Using MPC5000 for backing tracks LIVE in gig

Hi all,

I am considering getting a 5000. I used to own a 4000 and sold it as I wasnt using it enough. I miss it

I am probably going to be playing a gig at one of Ireland's biggest outdoor festivals and with limited time and resources at hand, it will consist of me and 2 singers. I aim to play something live in each song, however, most of the music will be backing tracks.

Now, I have considered keeping it simple and using an iPod for each track (minus the elements the I will play live for each song(, however, I do like the flexibility of being able to mix 8 tracks to get a sound that suits the venue (and maybe mix some tracks live, or even play some beats / sounds on the MPC 5000 too!)

So, the question is, can the MPC do this? Has anyone tried this live? Can you play over the backing tracks live?

What is the speed of song recall like? Could I load up a song within 15-30 seconds after one has finished? Is there a song cue list so I wouldnt have to load anything up? I know there would be at least 8 tracks of audio per song (and prob 10 songs in the set), but the audio is streamed from disk, isn't it, so loading to RAM is not an issue?

I have to ask.... would the MV8800 be better suited to this task?

Thanks very much in advance peeps,

Simon:)

Sofine wrote:Hi all,

I am considering getting a 5000. I used to own a 4000 and sold it as I wasnt using it enough. I miss it

I am probably going to be playing a gig at one of Ireland's biggest outdoor festivals and with limited time and resources at hand, it will consist of me and 2 singers. I aim to play something live in each song, however, most of the music will be backing tracks.

Now, I have considered keeping it simple and using an iPod for each track (minus the elements the I will play live for each song(, however, I do like the flexibility of being able to mix 8 tracks to get a sound that suits the venue (and maybe mix some tracks live, or even play some beats / sounds on the MPC 5000 too!)

So, the question is, can the MPC do this? Has anyone tried this live? Can you play over the backing tracks live?

What is the speed of song recall like? Could I load up a song within 15-30 seconds after one has finished? Is there a song cue list so I wouldnt have to load anything up? I know there would be at least 8 tracks of audio per song (and prob 10 songs in the set), but the audio is streamed from disk, isn't it, so loading to RAM is not an issue?

I have to ask.... would the MV8800 be better suited to this task?

Thanks very much in advance peeps,

Simon:)

http://www.soundonsound.com/sos/dec03/a ... esound.htm

Live and learn.

Hi Blue Haze,

Thanks for the reply.

I have actually read that article (I have lived and I have somewhat learnt!) however, I would MUCH rather get an MPC5000 than either a 2-track playback system or even a multi-tracker. The reason for this is that I have a DAW setup in my studio and would rather complement it with a creative tool (mpc5000) rather than overlap it with a multi-tracker.

This is why I was asking the question if an MPC5000 would be suitable.

Also note that that SOS article was written in 2003, before the MPC5000 (with hard disk streaming) was created, and also before the MV8800.

Anyone else have any thoughts on this???

Thanks

Simon.

I have used the MPC 5000 live with backing vocal tracks.... You can load up a total of about 20 songs in 1 project, but usually, once you load up 1 song(with audio streaming from the HD), the MPC moves kinda slow thru menus, especially tryna load and save stuff back and forth from the HD while you are using audio thats streaming in song mode.

I have a show tomorrow, and i am trying to debate on the Ipod or MPC myself.... and im actually considering Ipod at the moment. If Akai can speed up the way the HD is processing while going thru other menus, this to me, would be a great tool to use for live tracks.... But I dont think I would risk that chance at that kinda event until this issue is fixed.

Thanks 4dahaterz,

Good info. Let me know how it goes for you. Have you considered Alesis HD24, or something like the Yamaha AW2816 to run backing tracks? As you know, this approach would give you the opportunity to mix your sound to the venue, plus mix on the fly if you want to.

I also wanted to run my 2 singers mics through the MPC for applying FX in realtime on their vocals, which I know the Yamaha AW2816 (and others) can do, wonder if the MPC5000 allows this?

I was kind of hoping I could use the MPC5000 to do all of this though, plus I would then get a nice groove box into the mix too! However, it looks like it may not be solid enough to trust live....

I'm thinking ipod, hope that FOH can get a good sound, play some gtr, keys live, maybe some mixer with a FX box for vocal treatment on the fly....

Decisions, decisions, head scratching, reading, browsing, dreaming, sleeping, decisions.....

Simon

I've used an MPC 2000XL for the last 3 years for my sequences and backing tracks. It is as rock solid as it get's. The only downfall is the loading time between sequences because of the small memory it has. I recently bought the mpc 5000 as an upgrade for the same purpose. I have not used it live yet because I have only been with it for one week. I understand you can process external audio with the effects. I don't know what the consequences will be on the internal cpu usage.
I'll experiment and let you know

I wouldn't purchase an MPC 5000 just for backing tracks. I would simply buy a cheap/second hand hard disk recorder or an iPod.

If you are saving/loading things on the MPC 5000 and also trying to stream audio from the Hard Drive, I would assume you would have issues with these functions slowing time. I think that is too much work for one hard drive that you can't even create partitions.

Askia Shaheed wrote:If you are saving/loading things on the MPC 5000 and also trying to stream audio from the Hard Drive, I would assume you would have issues with these functions slowing time. I think that is too much work for one hard drive that you can't even create partitions.

Hi Askia,

Yeah, that makes sense. I wonder can you attach USB drives and maybe try to split the load somehow. I would imagine that the CPU / data bus would suffer just the same though...

I suppose I am looking for an excuse to get the 5000! Yeah, back to looking locally for a cheap multitrack HD recorder / player I think. Defo need a playback device that I can control levels / EQ for at least 8 tracks as I think tweaking the sound per venue is important (if you get time for a soundcheck!)

Cheers,

Simon:)

Sofine wrote:I also wanted to run my 2 singers mics through the MPC for applying FX in realtime on their vocals, which I know the Yamaha AW2816 (and others) can do, wonder if the MPC5000 allows this?

it was told to me you can run at least one external source through the inputs and fx. not sure how many imputs there are on board or whether the mpc can apply seperate effects. would be nice to know.

i'm eyeing this up for live work too

you can actually run two inputs through the fx section and process them, the usb only works to get data into or out of the mpc. But you have to put the mpc as an external harddrive and can't do anything else while it is in this mode.
I really don't see a problem using the mpc as a playback source. You don't necesarily need to use the hard drive for playback.
cheers!

mmcerda wrote:I really don't see a problem using the mpc as a playback source. You don't necesarily need to use the hard drive for playback.
cheers!

If you are running audio backing tracks.... yea, you will need the Hard Drive... its only got 192 mb of ram, and 8 audio tracks will easily use up 192 mb(most songs are at least 3 mins long average). Anyway you gotta use the HD in song mode for the 8 audio tracks. So if you are importing Broadcast Wave files of approximately the length of the song in edited form from your actual DAW, the actual size of one full length audio file would be over 20mb. Meaning, if you are doing a show, you dont have time to wait on a machine to load and unload a whole other project file, unless its between a couple of songs.

that's completley right if you just want to sample the whole track. But if you reprogram the whole thing sound by sound you will be able to do it. I've been doing it on the mpc 2000 for years with only 32 Mb. The only problem I had was that I could only have about 3 songs loaded at the time. But now with 192 Mb y can get 18 completel
y sequenced songs.

What do you think about it?
cheers

hey mmcerda, did you have any more thoughts on this? just posted a new topic but also found this thread, so I also would love to know...

Can you "perform" samples over mutlichannel playback? (rock solid reliability? and all out of different outputs?)

Do samples load up faster or directly from the HD if my whole set of songs' samples exceed 192mb?

Cheers
T