I have owned an MPC 2000 and MPC 60 in the past. I am considering purchasing the MPC 4000 and have several questions for MPC 4000 users. I am particularly concerned about the lack of Akai support and the lack of software updates addressing common problems among users. Do the owners of units feel Akai is fully supporting the MPC 4000? I am also wondering if any users have attempted to use the USB key chain sized memory devices with the MPC 4000? In addition, I am wondering if the current software updates allow for wave or akai files to be loaded from the cd burner. My last questions are addressed to Freddie Fresh. I am wondering if you only use the MPC 4000 for your projects or do you find yourself using the other Akai units due to software problems? Lastly would you reccomend that I and others purchase the MPC 4000 for hip hop production and other dance music if we prefer hardware units despite the software issues?
I only have four problems with the machine.
1. Sometimes it is tedious extracting a single sample from a loop. Sometimes I want to just "pull" one sample off a record. There's a major bug that don't allow you to adjust the sample start or end of a sound to a certain point. There are workarounds like working with the Regions, but I feel if I want to do a simple function like pulling a sample the machine should have simple controls. This is the biggest problem.
2. Tedious editing in general compared to the others. Want to assign a parameter to a slider or knob? It is confusing learning to do that. 16 levels don't work for pitch or decay like it used to. You have to make a keygroup program. This again takes a little time. And I don't know if you can vary decay across the keyboard.
3. Sample organization is horrible. This is actually the same as the older machines but it is not too much of a problem on those. But on this machine you can practically load an unlimited amount of samples in memory (well over 1000). So it is a problem having to scroll through a list of samples with just a knob. Maybe akaisys helps this but there isn't enough more space in the studio for an extra computer. Should create a search by name function for locating a sample similar to how windows do index searching.
4. This only happened once when I was making a beat on one sequence and I copied that sequence to record a break and when I did the break was recorded on both sequences. This sounds like another bug to me.
There are tons of good things though.
Midi sequencing in general has improved dramatically over the other machines. Better quantizization features and four midi outs and the seq edit has a decent way to step write. I don't use that stuff too much though. 24/96 sounds great. You can sample while playing a sequence.
If you are a heavy sampler you might be better off with a 2000 xl because of its efficient User interface and simplicity (gets the job done quickly). If the 4000 improved its user interface it would be on then. For a midi sequencer the 4000 is a great choice. Also multiple drum kits are nice and you can hold more sounds on this machine.
It works good at reading stuff and I think its format now is wav, but it can read 2000 and 3000 files with ease. It also load wav cd roms with ease an impossible task on my 2000. Os 1.5 was supposed to come out in early May, but I hope they are using that time to address the sample start problem.