seem, I wouldn't ask it if I had the answer.

Here is my problem, before I chose with MPC to buy, I made my mind up partly because of the following description about the MPC2500:
"Optional user installable CD-RW drive to load CD-ROM libraries, sample Audio CDs, and backup personal data"
I though to myself, great I can save my work on the CD then!
But after going through the manual and the Beatmaking on the MPC2500 book, I came to the conclusion that there is no such option unless I am going blind...

So please tell me what easy and cheap options I have to get my beats on burned on CD. What hardware or software do you recommand.
Really I would prefer a hardware but never mind.
Please bear in mind that I am not after anything fancy to do any type of "mixing" or "mastering"...

Thank you ever so much for your help guys.

P.S: My "gear" is as follow: MPC2500, keybord and PC. I do not know anything else...

I forgot to mention that I do have 2 softwares:

_ Cubasis 2.0 but I never used it...
_ Samplitude 9 SE (it came free with this month's Computer Music magazine)

Thanks again.

As a matter of fact, if there is any way to get my beats on wav or mp3 format it would be as helpful as having it burned on Cd...

Thanks.

you can resample your beats/songs into .wav format. not sure about the cd method.

pad-ophiliac wrote:you can resample your beats/songs into .wav format. not sure about the cd method.

Hi thanks for replying!
I have tried that method but appart from the space (memory) issue, the main problem is that the sound quality was awful...
Any other suggestion ?

i'm pretty sure it resamples at the same rate it samples so quality shouldn't be compromised. if you are not satisfied with the volume of the .wav, try going to mode>other and raise the master volume to 0dB. get the ram expansion for more space and you should be set. the expansion gives you 23m28s of mono sampling/resampling time.

do you have the cd/dvd drive installed on your mpc? or are you in between purcasing the cd or transfer your songs to a pc or multitrack recorder?
if you are looking for hardware to track out your beats from the mpc then ask again on that topic. if you are looking for an mpc only solution here is what you can do: first check you os, you need one of the newer os because the cd functions were not in the first release. then download the manual addendums from akaipro. there are the missing infos on how to operate the cd drive.
in a flash: you can use the cd to listen to commercial cds, youcan directly sample from cd, you can use cd or dvd to import samples (no movie dvd sampling because that is another format), you can burn samples, sequences or whole songs to cd even wait with finalizing the cd till it is full. Akai states that you can backup personal data but this is not the case untill they mean your samples with "persona datal".
if your song sounds like garbage after resampling or after using song mode , chances are that your sequences didn´t have the same track layout (e.g. kick on track 1, snare track 2, etc.) and the mpc only used the tracks from the first sequence. or you ran out of voices (32 max) so some of the sounds you programmed are audible if soloed, but dissapear if all tracks are running.

peace jo

pad-ophiliac wrote:i'm pretty sure it resamples at the same rate it samples so quality shouldn't be compromised. if you are not satisfied with the volume of the .wav, try going to mode>other and raise the master volume to 0dB. get the ram expansion for more space and you should be set. the expansion gives you 23m28s of mono sampling/resampling time.

pad-ophiliac, first of all thank you!
You are right, the problem is not the quality itself but the volume that is way too low, but your advice has definitely change my experience!
Thanks again!
From this point my problem is already sorted but there is more to come:

selecta jo wrote:do you have the cd/dvd drive installed on your mpc?

if you are looking for an mpc only solution here is what you can do: first check you os, you need one of the newer os because the cd functions were not in the first release. then download the manual addendums from akaipro. there are the missing infos on how to operate the cd drive.
in a flash: you can use the cd to listen to commercial cds, youcan directly sample from cd, you can use cd or dvd to import samples (no movie dvd sampling because that is another format), you can burn samples, sequences or whole songs to cd even wait with finalizing the cd till it is full.

Selecta jo, first of all, thank you!
Yes I do have the CD-M25 CD Drive.
I currently have the version 1.22 and I there is indedd a new verion but I'm not worried about it now because you answered my question exactly right.
Just like you say everything is explained in the manual addendums!

The only thing that puzzles me is that apparently I can only burn samples, not sequences like you mentionned.
Therefore it looks like I'll have to resample my beats anyway unless you can enlighten me further...

But really I am very happy so far no matter what so thanks a lot!

yeah it seems like there is still only the ability to burn audio files...

got the cd-m25 a week ago to finally complete my mpc and only checked how to sample and how to turn my mpc into an expensive cd player.

peace jo