Sampling from Mp3 players

could you sample songs, or phrases of songs by connecting your mp3 player (i.e iPOD) to the mpc?

Yep,the same way you sample from any external device.Go from the headphone out (1/8) into one of the ins' on the mpc (1/4.)

yes mp3 is a lossy compression. you will not get a faithful reproduction of the original sound, but quality is still ok, like with MD which also use compression. they are still very usuable quality wise.