MPC5000 reviews, bug reports and fellow user support on the most recent standalone, hardware MPC from Akai
By LivePsy Mon Mar 28, 2011 6:35 am
No matter what settings I try, the master compressor on the L/R output sucks the boom from 909 kicks and adds a click at the start. Are there any useful settings for this compressor?
By LivePsy Mon Mar 28, 2011 10:36 pm
Please don't scramble to help, I figured it out. The EQ is before the compressor, so a 3dB boost at 60Hz sounds awful after the compressor kills it. Not how the 2500 worked at all.
By dustymaestro Tue Mar 29, 2011 7:35 am
Usually if you eq before a compressor you want to subtract, because the boosted frequency will trigger the compressor. Just some food for thought....

I think we could talk about the 5000 effects a bit more. Are you familiar with the transient designer effect? I want to try that a bit more. The efx section is not to shabby, I like the tremelo.
By LivePsy Wed Mar 30, 2011 1:32 am
Yes, cutting makes more sense before a master compressor. When you cut a range it doesn't affect the level of the output as much. Makes my head hurt :)

The new efx are generally OK, although the reverb is too metallic and the compressors don't seem to work like hardware - I find it really difficult to shape snares and hats with them. If the effects aren't good enough, at least we have the ability to send each bus to external hardware, this is a really great feature! Haven't gotten much results from the transient designer, must try harder :D
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By nuts Sat Apr 16, 2011 10:49 pm
May be it is not only the compressor, how did you gain stage your sounds inside the MPC before setting the comp ?

Try to lower volume on all your sounds and feeding your comp with a program material not close to 0db peaking . Leave some headroom.
I guess clicks on your kick can come from some digital clipping on transients.
By LivePsy Sun Apr 17, 2011 7:10 am
I don't really like anything the master compressor does to the attack of a kick now, and with electronic music I think it shouldn't be necessary. Its not wildly unpredictable signal like from a microphone :) I'm happy to turn the compressor off, or leave it on with 0 threshold and turn on the Old Skool mode.
By softflow Fri Apr 22, 2011 6:23 am
strange... I quite like the master compressor. I use it more like an effects compressor though, it introduces heavy breathing and pumping to loops which I like for certain beats. For some reason I found it harder to get those results from the bus compressors. The Transient Shaper is ...hmm... subtle. It influences the attack and susatain a bit but nowhere near what an SPL Transient Designer does. That's why one of those babies it hardwire to two of my outputs... ;-)
My favourite effects are the Analog and Tape Delay which do very nice feedback and the Frequency Shifter which sounds really really good in my opinion.

Ingo