the "sound" of the MPC

Dr.Foo wrote:
man, if you LOOK AT THE BLOCK DESIGN OF THE MPC 2000/60/3000 they are almost the exact same. I refuse to believe that the unit has some magic elf inside the mpc 60/3000 that Roger Linn hired to make his soulds sound "fatter" out of them.

Dont be a foo, foo =)....

Ok....really Ive owned a 2000XL, currently own a 3000 and a 60....you may refuse to believe, blah, blah, blah, but there is a difference in sound between all of them, and I forgot what sequencing on the 2000 was like (I do remeber it didnt have the flavor of the 60, I didnt have a 3000 at the time), but betweem the 60 and the 3000 sequencers, even the two Linn machines handle the quantinizing tasks differently as well, they also handle velocity/pad sensitivity/not repeat differently.

I've compared the sounds and sequencing side by side between both of em, running the same program and sequence....each runnnig through the same mixer, i would mute and unmute between the two, DONT LET ANYONE TELL YOU THERE IS NO DIFFERENCE BETWEEN THE TWO....and there is no way you can replicate the sound of either on a pc or a 2000XL, thats bullshit....plain and simple.

I think it has less to do with the 12bit, 16bit, blah,blah,blah...and more to do with the a/d convertors, the actual physical build of the machines is what makes them sound particular.

Just for the record the 3000 muffles the snares, highs and lows, but keeps everything punchy....the 60 produces super crisp sanpping snares and a clear low end even when running a couple of kicks and 808 bass drop or a bassline. Both sound better than the 2000XL....I couldnt hear a difference in the mids. Go check my soundclick page for a comparison....

the empire hits crack was done on a mpc60.....

the players keep on was done on a mpc3000......

http://www.soundclick.com/bands/3/mrkas.htm

i ran em through the same tube compressors and eqing on the way into Protools....peace.

KoolSha,

Since you've owned all this mpcs, can you tell me the differences of the sequencers ? ? I do agree with you about the sound, i own a s950 which is similar to the mpc60 for the sampling part, but about the sequencers??? Some peolple says that the 60 or the 3000 "swing better" than the 2000, for me it means nothing "swing better" ! There's nothing magic in these gears..... So is it just hype?

Everyone an idea?

...

bs DUDE, plain and simple. to say that there is a magic elf that makes the mpc 60 sound "better" or "super distinct that it cannot be replicated" is such crap.

from a tech standpoint, the mpc 2000xl is an advance, it can do more then the mpc 60, so why cant you use it to "backwards compatible" style and make it sound like an MPC 60? the block design of the devices are near identical, so the signal flows through it in almost the same way, the diff is the 12 bit 40 khz sampler as opposed to a 16 bit 44.1 sampler, but this can be overcome with a pc and a nice soundcard and some software.

to say otherwise is totally crazy, to say that a piece of gear that is near identical to the other, in terms of the design, route and signal path used to convert A to D and D to A (note not the hardware, the actual converters are different which is what gives the mpc 60 its sound and why it takes a good amount time to get the pc program to filter the sound so that it sounds like the a/d, d/a converters in the mpc 60, the mpc 60 sound is a combo of the sample engine and the d/a, a/d converters, plain and simple.) goes against the principles of electrical engineering.

going on what dude said about a "mpc challenege" I sat down last night with my associate who have owned an MPC 60II since Linn drum dropped it and played him 2 songs, with just DRUMS on it, kick and snare. I told him one was made on an MPC 60 and the other on a 2000XL, when in fact both were made on a 2Kxl, except the one that was the "mpc 60's" was actually made by taking the drum track the MPC 60 outputs using that wavform as a guide, then using the same samples and a wav editor to adjust the waveforms (the samples) so that the samples, when run on an MPC 2000 sounded like an MPC 60. then running them in the mpc 2000xl's sequencer. then i compared the wav from the mpc 60 and the mpc 2000xl and played with it some more until they were near identical, or as close as one resonably will spend doing it, a couple of hours.

all I used was a PC and a mpc 2000xl to make both tracks. he could pick out the "mpc 60's" track to his credit, but when I told him I made it on a 2kXL then showed him how, he was trippin out.

so, Maybe the sequencer is different but the main beef on the 2kXL is that its too "clean" with the samples. this is the main differnece everyone spouts as to why the mpc 60 is the ish and blah blah blah. yet with a decent wav editor ( I used sf with some cool edit pro) you can replicate the dirty sound of the drums. the d/a a/d filters are the main reason since a saple rate/resolution can easily be changed in a pc.
this is why you need to spend some serious time appplying dynamics to the thing to make it sound similar, but it can be done.

Well, if you say so....

Funny though, the reason i sold my 2000XL is because the sounds were super muddy, it was anything but clean....nothing was crisp out of it....maybe my ears are **** up. The highs got to high and it really got muddy in the low end, it cant handle the low end like the 3000 or 60, thats fo sho. There is no doubt the 2000XL is a more advanced computer, but that doesnt mean it pumps out a better audio signal, it uses the crap s2000 sampling engine. I remeber when i got my 2000XL, i couldnt believe how crappy it sounded. Its still a dope machine but its sound quality aint that hot, no big deal.


And DJ2D my favorite sequencer is the MPC60, no question, the way it handles the beat really is magic, maybe there is an elf in there....its big enough to fit one. Even the 3000 feels stiff compare to the 60.

Its the pads which are super bouncy and the note repeat (for instance on Shadows first album when you hear those certain drum patterns t-t-t-t-ttud-tud-ta-tatatatatata-ta-tak-ta-tak), you can do that on a 60 by using two fingers on a pad, you cant do that on a 3000 or 2000XL....

The 60 will do weird things like offset or mis quantinize snares and drop beats and it just sounds **** dope, like a real drummer. Its funky. Believe dat.

I cant believe what i'm reading. People are actually blaming the MPC2000XL saying it makes crappy sounds? Good god. Have you ever thought it was the kit your're loading in. You know how many hits were made on a 2000XL i cant believe what i'm reading. Is this a joke? Dr Foo Is exactly right in what he is saying. People are so convinced they are fooling themselves. Its like religeon, once your mind is made up there is no rationalizing with hardcare hardware guys. You have all been brainwashed.

My MPC 2000XL sounds slamming! Woundn't change it for nada.


Uno/1

gams

dude, I aint beefin, but I never, NEVER get a muddy sound out of the mpc, you gotta realzie that the MPC isnt gonna make a complete track , by that I mean you still have to mix it somewhere, not just run the line to a recorder and be done with it. I get clean sound out of it cuz I spend alot of time setting up the "foundation" of my tracks, IE the samples. weak foundation= weak house, good foundation= good house, right?

simply put, the mpc 60 is to the mpc 2000xl as the mpc 2000xl is to the mpc 4000 SPEAKING ONLY IN TERMS OF VERSATILITY. ie the mpc 2000xl is more versatile then a 60, being able to be set up to emulate a mpc 60's sound and also to do things the 60 cant do, just like the mpc 4000 is to the 2000xl. its kinda like "backwards compatability", the 2000 can go backwards to sound like a 60, but the 60 cant step up to have the power of the mpc 2000.

dudes are all right, you get out what you put into it. I still bang on an ASR-10 and peeps all tell me to upgrade to a triton, why? I can get the sound I want out of an ASR-10 with some good ol' elbow grease, and I think that finding workarounds in the gear to make it do different things, well thats the skill of a producer, its what makes you a producer rather then a guy who loops stuff and programs drums.

its like the PC vs. MPC argument, sure a pc is mad versatile but the limits of the mpc force you to develop tricks, skills to do things that you might have never come across any other way.

although the MPC is overpriced. ask any EECS major to look inside it and they will bust out laughing and ask you if you got a bowl of soup with it. it can be built for less then 500 dollars.

this comes straight from Roger Linn himself out of Keyboard Magazine April 2003, page 124.



""then there was Roger's clever method of making the MPC60 sound better than Akai's s900, which essetntially shared the same 12-bit audio circuitry. "It was a cheap trick," he admits. "We used a high-pass filter for pre-emphasis and made it quieter by boosting the treble going in and cutting it going out. That was our 'proprietary special non-linear sampling' feature.""

Dr.Foo wrote:dude, I aint beefin, but I never, NEVER get a muddy sound out of the mpc, you gotta realzie that the MPC isnt gonna make a complete track , by that I mean you still have to mix it somewhere, not just run the line to a recorder and be done with it. I get clean sound out of it cuz I spend alot of time setting up the "foundation" of my tracks, IE the samples. weak foundation= weak house, good foundation= good house, right?

Hey bud Im the one who told you to run you mpc through a mixer in the thread where you asked freq how to eq your low end cause it was sounding muddy....


I make complete tracks with an MPC, I sequence, sample, everything with an MP, anyhow yall making me feel like im crazy or something, peace. Check my tracks.

I DISAGREE - The 2000xl is thin sounding thats why people have to go the extra mile to freak the sound.



tuthousandtree

Is it possible to re-sample on the MPC 2000 Classic version?

i dont know man.

firework wrote:I DISAGREE - The 2000xl is thin sounding thats why people have to go the extra mile to freak the sound.

I wouldn't say the xl sounds thin. You could say that when you compare it to the older models though. I mean, when I first sampled the honeydripper's drums into my 60 I thought I'd hear some difference in the sound compared to the xl. Little did I know the difference is indeed quite big. With my xl I have so spend some time layering, pitching and filtering my drum samples to get a decent sounding kit. Everything comes out BANGING! with the 60. I think the xl sounds alright though.

I might do some research on the 3000 and try to sell my xl with all the upgrades for a 3000.

now you making sence. good luck finding a 3000. i hvae been outbidded like on 5 auctions in ebay. unless i get one from that pawn shop that always has them on ebay but never gets 1 bid on let alone sell one. so something might be wrong with the seller. but i still seek one.