Beleevah wrote:
I don't think the hard disk recording function could be used as a sort of RAM supplement. But it's certainly a great feature.
The MPC 4000 and Akai's Z series samplers boast the best specs of any hardware sampler ever created. No other highend sampler records samples at 24 bits and 48/96kHZ. So if you want these features in a hardware sampler, you must use an MPC 4000 or Z series sampler because there are no alternatives. However, Akai stopped making them over 4 years ago. So you have to ask yourselves...if this is an industry standard feature for a sampler, why are there no new highend samplers that do the same? Think about that for a minute.....
Audio tracks:
The MPC 4000 doesn't have audio tracks. You have to sample long audio phrases and record MIDI sequence tracks to trigger the audio phrases. If you stop the sequence in the middle of the song and then press play, you will no longer hear the long audio phrases on these tracks. Addititionally, 24 bit recording 8 of these tracks at 5 minutes long, you will loose 58% of the MPC 4000s memory.
The MPC 5000 has continuous sample tracks and hard disk audio tracks. You can sample long audio phrases and record a MIDI sequence to playback these phrases. Using the continuous sample track feature, even if you stop and restart the sequence in the middle of the song, you long audio phrases will still playback in perfect sync unlike the MPC 4000. But to be fair, since the 5K only has 192 MB of RAM, 4 continuous sample tracks with 5 minute audio phrases will eat up 54% of memory. This is where the hard disk tracks come in as a
RAM supplement. The 5K has 8 hard disk tracks (80 GBs) to record long audio tracks. You can mixdown your continuous sample tracks to these hard disk tracks to free up memory. You can also record directly to these hard disk tracks. But these hard disk tracks are much more than a
RAM supplement. The added bonus is that you can export these hard disk tracks as 24 bit files to load into your DAW (Pro Tools, Logic, Cubase, Digital Performer, etc) for further mixing. Or you record audio tracks into your DAW and import your 24 bit audio files directly to the MPC 5Ks hard disk tracks. The MPC 4000 doesn't have this ability. But again...to be fair..this is not an industry standard feature in sampling workstations. The only sampling workstations I can think of that have hard disk recording is the Alesis Fusion, Ensoniq ASR-10, Korg Triton Studio/Oasys.....all of which are discontinued/discontinued soon.
As far as bugs? If this is anyone's worry..than they shouldn't buy any new workstation because all of them have issues with the first few operating systems. If I was buying a workstation today..the MPC 5000 would still be my choice based upon what is in the market.
I agree that adding more RAM to MPCs is useless unless loading and saving times are improved. Maybe the next generation of MPCs require more modern motherboards and RAM....or install SCSI or SATA hard drives...