Getting Poor Sound out of 2500 - what's going on?

^He means master outs.

Reading these comments makes me think this is normal.
The FX on the 2500 are basically useless as applying them makes things sound worse, especially the EQ. I know the 2500 isn't going to sound as nice as the MPC3000 or older models but there's no reason it should sound inferior to other hardware, especially in the dynamics area; this is something AKAI needs to address, though they won't.

You'll notice the same effect playing DAW instruments or notes from another workstation over a multitracked beat from the 2500. Getting them to mix right in your sequencer is impossible unless you degrade the quality of your other instruments to compensate for poor dynamics.

I'd like to hear from some 2500/1000 users that have overcome this problem.

6thMilitant wrote:^He means master outs.

Reading these comments makes me think this is normal.
The FX on the 2500 are basically useless as applying them makes things sound worse, especially the EQ. I know the 2500 isn't going to sound as nice as the MPC3000 or older models but there's no reason it should sound inferior to other hardware, especially in the dynamics area; this is something AKAI needs to address, though they won't.

You'll notice the same effect playing DAW instruments or notes from another workstation over a multitracked beat from the 2500. Getting them to mix right in your sequencer is impossible unless you degrade the quality of your other instruments to compensate for poor dynamics.

I'd like to hear from some 2500/1000 users that have overcome this problem.

Right on about the effects. especially the eq, and I'm not talking drastic stuff.

Getting them to mix right in your sequencer is impossible unless you degrade the quality of your other instruments to compensate for poor dynamics.

Could you give more explanations on the underlined part?

By the way, I could listen to the demo. My personal preference goes to the beginning of the recording (louder is better syndrome? ) To my ears, the second one has a strange coloration and lacks some highs (compared to the first one of course). You said which was which so it is a bit biased I must admit.

Anyway what I really think is if that A/D D/A accuracy question has been a problem since the beginning for you, you should resell your MPC and find something better because you'll never solve and get through that.

you'll never solve and get through that.

not to repeat myself too mcuh but....spdif...solves all of his problems

Nym wrote:

you'll never solve and get through that.

not to repeat myself too mcuh but....spdif...solves all of his problems

is this true? im wondering how the OP recorded the output of the mpc...... or did he say how and i missed it?

maybe there is something happening on the way out too? or his sound card is an intermediate issue. a good way to tell would be to load up a sample via cf card and then record the outs....

i avoid the analog outs most of the time. i will use the individual analog outs sparingly while tracking but mostly for sparse or low volume stuff. otherwise, it's spdif all the time. i sample everything from my DAW with its delta66s...so there's only 1 AD going on from tt mixer to analog in of the Delta. from then out, everything is digital. in this way i bypass the mpc's analog-digital and digital-analog converters completely. sounds as nice as you like.

not to repeat myself too mcuh but....spdif...solves all of his problems

Yeah Nym no problem you're right. The problem for me is if you wanna track out 8 tracks or more and bypass the D/A stage it will be time-consuming. If the 2K5 had ADAT it would be good

maybe there is something happening on the way out too? or his sound card is an intermediate issue. a good way to tell would be to load up a sample via cf card and then record the outs....

There will always be controversies about test protocols. I like to remind that at the end of the chain, there are humans with different hearing capacity among hundred parameters that could be endlessly discussed. The 1K or 2K5 are not perfect products (timing, "flat" sound) and personally I'm not too picky with that anymore.

Remember, the MPC is 16bit, not 24bit, so its not going to sound exactly like anything that you sample. Its clean, but it won't ever give you an exact copy of what you sampled.
I have to disagree with 6thMilitant's comment on the effects being useless. I personally think this is one of the strong points on the 1000/2500. I always use the eq and compression to get my mix to sound better. Nothing is perfect, but don't overlook what you have in the box. Sure, the compression can't compete with an Avalon, but try it; see what it can do for yourself. Try the eq. Normalize all your main sounds. The options to do what you need are in the machine.

true, cd quality is 24 bit IIR

what exactly does the gain knob add to the equation - is it purely level? surely even if it is, its setting is important

CD quality is 16bit / 44,1kHz Samplerate.

I was wondering if that was wrong... Could have swarn redbook standards were 16 bit 44.1. With all these computer programs that have higher resolutions, I always thought it to be kind of unnessasary, for me anyways, since cd's seemed like high enough quality.

i'd like do something i shoulda done in 2006....

with a complete gearlist, i'd like to record a sample from record onto .wav on my computer.
using this .wav, i will sample it and play it back, providing different .wav files as comparatives.
1, the sample as recorded from vinyl to my DAW soundcard (delta66)
2, the sample as described above, sampled into my mpc by stereo analog input, played out by stereo analog output
3, the sample as described in 1, sampled into my mpc by stereo analog input, played out by spdif
4, the sample as described in 1, sampled into my mpc by spdif, played out by spdif
5, the sample as described in 1, sampled into my mpc by spdif, played out by stereo analog output
6, the sample as described in 1, resampled inside the MPC itself.

if you can think of any other permutations of this setup, please let me know

Nym wrote:i'd like do something i shoulda done in 2006....

with a complete gearlist, i'd like to record a sample from record onto .wav on my computer.
using this .wav, i will sample it and play it back, providing different .wav files as comparatives.
1, the sample as recorded from vinyl to my DAW soundcard (delta66)
2, the sample as described above, sampled into my mpc by stereo analog input, played out by stereo analog output
3, the sample as described in 1, sampled into my mpc by stereo analog input, played out by spdif
4, the sample as described in 1, sampled into my mpc by spdif, played out by spdif
5, the sample as described in 1, sampled into my mpc by spdif, played out by stereo analog output
6, the sample as described in 1, resampled inside the MPC itself.

if you can think of any other permutations of this setup, please let me know

ive done similar stuff...but here's what i thought...if you can do a correlation of the original sample to the original sample played out via one of these methods, and sync it up right, you should - in theory (?) - end up with an impulse response of just the coloring characteristics of each method.
of course this might not be exact, as i'm not sure how linear / time-invariant an ad/da system is, but it would be interesting to create IRs from the results.

we've totally derailed at this point, but i like where yer goin with this nym, so i wanted to throw that out there.

Nym wrote:i'd like to record a sample from record

What kind of sample are you thinking about? something musical I guess.

What do you think of the idea of sampling something from a test vinyl in parallel? like white/pink noise or a frequency sweep for instance. Doing that you can check your system for your own pleasure (cartdrige, tonearm and so on) and you can sample something more neutral for your demystifying test.