Can a 2500 replace my NI Battery?

(forget about that topic name tho...)

Hi everyone, I'm new to this place !
I don't own an MPC yet (nor have I before), got quite a nice sample
collection and up to now I've been used to create and edit beats with
my mouse and NI Battery. I've never been any satisfied with my "groove" though.
That's why and how I learned to know about the MPCs' existence
I want my fingers to get used to those pads!

But there is one thing I'm still not sure about and I haven't found anything
bout it in the manuals either. If I get an MPC I'd like to put pretty much all of
my drum samples on a hard drive inside the MPC and work with them there
almost exclusively. The rest of my production sits inside Cubase tho which means
I'd have to get those beats back into my DAW. Since any ad/da degrades
the quality of the audio signal I do NOT want to get them back via the analog
outputs of course! With an MPC5000 things would be obvious and easy with
the ADAT output but how do I do it with the 2500 or the 1000? Is it possible to
do this via the spif or the usb or even both (in case it's possible with the usb: how
many channels at once?) ?? I'm NOT talking bout just "dumping" the beats
into the puter and then import them into the sequencer (this is obviously
possible via usb and also described in the manuals). I'm wondering if I can
sync the MPC to my DAW digitally (and not only via MIDI like it's described in
the manuals), run them parallel to each other and transfer any beats on the
fly directly into the sequencer.

I'm sure this is quite a simple question for many MPC owners but since I couldn't
find anything in the documents and didn't know with which words to search for
it either I hope you can help me

Maybe Im reading it wrong but what exactly are you trying to transfer over? We know that you have sample library which can be dragged and dropped via usb. What other files/sounds are you trying to tranfer? The subject line asks if the 2500 can replace your software but thats more of a question for the end user to determine. As far as passing audio back and forth you can definitely use the SPDIF on the MPC and solve your conversion issue. USB is reserved for data only (well on the 1k for sure, could be wrong about the 2500). Sorry if it doesnt help 100% but I wasnt truley sure about the question.

Alright, I knew I wasn't precise enough

Can I route a digital output of the MPC (most likely the spdif) to
a stereo track of my DAW sequencer and let them either run
in parallel mode (so I can listen to the MPC sequences and the tracks
in the DAW at the same time) or just transfer sequences of the MPC (or are they
called programs here?) into the sequencer that way?
For this being possible it would obviously be necessary that the
MPC can not only be synched to the DAW via MIDI but also digitally.
I'm quite sure that this is possible with the ADAT output of the MPC5000
(what else for would you need those 8 ADAT channels?) but is that also
possible via the spdif of the 2500 and the 1000?

Or wait, lemme say it in even different words:

It IS possible to synch the MPC to your DAW sequencer via MIDI,
route the analog outputs to your soundcard and those
signals to your sequencer so you can listen to both the MPC and
the DAW tracks at the same time (exclusively through the DAW sequencer)!

Is exactly this also possible if you don't use the analog outputs
but the spdif (which would result in only one stereo track of course)?

you can route any channels out of the spdif to the daw. it is a copy of the main LR output. So you can sync via midi for timing and control your routing however you like to avoid coming out the analog outs. You can also use the assignable outs so that you can hear whatever is going on with the track in real time even though you are only tracking out from the digital out. Hope that makes sense.

This sounds good to me so far
But does the MPC automatically get synched to the sample
rate of the DAW? Concerning MIDI it can obviously be both
master and slave, it can surely be also master concerning the
sample rate but can it also be slave in such a case? And what
sample rates are possible?

Well as far as the 1k it is strictly 44.1@16. I think the 2500 is the same. I would imagine worst case scenario you would have to change the rate on the DA

I see.
That still leads me to two (probably last) questions:

1. Changing the sample rate of my DAW wouldn't be an issue at all since I use
to work at 44.1 anyway but the question is still if the MPC automatically gets
slaved to the clock of my DAW even if that one is in 44.1? My DAW usually gets
slaved to either my A/D converter or my Nanosyncs (master clock). If the
MPC does not automatically get slaved here I'm not sure if this doesn't
maybe result in those well known clicks in the transferred signal...?

2. What exactly happens to 24bit samples that I load into the MPC, build some beats
with and transfer them back into my DAW? Does the MPC "convert" them automatically
into 16bit files without any dithering? And even if yes, does this do any harm to
the quality (concerning the original samples) when I transfer them back into the DAW or
does it not? I know that this is a question for real digi experts and actually I once
really learned all this stuff but I've never imagined such a case and am therefore a
bit clueless right now

Exscuse the ignorance but the digital out on the MPC from what ive searched is basically stereo sound? If not could some please explain exactly what the benefits of the digital in/out are on the mpc 2500?

Yes, it's a stereo output. From the manuals it seems that
they made it mainly for recording the sum on some external
digital device like a CD player or so. Usually a stereo output can also
be used as 2 mono outputs, though (by panning). Which means
then that you can export the separateley sequenced sounds
onto mono tracks in a DAW sequencer which is quite exactly
what I'd like to do as soon as I'm happy with my beat. You can
do the same with the analog outputs and/or the ADAT
outputs of the 5000, it means just a little more work cause you
got to transfer the sequences more or less one after another and
not at the same time...

Still I need to know if the MPC gets automatically slaved to the
clock of an incoming SPDIF signal or if it always has to be
the master itself (and in the second case I'd like to know if
that is actually the case with the 5000, too?)

I think that if you'll going to do everything in DAW and use mpc just for drums it's not worth it. Buy a midi controller like Korg Padkontrol or something from the Akai MPD line and you can have pads with Battery

mandoga wrote:Yes, it's a stereo output. From the manuals it seems that
they made it mainly for recording the sum on some external
digital device like a CD player or so. Usually a stereo output can also
be used as 2 mono outputs, though (by panning). Which means
then that you can export the separateley sequenced sounds
onto mono tracks in a DAW sequencer which is quite exactly
what I'd like to do as soon as I'm happy with my beat. You can
do the same with the analog outputs and/or the ADAT
outputs of the 5000, it means just a little more work cause you
got to transfer the sequences more or less one after another and
not at the same time...

Still I need to know if the MPC gets automatically slaved to the
clock of an incoming SPDIF signal or if it always has to be
the master itself (and in the second case I'd like to know if
that is actually the case with the 5000, too?)

Alright another questions, when using the digital out using an S/PDIF cable into my sound card on my computer does this allow me to simultaneously output all of my tracks as one track in my DAW or will it allow me to seperate each track from the mpc to seperate tracks in my daw?

you won't be able to sync through spdif, but yes you can record stereo master output via spdif. spdif is only for audio in these 2 mpcs.

syncing is only done via midi in these mpcs.

@jackson
Yes, I'm actually considering that already! I'm just not sure yet if the midi
delay isn't a bit too large to really get into the groove that way. The MPCs
are famous for their tight internal timing - but can I anyhow come close
to that with a midi controller?

@JayP
All tracks as one output track at a time in any case, yes.
Separately would only work if you did it one track after another.

@Nym
Thanks for the reply (thanks to @poundaproblem, too, btw ) but
you confuse me a bit by the way you expressed yourself.
There has to be some kind of digital sync in any case! May it
be that the MPC cannot be slaved and so you gotta slave your
DAW to the MPC's signal but without any sync a digital connection
between two devices cannot be made unless you love pops and clicks
It's just the same as with MIDI.
And the more I dig in the forums here the more I think that the MPC cannot
be slaved indeed, not even the 5000. That actually sucks quite a bit

Your welcome homie

No there are no sync issues, I consistantly switch out the digital connection on my MPC when Im sampling off of my proteus and then decide to connect a cd player. Also when I go to 2 track in the DAW I just plug the SPDIF to the DIGI003 and press record. No pops no clicks.