How has the MPC made your life easier? What's special?

I need some opinions guys.
I have been programming and sequencing just with Cubase and ProTools for quite some time. What I do, is just program beats with my fingers on my keyboard controller. I assign all the samples to where I want them to be from my sampler, and off I go. I just record straight into Cubase. Quantize, export to Audio, and there you have it.

I've been doing more Hip-Hop stuff lately, and I know that in every Hip-Hop Producers arsenal is an MPC. But why? What is so special about these machines? The pads? The timing?
I'm really curious as to why these machines are THE standard in the Hip-Hop world.

Thanks!

One af the main things why i bought my mpc is the shuffle, you can quantizie in precent. You can get that swing in your rhythms that only mpc can do. The other reason is that you are working with your head and fingers not just looking in a computer, and work with the mouse, it is more feeling in a mpc. But thats is me and not you, you have to test to see if it is your thing..

beats are to be heard and not seen, and although I've only tried fruity loops demo, I just don't feel as though I can really get into making beats with a mouse. just seems lame to me, tracking and mixing are another story however. but to make the actual beat, I'll stick with hardware.

its the bomb to get jiggy with. word to the motha.

the bustard ass females.... ahahah

Boogie Man wrote:beats are to be heard and not seen, and although I've only tried fruity loops demo, I just don't feel as though I can really get into making beats with a mouse. just seems lame to me, tracking and mixing are another story however. but to make the actual beat, I'll stick with hardware.

I gotta agree and I've made dope @ss beats both ways. I feel more natural making beats on the MPC than anything else , other than a lunchroom table in school. The big pads , the box , it's just .....right. I really cant explain it better than what has already been said. You grab am MPC load up some sounds and bang those pads and you'll know what all the love is for. I mean , whoa , it's nice that a computer can help you make a hot beat , dont get me wrong. I just would rather bang out that beat and use that unfeeling machine to just help out with the technical stuff. Hey , that's just me though. Now if you'll excuse me , I gotta go buy a new flight case for my baby.

Hey look fellas , I'm advanced , I'm advanced. Yeah , I must've been right Formula because that post advanced me. See? Seriously , go try an MPC , you'll probably love it like we do. You know. Us advanced people.

I used to make beats with a computer using fruityloops and stuff, but when I first tried the mpc...man, what a difference. It was love at first sight. Nowadays I wouldn't even consider using fruityloops. I do sometimes sample with cool edit and chop with recycle, but I just don't feel myself at home with fruityloops or another software-sampler. It's the whole feeling, can't quite explain it. You'll have to try it for yourself.

the pads are just so nice and soft to touch. the pads. the sequencer is great, but compared to a soft sequencer like cubase (if you are used to one) can be very limiting. i really like banging out beats on the pads, but when it comes to editing up and adding all the variations and fills and ghost notes and all that I prefer reason's sequencer. i like being able to see all the notes relative to each other 1 bar at a time. of course you could bang out your main beat ideas on mpc (which uses midi files for it's sequences), then load those up in cubase and edit it all up from there. they are the standard because people have been making hip-hop using mpc's since long before most people were computer literate. if you can make really great stuff using your setup, then you dont really need one. go try one out at a store and see, you will probably fall in love with it. plus, they are way more portable than a computer (even a laptop+midi keyboard).

You can get pretty close using the PD16 with NNXT in Reason.

yeah i heard the pd16's pads are smaller than an mpc's.
i havent seen one in person so i don't know, but i can say i have given alot of thought to selling my mpc to get a pd16 and a 950 and a full size midi keyboard controller. i do alot in reason sooo. if i already had a low latency soundcard i would be real tempted to do that. i love reason and do alot of work in it, and you can take a break recycle it up and load it into dr rex and use the pads like that, it is alot like having an mpc (which I do). if my latency was unnoticable when rewired using reason and nuendo i would probably make that switch. i sample into the computer first already anyways.