Just had a big fat steak...

and started a nice bottle of wine while reading the manual for my new 5K. I bought it off craigslist brand new & factory sealed from some nice Italian girls in LA for $1300.00. I didn't have much time to check with you guys, since I know you all find amazing deals, but I'm pretty happy with the price. And I'm glad I didn't get a box of rocks. Unit appears to work fine. RAM upgraded easily.

My previous experience has been spending several years with an MPC 500. I love that little beast but was starting to really feel limited. I can't wait to dig in and just start making beats...but this thing is very different from the 500 (which is to be expected I suppose). I have a lot of reading to do.

Well I've have had some time with my new machine now and having mixed feelings. I absolutely love working with it! But after about 6 hours it locked up once and the following few reboots I was getting errors loading voice engine. Third reboot the problem went away and I haven't seen any issues since. Also, one of the pads seemed a little inconsistent but seems fixed now that I turned up sensitivity a few notches. I'm loving it in my setup but a little concerned about the things I've seen not less than a day in.

i don't know how new you are with music equipment, ... either software or hardware, ... but pretty much as a rule, when you spend serious money to buy something you really want, ... regardless of whether it's hardware or software, ... it will initially seem like a shaky possible let down every single time.

let's call this the 'break in period'.

it happens every time to every one.

wait a month or so then come back and tell us how it is.

I beg to differ, honestly. Over the past 25 years I've bought a (in almost chronological order) Atari 1040 ST, Yamaha DX 7, Roland D-50, Roland TR 626, Alesis HR16, Ensoniq Mirage, E-mu ESI 32, E-mu Proteus 1, E-mu Proteus 2000, Yamaha A5000, Roland JP-8080, Nord Lead, Yamaha 01X, T.C. Electronics One, Cubase VST, Native Instruments Massive, Native Instruments Battery and some VST effects plugins and virtual analog synths. I've never ever had a break in period. Every single time was blissful exploring and playing around. The things did what they had to do, the way you expected them to do it, or even better.

The MPC5k was the first time I ever encountered such showstopping bugs or poorly implemented features. Yeah, I know, bring on the flaming and allegations that I'm DaveyP, but I tell it like I see it. Unfortunately this seems to be a forum that only allows rainbows-and-unicorns reviews of the MPC5k. Don't get me wrong: I do love the machine if and when it works, and I'm happy to say that I just got mine back from Akai / Music Store service center in what seems to be working order, but to write off a quirky pad and a bootup failure that requires 3 reboots as to be expected and standard procedure for all gear is a bit too optimistic. Maybe I got spoiled during the days of purely hardware gear (that never ever crashed, not once in 25 years of use) but like I said, I beg to differ.

Cheers,
DL

I appreciate both your guy's responses. I'm probably a little un-necessarily nervous because I've never actually spent this much money at one time on music gear (I just do it to relax) - and I almost never buy used. When I got the failure to load voice engine error I searched for it on this site and the one instance I found, the guy was going to send his in for repair. So yeah..it made me nervous. Fortunately I've not seen anything similar. I've been putting this thing through it's paces for almost three straight days and it's been solid as hell.

The wonky pad cleared up after I optimized the "LRF" (that's "little rubber feet") settings on my machine. They weren't even and once I stuck a quarter under one of them, all pads now work great.

So yeah, even though I've only ever owned two MPC 500s and my experience is limited, I think there is a break-in period for these things. Both my 500s were wonky in their own ways. Some people call it buggy, and yeah maybe that's true. The thing is, they're such joys to own that personally I almost feel like it gives them character. I might feel differently if I was performing, but I'm not. So I'm willing to cut them some slack.

As far as the transition to this machine...I'm still in shock going from the lowest end model to a higher end model. While I don't completely agree, I now sort of understand why people say the 500 is a toy. I made some great music on that thing and I still will when I'm traveling...but damn, the 5000 is like living in a candy store. Everything is just easier...