MPC5000 reviews, bug reports and fellow user support on the most recent standalone, hardware MPC from Akai
By MPCLinn Tue Aug 12, 2008 11:46 am
Hi. Sorry if this has been asked before or is just dumb. I don't own an MPC5K but have tried it at the store and just watched a German video demo. What concerns me greatly is this: On previous MPCs I've owned (ASQ-10, MPC-3000, MPC-2000) I can get a loop going by hitting record + playstart. Then after the first loop it automatically switches to overdub. So far, so good. On my previous MPCs the great feature is being able to turn overdub on and off while the MPC still plays. Thus you can rehearse new parts before committing them. When ready, you hit overdub again and it turns on, allowing you to record the new parts.

This feature seems to be either absent or work a different way on the MPC5K. It seems like you have to actually stop the machine altogether before you can disable overdub. Is this correct? If so, that's a major downside for me. Probably a deal breaker.

Aside from that (major issue), the MPC5K looks like a helluva great piece. I hope I'm just misunderstanding it.

Thanks in advance!
By tomazzzi Tue Aug 12, 2008 2:34 pm
Hi. Sorry if this has been asked before or is just dumb. I don't own an MPC5K but have tried it at the store and just watched a German video demo. What concerns me greatly is this: On previous MPCs I've owned (ASQ-10, MPC-3000, MPC-2000) I can get a loop going by hitting record + playstart. Then after the first loop it automatically switches to overdub. So far, so good. On my previous MPCs the great feature is being able to turn overdub on and off while the MPC still plays. Thus you can rehearse new parts before committing them. When ready, you hit overdub again and it turns on, allowing you to record the new parts.



It s exactly the same on the mpc 5000
By MPCLinn Tue Aug 12, 2008 4:11 pm
Well then I must be doing something wrong, because the one at the store definitely didn't exhibit that behavior. As I recall, when I hit the overdub button to kick it out of overdub, nothing happened. I had to hit stop and then re-start the sequence to hear it so I could "rehearse" the next part.

Is there something in the manual that explains how to achieve "classic" MPC transport behavior? Or am I still missing something?

In other words, once you've hit record, and then the loop has cycled through once, you should be able to kick in and out of both overdub and record (handy for completely erasing a track while the MPC plays) while the MPC still plays. On the 60, 3000, and 2000, you don't need to stop the machine to kick in and out of overdub or record.
By MPCLinn Wed Aug 13, 2008 7:37 am
Teknokeyz wrote:Check page 22 of the manual...


Thanks. I see that. One thing that I think is different is needing to press play and rec/overdub. But it seems like when I was in record, pressing record again stopped playback. Anyway, I'll have to print out that page (and a few before and after it) and then head back to the store. Thanks again!