MPC5000 reviews, bug reports and fellow user support on the most recent standalone, hardware MPC from Akai
By SILVER.CITY Sat Aug 21, 2010 10:16 pm
so, i have been reading my MPC5000 manual religiously and i am having a problem im sure is a simple user error.
i understand that actual samples are not recorded, only midi notes and then the notes trigger samples, but when i make a sequence with a few tracks, i turn my MPC off and when i load that sequence back to a new one, it only plays the first track.

for example, track 1 synth, then track 2 drums, and track 3 is just filler sounds. so my sequence is 16 bars long and has 3 tracks and i used 1 program for synth, the second program for drums, and the third program is vinyl samples. which save do i do? because i have tried them all and before i turn it off, i load the saved "song" i made (the 16 bar sequence) and it plays correctly, so i turn off my MPC and then restart it and load my saved "song" (the 16 bar sequence) to the first unused sequence and when i play it, it only plays the first track and the rest of my work is missing.

i understand this might sound very stupid to you all but i cant figure it out and it is frustrating. please explain to me how to load/save properly so i can load a sequence i am working on and continue my work, not restart with only track one.
By hayoo Tue Aug 24, 2010 12:34 pm
Doing a "save entire memory" has been working best for me. If it's your first save (for the given songs/seqs/programs/samples in memory), make sure you select to create a new folder when you do the save; you'll be asked to provide a folder name and a project name. Next time you do a save on the data, you can just navigate into that same folder, and re-save the data via the project name without creating a new folder.

Also, to dramatically speed up the saving process, consider this: if you haven't edited any of the samples during your session, there's no need to re-write them to disk when you save. This won't be a big time-savings if there's not many samples in memory at the time, but if you save something with, say, the Akai Grand Piano program, the time-savings will be monumental.
Last edited by hayoo on Thu Aug 26, 2010 6:38 am, edited 1 time in total.
By SILVER.CITY Thu Aug 26, 2010 6:21 am
wow, thank you for the input. sometimes reading the manual i get side tracked and i dont really get what it is saying, but i pretend i do anyway :D and then i end up not being able to figure things out. really though, sometimes the way things are worded aren't really easy to understand in that manual thanks a bunch though for the help i will try this out asap!
By hayoo Thu Aug 26, 2010 6:47 am
SILVER.CITY wrote:wow, thank you for the input. sometimes reading the manual i get side tracked and i dont really get what it is saying, but i pretend i do anyway :D and then i end up not being able to figure things out. really though, sometimes the way things are worded aren't really easy to understand in that manual thanks a bunch though for the help i will try this out asap!


No problem. Manuals often fall short; this one is no exception. The index, in particular, sucks and I find I have to use the PDF version most of the time to find things via the search feature. Some sections are too wordy while others haven't been fleshed out well enough. The 5k is my first MPC and my first piece of Akai, so I feel your pain. ;)
By SILVER.CITY Fri Aug 27, 2010 11:43 pm
my first MPC also, really the only 2 reasons i got the 5000 was because of the synth (which i love) and the fact i found a guy in ATL with a brand new one for sale for $900 said he bought it off some girl that didnt like it, neither did he and said he liked software better and that he couldnt figure it out anyway.. not me, i love my hardware :mrgreen:
By hayoo Sat Aug 28, 2010 5:16 am
I'm enjoying it too... but I have to admit, drag-drop editing is much more my preference, so I'll probably sync up with Ableton at some point. I'm also enjoying the synth.