A tip for a newbee: MPC500 or 1000?

Hi everybody,

I'm a nearly total beginner in MAO and I heard that MPCs where the good thing to get in order to start and to kinda "enhance" what traditionnal trackers are able to offer in terms of creativity and flexibility. I saw the stuff in action and I was rather impressed so I decided to get this very quickly! But I'm hesitating between two models MPC500 and MPC1000. They all seem to be not cheap (in music making, it's often a dream unfortunately...) and a good deal to start out with "pushing buttons" (but I may be wrong... give me some other advice if it's the case ).
Because I'm a complete beginner I want to know exactly and "in concreto" what are the main differences between these two models because I'm not used with the "notice-chat", technical language with these two "instruments" and of course which one is the best to start. I want something to start but rather good anyway (not a fisherprice or bontempi but not the "steinway of the MPCs"), something that can help me to progress and besides, give me interesting features.
Thanks for your answers in advance!

P.S.: My english is rather bad, so if I'm misunderstood or if you don't understand what I meant, don't hesitate to tell me

On the akaipro sit (www.akaipro.com) u can find a comperison chart.
But in big lines u can probably work faster with a 1k if u want to use ur mpc as a standalone.
JJOS (a 3rd party software) is availible for the mpc 1000, which makes this piece of equipment a real powerful beatmaking tool.
The 500 is realy portable, and it also has an option to run on battery's.

if your planning to get a MPC, get the 1000.. but if your REALLY just starting, than get FL Studio 8

What would you buy if you could ONLY buy one of these:

- MPC1000 (no upgrade!)
- MPC500 + 128MB RAM upgrade

modular wrote:What would you buy if you could ONLY buy one of these:

- MPC1000 (no upgrade!)
- MPC500 + 128MB RAM upgrade

the 500, cause i have a powerbook already...

j-no wrote:

modular wrote:What would you buy if you could ONLY buy one of these:

- MPC1000 (no upgrade!)
- MPC500 + 128MB RAM upgrade

the 500, cause i have a powerbook already...

What if you didn't had a computer at all?

And why that statement? What kind of job do you have to do on a computer that you can't do on a MPC500?

Cheers!

for me the 500 and a turntable then track out to a tape deck or a 4 track, mixdown then record to a cd recorder, or the 500 along with an sp-303/404... i don't know how the 1k is without the jjos, but i've messed with a 1k with the jjos1 and that beast was like a computer in a box, i barely scratched the surface on all the features in there, but that's just because i didn't need all the extra features and my brain can't handle too much info all in one box, others can though but that's muscle memory for me and i don't have a lot, lol well maybe just enough... the beats i do are just 4/4 style and 8 bar loops and i don't use midi, so the 500 is cool for that imo... with a laptop and the software i use with it i have tons of fx and i can stack them onto the sample or mangle isht up without using up memory on the 500, i can chop,(chopping on the 500 can be tedious), but not a problem, i learned how to chop samples by numeric value on a sp-808... i can do crossfade looping... i can also track my beats back into the computer, i can arrange there as well, mixdown then convert my isht in itunes... but i can work the 500 without the computer too, just depends what i feeling that day... did this make sense???

my bad

Get the 1000. In time when you're able to add the additional memory, internal hard drive and purchase the excellent third party JJ OS (with dual boot functionality no less!) you'll have in your posession one serious piece of kit.

No disprespect to the 500 as that also has its place.

G4s

yeah i would take the 500 with memory.. and if u dont have a computer than get a turntable

Thanks for your answers! I think I'll get the 1k model (maybe in second hand if I'm lucky... but I could be **** up because I'm a newbie as I said). To answer to one of the replies: I've got Reason 3.0 for a few days in order to.. put my whole two hands in this deep technical shit (although this soft seems to be a "reasonable" - sorry for that - way to have good features and "simplicity" both) so FL is not really a good solution. And all this trackers are shitty in the end (even if I haven't got the skills to use ALL of the features offered by these), it think it's not only "good to start" but "good if you want to start". I think that progressing only with these nearly free and basic trackers and using VSTs and advanced features without understanding a word of the thousands of parameters is not the good solution. If I'm making music the way I cook - to use a silly metaphor - , in an "experimental way" , I know the results I'm gonna have

Good Choice

When I first started out I copped a 500 and after a week or two I returned it for a 1000 and that has made all the difference. I sure did like the 500 I made some pretty nice beats on it and I took it over my friends house so I loved the portability aspect of it especially on the go. I later found that I was limited in terms of pads, the small screen, and the assignable outs. Also there was a steep learning curve to it.


Personally I'd go with the 1000 no doubt about it but if your going to get the 500 my advice is to ask yourself where are you going to take your music in the future. Plan ahead in what you need so you don't make the mistake that I did. I hope this helps.

yeah i have the 1000 too and im also a noob with it.. i got it a few weeks ago but im starting to get the hang of it

rebel_lion wrote:When I first started out I copped a 500 and after a week or two I returned it for a 1000 and that has made all the difference. I sure did like the 500 I made some pretty nice beats on it and I took it over my friends house so I loved the portability aspect of it especially on the go. I later found that I was limited in terms of pads, the small screen, and the assignable outs. Also there was a steep learning curve to it.


Personally I'd go with the 1000 no doubt about it but if your going to get the 500 my advice is to ask yourself where are you going to take your music in the future. Plan ahead in what you need so you don't make the mistake that I did. I hope this helps.

I heard about this. MPC 500 seems to be "made for transport", made for making music everywhere. I think, it can be a good instrument later, when you have a rather good homestudio and you want to work everywhere and in the case you have a good idea and you can't wait to go home to rec it. Seems everything leeds me to get this 1k, except the savings !