MPC5000 reviews, bug reports and fellow user support on the most recent standalone, hardware MPC from Akai
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By czarmusik Sun Sep 27, 2009 8:22 am
Um why do i see this so much? mute groups is a huge feature that i never hear used and i use all the time, and the synth why not a motif , it can get pretty decent sounds with FX... I mean i hear so much crap about how the 2500 is better... Is it really? The potential and overall sound of the 5000 in my experience is really really good. With that said though i have not used the 2500 so is it really better?
By oneday2one Sun Sep 27, 2009 12:16 pm
i hope not.
i like the synth though. ... it kinda grows on me.

do you think this is the same synth that's in the miniak?

i like the bigger screen though. and i really like mixing on 4 faders at a time instead of only 2.
and the 8 q-links definitely come in handy.

the mic inputs and the adat input/outputs are awesome too.

along with the 4 bus effects processor, including the effects.

its also cool that there's the phono input on there as well.

and, in my humble opinion, i think it looks damn sexy. but that's just me.
By ritec Sun Sep 27, 2009 5:40 pm
I have been making a live PA using almost all the 192 MB of memory, using the synthesizer, and controlling 3 other synths through the midi outs and most of it works fine but there are several things that are not up to par yet. For example memory management in the machine is very clumsy.. if you are playing a sequence and you try changing programs the timing goes off by ALOT so you can't do this live. on top of that I've encountered many bugs while working on this things including one that made me lose almost all my work 2 days ago... while saving All my sequences and songs I got some error, and then when I checked my 424KB file had turned into a 42 KB file....that was pretty frustrating. luckily I had a partial backup but I did lose about 6 hours of work including a track I really liked a lot.


I used to have the mpc2500 used several times for live PAs and it was pretty rock solid... That said, the mpc5000 can become just as stable as the 2500 they just need to fix the OS... possibly on the next update things will be much better.
By 4dahaterz Mon Sep 28, 2009 1:45 am
ritec wrote:....that was pretty frustrating. luckily I had a partial backup but I did lose about 6 hours of work including a track I really liked a lot.


how could you not save 6 hours of work... Usually if im working on something, im saving every 20 minutes on the MPC(my DAW does it automatically every 5 minutes)
By ritec Mon Sep 28, 2009 3:24 am
I had saved it... 20 minutes earlier. what happened is, while I was saving over the same file the MPC did something and it corrupted my file.

So i had to go back to a file I had luckily saved 6 hours earlier in a different location. get it? the mpc damaged my master copy.


I am using the MPC super heavily right now and this thing has crashed on me about 10 times during the process of making my live PA man it has been EXTREMELY frustrating. extremely. I am at the point where I say **** to whining and just keep going................... :idea:
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By sammymyman!! Mon Sep 28, 2009 3:31 pm
ritec wrote:I had saved it... 20 minutes earlier. what happened is, while I was saving over the same file the MPC did something and it corrupted my file.

So i had to go back to a file I had luckily saved 6 hours earlier in a different location. get it? the mpc damaged my master copy.


I've had this happen also.
what I do to try avoiding file corruption is make a folder in advance with at least 20 sub folders inside -
then, before asking the 5k to do a complicated task that could freeze the machine, I save to an EMPTY sub folder-
also- save at each progressive step while building the tracks-
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By ritec Mon Sep 28, 2009 3:37 pm
yeah this is what I have been doing as well... for my projects I have:

One main folder - in there I have 3 folders: 1 has all my separate sequences. 1 has a bunch of folders with 1 single program in each folder. 1 has all my samples and programs together.

When I save what I do is I save All sequences and songs into the main folder and then I save the programs individually to their appropriate folders... this way I evade the problem of having the MPC crash when trying to view folders with large amounts of files.

everytime I boot the machine I create a backup of my latest saved files in my PC.


I hate it how you have to do all this shit to make music, it's suppose to be easy, yet it's just a hassle. wtf.
I might have to cancel my next live show because this machine keeps crashing on me and I keep losing work etc etc. arghh!
By 4dahaterz Mon Sep 28, 2009 4:18 pm
i got a MPC 5000 as well, but the hell yall are going thru, i think i would have been sold my $hit!!!
By ritec Mon Sep 28, 2009 7:12 pm
Yeah... I have considered selling it but I still have faith that akai will release a new OS.

also the machien starts to do all this stuff when you really push it. I am using 170~MB of ram from the 192 I have.. using all midi outs to control 3 synths and a kaoss pad effects, I' also using the internal effects, arpegiator and at least one internal synth patch in each track. I am really pushing it.

my biggest worry is to have it crash live.