Newbie - MPC 500 or 1000 for live jam and some questions

Hi everyone,

Forgive the newbie questions I've been making music for years for fun, mostly hip-hop or drum and bass, software based typically tracker.

I recently got a launchpad and while I don't get on with Ableton (there was a bundled lite version, crash city and did way too much work "for me"), the pad is awesome for jamming, I hooked it up to FPC in FL Studio and to renoise to trigger samples, very cool, and a lot of pads to basically have all banks on one controller without switching and visual feedback.

But..I'm tempted to go hardware, to focus (no internet) and add a little restriction but keep the tactile performance aspects.

I know most of the music I enjoyed in the 90's used MPC hardware, so it has been at the back of my mind for a while, a bit like my 1200 + vestax, to finally get hold of one is one of my goals. I have the 1200 + vestax btw, superb.

So..I did a quick search and found due to my space/budget that a 500/1000 seems best, but wow these things cost. For the same money you can buy a great laptop and some midi controllers. But.. that's not an 'on your lap' solution to me, its more gear, operating systems, updates, anti-virus, backups, internet distrations..

Anyway..I wondered if anyone is using 500 and/or 1000 for live jam, and what I mean is basically -

- pads assigned one shots
- pads assigned to note range
- pads assigned to loops
- ability to record and play back patterns without stopping
- ability to overdub patterns
- start bank a, hit a loop, it plays and loops, go to bank b, and jam over it with bass notes..maybe record it, maybe not, flip to bank c to do some other stuff

I think I've watched enough YouTube to see that can be done, but a lot of clips start/stop things and don't flow end to end, so I wanted to be sure it was the right gear for build up/tear down/jam-over live also.

I am still surprised at the cost, in England anyway, but I sense something solid and spiritual about the whole experience. I've never owned or even used an MPC btw.

The other factor that put me off was the first things I found were about lack of native OS updates and bugs but reading more, JJ is a 3rd party update fixing the major stuff?

But, the community looks awesome as well as the mod stuff, stick a hard drive into a 1000, that kinda stuff, great!

So, that's it for me right now. To get the funds I need to sell my Roland Hand Sonic HPD-15 + pedals, so I'm now in 'research mode'. I can do a lot of what I want with my laptop + launchpad, and that's cool, but something is missing.

I wondered if I should go hardware, go one-box, and use the gear that some of my favourite artists use..and for the cost, well, you get what you pay for, right?

Cheers in advance
LW.

Yes the MPCs can do all that. I think the 1000 would be what you're looking for, the 500 is a beast in its own right but I think that would be recommended for a seasoned MPCer. The 1000 has more outs than the 500 so that makes it a good studio piece as well.

The 500 got everything the 1000 has but its jammed into menus, where the 1000 has access to things by soft-keys on its larger screen via function keys.

It all depends on what you plan to do on stage, either one would do what you want, but if your looking for less frustration try the 1000.

Hi,

Thanks for the reply. I wasn't keen on the 500 screen either, but that said I've got all my samples all sorted already, and I'm ok with cutting by ear, I just need to load 'em up and go, it is more for jamming and playing samples over/with a live drummer by ear rather than using it as a sequencer so maybe the screen isn't such an issue.

I must admit the 16mb default made my laugh a bit, so I can't load more than about 10mb (rest for the OS) off the flash card without the upgrade?

Also in terms of timeline, is there a new MPC on the horizon? If I dropped 300-600 quid on something then a new model came out a month later..but I'm not clear on the whole MPC time line to be honest, and even if Akai (pro) will do more hardware in that price range. Seems the older units are more popular.

Also the 500 price tag was slightly less of a risk should I not get on with my first MPC. Still reading up and watching videos, to find out what's right. Appreciate the input!

Cheers,
LW.

..phoned around and checked online stock..currently on the train with a stella thanks to race-day, on route to dawsons in reading where they have one 500 left for me to take a nose at..