Is an MPC right for me?

I play ambient/electronic/techno music heavily keyboard orriented and I am wondering if an MPC would be a good choice to lay down just drum and maybe bass sounds. Are there that many great samples out there in this category of drums (I'm thinkin tr-808 samples) or would I be better off gettin a groovebox like the mc-808? I like the style of an MPC better than a 16 step sequencer though and I like the way tracks are stacked in an MPC, especially for live use. I think I would be happy with one (especially the 500 because of portability). thanks for any input for a noob!

moog_man wrote: I like the style of an MPC better than a 16 step sequencer though and I like the way tracks are stacked in an MPC, especially for live use. I think I would be happy with one (especially the 500 because of portability).

Well, you have ansverd it yourself. This machine can be dope! But the roland's much more stable when it comes to production.

@moog_man

What other gear/software do you use?

I would suggest your try to get your hands on a MPC and some other grooveboxes at a store and take your time to find out what workflow you like best. Try asking for a quickstart manual and spend some time figuring out how the box works.

I'm a bit sceptical recommending the MPC500 since it's O.S. is quite buggy. Also it's very drum/percussion oriented, so for full ambient/electronic/techno production the MPC might not suite your needs (depending on your skills and determination).

Snerg

I have a fender rhodes, moog little phatty, yamaha cs2x, and a yamaha cp300. You can see there is a huge hole left for drum sequencing. I have never heard about the glitchy OS. Hopefully its not to bad. is it mostly with midi or something? I definitely need to go to GC and try one out- I just haven't had the time. I'm planning on mostly using the mpc for drums and a little bass- the rest of my kit fills up the rest of the sonic space, and I have a multitrack recorder so the mpc won't be the center of my production studio. However I love the features it provides live, and the easy sampling. and of course the portability

moog_man wrote:I have a fender rhodes, moog little phatty, yamaha cs2x, and a yamaha cp300. You can see there is a huge hole left for drum sequencing. I have never heard about the glitchy OS. Hopefully its not to bad. is it mostly with midi or something? I definitely need to go to GC and try one out- I just haven't had the time. I'm planning on mostly using the mpc for drums and a little bass- the rest of my kit fills up the rest of the sonic space, and I have a multitrack recorder so the mpc won't be the center of my production studio. However I love the features it provides live, and the easy sampling. and of course the portability

The glitches mostely occour when you try to load an saved sequence. but if you save the sequence in another way (save seq only) you would be having no trouble. There is a trick for every bug on the 500

cool, glad to hear there is a way around it

The MPC is a rock solid drum sequencer as far as I'm concerned, ppl complain about the the bugs but like dude said, there is away around all of them... so virtually in my world I see the MPC500 as bug free because the issues some have I don't ever have to deal with being I know the detour quite well.

All the negative hype in the world can not take away the fact that in the right hands the MPC 500 is capable of platinum production. It carries the primary technologies of the bigger MPC's & even with out all the bogus features of the bigger MPC's in the right hands one can do the exact composition on a 500 as a 4000 because for what the 500 might lack can always be made up with a computer and decent software, e.g. Acid is my Chop Shop all day!

To sum it up I'd say ignore the neg hype you might of seen on the 500 and give it a try, any practicing musician I'm sure would find the 500 to be quite competent.

Cold Snap, man, it's +1 I agree totally!

@Cold Snap

The MPC is a rock solid drum sequencer as far as I'm concerned, ppl complain about the the bugs but like dude said, there is away around all of them... so virtually in my world I see the MPC500 as bug free because the issues some have I don't ever have to deal with being I know the detour quite well.

If so... please share the workarounds with all of us?

Lately my MPC500 has been crashing less, I'm trying to find out what made it crash so often in the past to help others out that are still having issues.

I totally agree that the MPC500 can be used for serious production, it's not a toy!

Snerg

I only had crashes before I updated my OS to 1.13. Since then it crashed only once, when I loaded a corrupted data into it. It happened because the batteries went low and USB connection stalled. After reloading the data, everything was back to normal. And I am convinced that it is the incorrect data handling that causes most of the problems with MPC. And of course, devices do fail and malfunction sometimes. So, it's like a "hacker's golden rule": before you continue your work, make a reserve copy and keep it in the safe place. Do this regularly with important projects.