By creatorlars
Wed Jan 19, 2005 5:31 am
Hi Akai users---
I've been using an Alesis SR-16 for my band's live performances/recordings for almost a year now. We just finished a full length album with it and feel we've outgrown it's potential. The Akai MPC's were reccomended to me by a professional when I expressed my concerns to him. I don't want to buy a really expensive model if the extra features aren't going to be useful to me, however. Here are the main features I am concerned with:
1) being able to program beats in patterns and link the patterns together in song structures
2) being able to give each pattern within a song it's own specific BPM to allow for tempo changes within songs (there is no way to do this with the Alesis, short of simulating a tempo change with weird timings)
3) having a lot of storage memory for the patterns/songs (i use a lot of patterns, and the alesis only holds about 10 songs this way)
4) being able to sample/store my own drum sounds
5) having some sort of computer interface to program patterns/songs in graphically and then import into the drum machine
6) having a way to easily switch between songs and use a footpedal or something similar to start them for a live performance
these are the features i'm primarily concerned with. can anyone please tell me which of the Akai's will be most accomodating for my purposes? most of my beats are weird rock time signatures or electro/dance type stuff. i just need percussion/sampling capability, no basslines or melody lines. anyone that can reccomend a good place to buy (i'm assuming ebay) the advice is welcome too.
thanks in advance!
lars
I've been using an Alesis SR-16 for my band's live performances/recordings for almost a year now. We just finished a full length album with it and feel we've outgrown it's potential. The Akai MPC's were reccomended to me by a professional when I expressed my concerns to him. I don't want to buy a really expensive model if the extra features aren't going to be useful to me, however. Here are the main features I am concerned with:
1) being able to program beats in patterns and link the patterns together in song structures
2) being able to give each pattern within a song it's own specific BPM to allow for tempo changes within songs (there is no way to do this with the Alesis, short of simulating a tempo change with weird timings)
3) having a lot of storage memory for the patterns/songs (i use a lot of patterns, and the alesis only holds about 10 songs this way)
4) being able to sample/store my own drum sounds
5) having some sort of computer interface to program patterns/songs in graphically and then import into the drum machine
6) having a way to easily switch between songs and use a footpedal or something similar to start them for a live performance
these are the features i'm primarily concerned with. can anyone please tell me which of the Akai's will be most accomodating for my purposes? most of my beats are weird rock time signatures or electro/dance type stuff. i just need percussion/sampling capability, no basslines or melody lines. anyone that can reccomend a good place to buy (i'm assuming ebay) the advice is welcome too.
thanks in advance!
lars