Introducing

Hi,

I'm not an MPC owner but I am thinking, seriously thinking of becoming one. It seems though that (I could be terribly wrong) most MPC heads are using it for hiphop or other non 4x4 type of music...I'm much more into anything from (groovy) house to hard pounding techno....using a bunch of other machines (mainly synths, a 'proper' sampler and a machinedrum) will any MPC benefit me? My current gearlist: Electron Machinedrum, Novation Nova, Yamaha an1x, Yamaha a4000, Yamaha cs2x, Roland d50 (not used), Roland mc303 (not used), Novation Bassstation Keys, Yamaha tg500, Casio Cz101, Casio Sk-1 (I actually use that one quite a bit) and some other tools. So that's a whole lot of stuff I need to sequence (allthough I may get rid of some of that gear)

Basically I need a machine that will have let me acces tons of my own drums samples on the fly, input/play/program them into my sequences and also sequence my other gear. I am very tempted by the mpc range, because the idea of pads is *very* tempting to me....

I know the Akais are famous for their tight timing, their punchy sound but I need to know how easy it is to access a vast library of seperate drumsounds quickly and easily (my current sampler won't let me do just that) and how good it will fit in with my styles of music (how ridicilous that may sound) and if it will be adequate to sequence entire tracks (on outboard gear)...

I would love to hear from people with a similar setup that use the Akai MPC (2000xl, 4000 or 1000) and would like to share their experiences with me.

cheers,

Bazziman

Oh, and I wouldn't mind chopping up some beats every now and then.

I'm not sure what you mean by accessing samples "on the fly", but the MPC stores samples on floppy, or Zip if you have one. You can't load sounds while the sequencer is playing, if that's what you mean.

It sounds like you have a very specific idea of what you want to accomplish, so I would suggest downloading a copy of the manual and reading about EXACTLY how the MPC is set up and how it operates.
http://www.akaipro.com/us/omdload.html

Other than the specifics, I'm sure you'll get nothing but glowing reviews about the MPC in this forum.

are you running any type of DAW? sounds like something like protools or logic could do you better than an mpc. with all that gear you will need a midi i/o box and a midi sequencer that can see it. software programs like those will allow you to pick the exact instrument, and sometimes even select the patch if that instruments patches are seen by your daw. an mpc might be extra for you and you may want to get rid of some of that other gear to replace with mpc. if you got mad disposable income, get a daw and a mpc, but if not, look into those programs. digital performer has a sweet midi sequencer in it too.

mesh wrote:are you running any type of DAW? sounds like something like protools or logic could do you better than an mpc.

I'm running Cubase as it is...just for squencing and everything is hooked up to my pc with 2 midiinterfaces...(one of which can act as a midipatchbay of sorts as well...allowing me to reroute stuff)...

with all that gear you will need a midi i/o box and a midi sequencer that can see it. software programs like those will allow you to pick the exact instrument, and sometimes even select the patch if that instruments patches are seen by your daw.

Won't an MPC be able to this as well? It's a midi production centre after all innit?...(it seems most people here use it just to trigger internal samples and phrases)....

an mpc might be extra for you and you may want to get rid of some of that other gear to replace with mpc.

I will get rid of some of my gear (or at least get it out of the studio)...too much gear (stuff I used to dream about) can be a serious drain to ones creativity....but....all my gear (except that stupid MC303) is kinda dear to me...hard to get rid of.

if you got mad disposable income, get a daw and a mpc, but if not, look into those programs. digital performer has a sweet midi sequencer in it too.

Thanks for the advice, much appreciated.

Anyone know how good an MPC is at controlling midi equipment?

Oh and by on the fly sample selecting: will the MPC allow me to mor or less instantly scroll thru tons of my own drumssamples to pick the right ones each time or would I have to contruct cumbersome programs like on the Yamaha a4k? Not necessarely during play...but I would stop the sequencer, fo into sample load and put another sample under one of the pads...how easy is this?

yes an mpc is a rock solid sequencer and you can scroll through the patches. but the advantage to a softwarre sequencer is that the actual names will all pop up and you can pick the patches by that. mpc only has program numbers, 0 to 127 so you have to memorize the number.

to get to your samples, if you want them to be in the mpc, you do have to load and create programs with them all there. if you load a ton of samples you can fly through them, but you have to manually assign them to pads which can be done right when you load them, or later affter they are all loaded. you can switch samles while a sequencce is playing too, but you have to scroll throught the list so if you want to do that you have ot have them in a certain order, or else you will be triggering sounds you dont want while scrolling.

i mean, if you already got a midi sequencer in your computer adn are pretty comfortable using it and want to get rid of some of the other stuff, hell yeah, get the mpc. its my number one choice of instruments. if i could only have one thing to make music on it would be the mpc.

Bazziman,

I produce whatever generates income but my specialty is trance, techno, and house. For the requirements you described I suggest that you get an MPC4000. You will prefer its larger display and graphical user interface that allows you to see a hierarchy of folders and scroll through files. I use a mini USB keyboard with one of my MPC4000's. It allows me to enter filenames with minimal effort.

Sell whatever you are not using. It can be heartbreaking at first. After it is gone you won't think about it much. Eliminate redundancy wherever you can. A bit of advice: to save money buy the less expensive MPC4000 and upgrade it yourself.

Thanks for the tips...I should look into that mpc4000 then...it seems the 1000 is kinda limited in some aspects: no velocity to attack/filter stuff like that...perhaps for hiphop this aint a big thing but for complicated hard banging techno these features are a must (imho)...

It's a nice little community here at these forums.



p.s. Selling some of my stuff is gonna be hard...ut hey, it will certainly free up some money! The only definate keepers are the novation machines, the an1x and the tg500 (sweet pianos and stuff) and of course the Machinedrum.