Reviews and questions about the entry-level MPC500
By illegalbrain Mon Jul 02, 2007 9:03 am
Over the last week im been giving the MPC500 a good test, and noticed that it doesn't always work 100% correctly. This is the first MPC I've ever used properly so not sure if this is common. but every now and then there is a bug or two. Sometimes when recording a sequence the pads don't react efficiently all the time, e.g if im adding a new track to a sequence it sometimes wont let me add events at the same time as current events i.e. il hit the pad but get no playback or recording, or sometimes i wont get the playback but the event would have been recorded. Theres has also been a couple of times when an event recorded doesn't play back properly at all, giving a weird distorted version of it. I have found the latset operation system and upgraded too.

Any advice would be appreciated, thanks.
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By noramoss Mon Jul 02, 2007 11:38 am
There are definitely a few bugs with it. I'm a pro with the 2000xl and I know how to set up midi with my eyes covered by the darkest gucci shades, wearing a versace straight jacket, and platinum handcuffs encrusted with 4 karats by jacob.
When i set up my mpc500 to sync as a master with my Motif ES rack module. I set the first 16 tracks up as midi. The 16th kept playing as a drum/midi track thus playing the drum sounds that I had stored in my mpc 500 as well as the sounds from the Motif rack at the same time. This is a great machine, and the bugs will be worked out.
I can't find a way to save the parameters of the work I've done. I'm going to save "entire project AUTOLOAD" in a little while in order to see if the parameters save. I was definitely getting sick and tired of everytime I load up a program on the mpc 500 that I'd have to assign each note so that if i play the midi keys on the pads that they will be in "keyboard style" instead of keys just playing at random. This was driving me Bananas, but I gave it a thorough run through yesterday and if I can't save all the parameters of my work then it's as useless as the cavs making a run against San Ant ( i can't stand San Ant) . Also it doesn't seem to play in sync with the quantize that it's set to.... I'll give it a couple of more weeks and then I'll go to akai and smack a few people around in the front office!... going to give it try right now.............tick tick tick tick (a half an hour later)... save entire project AUTOLOAD saves the parameters... YESSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSS!!!!! IN YOUR FACE ROLAND!!! and I'm not talking about KELLY ROWLAND EITHER! IN YOUR FACE BILLY BOB THORTON!
P.S.
and I fixed that drum midi thing playing at the same time thing as well.. WHAT?! WHAT!?!.. imma bad baaaad man!
Last edited by noramoss on Mon Jul 02, 2007 1:17 pm, edited 3 times in total.
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By Upright Mon Jul 02, 2007 12:48 pm
illegalbrain wrote: Sometimes when recording a sequence the pads don't react efficiently all the time, e.g if im adding a new track to a sequence it sometimes wont let me add events at the same time as current events i.e. il hit the pad but get no playback or recording, or sometimes i wont get the playback but the event would have been recorded.
Any advice would be appreciated, thanks.




This is a polyphony issuse and part of the reason I sold the mpc 500. When you using effects on your samples the polyphony of the mpc 500 is lowered. Also keep in mind that stereo samples cut the polyphony in half. :D