500 fix up

I haven't got a 500 yet but I am thinking about it and I wanted to ask some questions.

Aside from updating the OS, what are some of the things you can do to make your 500 better? I was wondering if there are things aside from getting new pads. I really want to get a feel for taking care of this machine, and getting it to the best it can be if I get one. Especially if I buy used.

I think along my days of research I've heard that sometimes you have to replace the buttons, cursor and such. Do they go out often? I think I'm pretty good with my gear and not bashing buttons ect.

If anyone has had a 500 for a while and can respond about the build and maintaining it that'd be cool.

about the build the unit seems rock solid to me, even thou it happens quite often i have to press the mode button twice to get it work. minor issue...
as i told you yesterday the mpc500 isn't buggy i must report today i saved a sequence (saved "all seq & songs" with just a seq on), and after loading it back i wasn't able to record anything. i had to cancel the sequence to keep on working... everything else was ok, samples and settings were ok, but the sequence was corrupted. that was the first time it happened in 2 years and i lost just an 8 bar seq, but if i losted 6 seq i would had lost an entire song...!
maybe i did some shit during save dunno

word

yeah, i've had issues with my XL not saving my FX settings correctly and I lost a really nice sounding setup for this song once...

I guess that stuff happens with MPCs from time to time.

I think I'm also just stressing about making a choice between the XL and a 500 in a way.

The good thing though is I might be selling my XL to a good buddy, so if I ever really want to use it it's not far off. He said he might not be able to buy the XL in full at first, but he could probably buy the 500 for me and pay me back later. Super awesome

What I hate about the 500 is that its pitch squeezes the shit out of samples to the point of hearing them scream in digital pain. Well, to me anyway. I have sensitive ears and can hear the faintest shit, I can even tell if you sampled a wav or mp3, I'm superman, keep your girl away from me and pass that kryptonite.

hahahah awesome

so transposing isn't the best on the little beast eh?

might sound grittier pitched down. I noticed my electribe has some sort of aliasing or compression on the audio. It's specs are 44.1 but I think its compressed some how.

if i want some good transposing i can listen to my s5000. that thing is butter.

I will admit I do like the sound of the XL.

interesting.

The pitching is good, but it can sound too digital at times if you pitch way too down or up. Its a mighty machine no doubt and can do what its big brothers can do in ninja-esique ways. Thats what I like about it, there's things not in the manual that you can make the 500 do.

If you buy it brand new, you don't have to worry about upgrading because it was upgraded at the factory. I had one since 2006 then bought another in 2010 because of a rat invasion but thats another thread, anyway I never had a problem with buttons failing and pads dying. I did had one glitch (with the old OS) where an error appeared on the screen in middle of a session, like a crash but I turned it off and turned it on and it was back on its feet again. With the latest OS, I can feel the difference, its more smoother and the jogwheel is precise. I even changed my pads for mpcstuff green pads and the response is way better than the rocky stocky pads of Akai.

Its small, so probably people toss these things in their bookbags and bang it around and get button failures, but I dropped it a few times from tables and clumsy people but its solid.

But don't believe anyone when they say the 1000 is the same as a 500.

Ill-Green wrote:
But don't believe anyone when they say the 1000 is the same as a 500.

you saying you like the 500 better? how come? just curious... i have a 500 and like it, but have never messed with a 1000 with jjos and so many people love that sht so much....

JusChlln503 wrote:

Ill-Green wrote:
But don't believe anyone when they say the 1000 is the same as a 500.

you saying you like the 500 better? how come? just curious... i have a 500 and like it, but have never messed with a 1000 with jjos and so many people love that sht so much....

The 1000 is better and the workflow is smoother than the 500. But I was saying, alot of music stores were trying to get rid of the 500 because there were an abundant of them in stock, so they invented the BS that they're basically the same but 500 had 12 pads and ran on batteries. That was their selling gig. But the 500 doesn't have Chop Shop, 64 tracks etc. thats what I meant.

But I wouldn't give up mine if the 1000 was a hundred dollars more than the 500. Its got that old school charm.

hm.

I am interested in that you said it gets crunchy digital when pitched hi or low, sounds cool.

I'm still debating the idea of switching to the 500. Or I could join the club of people who own more than one MPC.

I spent a few hours tonight recording all my samples from the XL into my DAW, literally hundreds of them. It was fun. I think part of my issue with my XL is disorganisation. I have lots of folders with lots of good samples, but sort of random PGMs and I haven't spent enough time going back to old PGMs to rife thru for the good parts. It's definitely not as easy as a computer where you click, then you can snag a sample from anywhere on your computer.

It's gonna be good to have all this stock on the DAW as well.

I think the MPC song writing is sort of difficult because it's more based on playing the pads and drumming, live, to input the sequences. I like it, but I am more accustomed to knowing what pattern entered by step or piano roll, or 808 style to make a certain beat. The MPC is really fun, but sometimes I wish I could rock it really technically. I also tried triggering the MPC from a QY but it didn't work. I don't think you can do that.

I think when I finish ripping all the sounds from the XL I might format the card and start sampling more wisely, as well as using it sparingly. I went thru phazes of making tons of sounds, and making a pretty well developed PGM but not necessarily one that could turn into a cohesive song. More like a bank of 10x the amount of drums I need for one song.

So it's good to finally hear all those sounds that have been hiding in there. The funny thing is I will probably re-record them back in there at some point, especially if I format the memory, but as needed per song or excersize.

The crazy thing is I almost did and wanted to format the card last night and just start fresh. I'm really glad I spent the time to record what was in there.

Also in the future I want to save the files as WAV since SND can't be read in Audition.

So Ill, you said the 500 new now comes with the ram upgrade?