MPC5000 newbie

Hi all,

A bit of history before a question. I'm a professional sound engineer that's been working in the post environment for about 15 years but on the side I've been involved with a trip hop band and I produced a lot of big beat and breaks (back when it was popular) with my real passion being deep house that I started DJing in about 93' (but I've produced everything from deep tech to banging techno when the mood calls for it) .

Back then my production PC was less specced than the MPC5K with 16mb of ram and a 800mb HDD I was running Cakewalk 5 and I "managed". I've had a lot of gear in between then and now, a lot of vintage gear from Korg and Roland and the odd groove box thrown in for good measure. I got annoyed with cables so I sold everything and went with an Axiom 25 and my ipad plugged into a Alesis IO dock for external stuff and the Korg Legacy Collection sorting out most of my needs. That's done well up till now but I've been throw back into production and I thought the only way to really do beats proper is go back to basics, I walked into a pawn shop and there was the 5k so I thought why not. All the deep house stuff was written using the S1000's and S2000's so what better way to get that sound. I wasn't disappointed, after about a week I've settled into workflow and I love the sound you get.

Long story short. I've used a lot if gear in my time, I run a full ProTools HD studio with a the trimmings (and the headaches!) and I really don't get all the hate that surrounds the 5k. I've read Just Blazes original rant and tbh, when I got the 5k it was running OS1 and it was quirky but not unlike most hardware I've owned. So what's the deal? Is the 5k really a dud or did somebody that was having a bad day rant and destroy it's rep? So far I've not encountered anything that would want me to give it back, it's a solid piece of kit with a very thoughtful workflow (which you would expect given it's heritage).

So what gives?

The only thing I'm not a fan of is the clicky data wheel. But that's about it. Otherwise it's a pretty decent specced piece of kit.

Nice post there. I picked up my 5K about 1.5 years ago, and it works perfectly for my production/performance needs. Seems like the 5000 is the model that many people love to hate though. I read the same "rant" you refer to, and honestly it reminded me of a temper tantrum I would have had back in second grade when I couldn't figure out the answer to my homework (after not reading the associated chapter). I value positive and negative reviews on gear as they help guide a purchase decision and future product development, but rants like that are typically over the top and often driven by some other motive (i.e. not receiving a unit for free as a sponsor, etc...). I don't know who the guy was, but hopefully he found some other unit to use successfully.

Enjoy your new MPC5K If you are getting back to the mid 90's deep house, this should be a great unit for you. I use mine for '94-'96 style jungle, and find that the 5K has a great workflow for that, especially the drum editing.

Welcome to the forums. If you have a search through the 5000 forum here you'll find a many topics specifically covering the various issues we've encountered with the machine, especially with OS version 2.0, some of them could be described as rants

In a nutshell, there are many outstanding bugs in OS 2.0, which Akai were aware of and never fixed. Also the 5000 itself was, IMO, a fairly lazy product with little innovation from the previous (MPC2500) but a very hefty price tag. The OS also features many annoying quirks (IMO) that slow down workflow compared to previous MPCs.

Obviously others disagree, although bugs are bugs, so I guess those are bugs they either never experience or simply are happy to work around.

TBH there's more to this than just bugs, the 5000 epitomises what many believe to be the downward spiral of the MPC range since Numark/inMusic took over.

My experience with InMusic has not been a good one. I invested in Avids product range awhile back, AiR, who make a number of really decent virtual instruments for the PT environment. I upgraded (at a significant cost) to their newer version so I could run it with Mountain Lion. It didn't work and I got absolutely no feedback from AiR or InMusic. I had the drop another couple hundred dollars to get the "new" upgrade that I cod actually use. To add fuel to the fire, InMusic stuffed up the downloads (which were around 60GBs!) so even after we paid (and I say we because there were loads of users) we could still not download for a further month . InMusic fed a whole bunch oft all tails etc and I guess nobody will know the real truth. But the software we downloaded is as buggy as hell, it'll crash PT sometimes which is really rare in the OSX environment.

So a.) I've come to the conclusion that nothing will ever be perfect. If thru made it perfect nobody would upgrade and b.) pray they JJOS comes up with something because InMusic ain't gonna fix that.

An interesting thing though. I've had a lot of gear and before the interwebs I never really complained about bugs we just carried on and accepted that that was the way it was.

I mean if Just Blaze hadn't have had his rant would people have noticed so much? I paid about half for my 5k do I'm happy with the price and as far as I can see, it's the most well specced beatbox I've ever owned. It's a serious spec I'm happy with that.

While the bugs are there, they really don't limit what I do, but for some I know it does. I've never used any MPC that didn't have annoying issues or limitations, current mpc software included.

I've completed two projects using nothing but my 5000 (www.soundcloud.com/bluesoulten for some examples), less the mixing and mastering steps, and as long as it keeps running, I'll keep using it. I just hope they last like the 2000s have.

Yeah, i haven't used mine for a while, because a 2500 fell into my lap and i aquired the ren..
But i like the 5k and miss it. (it's at a freinds place atm)

Like tutor said, there's a lazyness towards getting it right, but i like the combo of a synth , hd recorder/player sampler sequencer... They where aiming at a non computer solution, but didn't quite go all the way to finish it/refine it..

Also like Spin said(A fan of your pad Skills Spinscott) It has great drum editing workflow i think.

I like the synth in it too.. IT's very convenient and really easy to use... REally quick to make something and resample onto pads...

Eyalc Nice Tunes man... Feeling that soul vybe...
Did you work with the hd recorder in 5k for some things or just track in a daw?

Thanks! No didn't use the hd recorder. Just tracked out to Logic Pro and mixed there.

So one thing my trying to understand. is the Ren a workstation as well or just a controller. It's controller on one site , then a workstation on another, as far as can tell the ram is on the Ren with the CPU on the PC? Could you take it live without a laptop? I used to perform live with a laptop (Ableton setup) before, I won't do that in a hurry again. Regardless of how much you try, that thing always crashes while you're on stage Always. That's why the MPC is so appealing to me.

Another question, can you autocorrect the playing while you're playing it?

Zedisded wrote:So one thing my trying to understand. is the Ren a workstation as well or just a controller. It's controller on one site , then a workstation on another, as far as can tell the ram is on the Ren with the CPU on the PC? Could you take it live without a laptop? I used to perform live with a laptop (Ableton setup) before, I won't do that in a hurry again. Regardless of how much you try, that thing always crashes while you're on stage Always. That's why the MPC is so appealing to me.

Another question, can you autocorrect the playing while you're playing it?

MPC Ren questions go in the MPC Ren forum, not the 5K forum!

Thanks Lampdog, apologies MPC-Tutor. I just wanted a quick answer I didn't need to discuss it. Then the 5k was the right unit for me

the 5k it's a good piece of gear it has a lot of bugs but i still prefer it over the renaissance( for now.In the end it's all about personal taste and workflow

Just a question on this fine Xmas evening. Does the 5k have any sort of input quantization? My skills at hitting the pads on time leave a lot to be desired, I know you can change the quantization once recorded but I need it to sort me out before that if possible. Otherwise practice is required

Yes, Timing Correct operates either as you record notes into the sequence, or can be used to shift notes after they have been recorded into the sequence.

Eyalc wrote:While the bugs are there, they really don't limit what I do, but for some I know it does. I've never used any MPC that didn't have annoying issues or limitations, current mpc software included.

I've completed two projects using nothing but my 5000 (http://www.soundcloud.com/bluesoulten for some examples), less the mixing and mastering steps, and as long as it keeps running, I'll keep using it. I just hope they last like the 2000s have.

Nice Tunes dude! you might like some of my stuff https://soundcloud.com/ianholdendc

Spinscott I watched a vid with your jungle, some wicked skills there i'm nowhere that talented