should i get a maschine for $350 or a mpc 1000 for $450?

im debating if i should go for the maschine for $350 or an mpc 1000 for $450 or an mpc 2000 for $275 give me some input guys!!! holla back

Spend wisely.

What do you need to hear that hasn't been covered a million times already?

Spend wisely indeed.

One of each. Then give me the 2000.

Is this gonna be your only purchase for a while? If you're only buying one I'd choose whatever one represents the best bargain. If that 1000 already has a pad upgrade that's probably the best deal of the ones your mentioned. The more Maschines sold, the more used units you'll see, so I can see $350-$450 being a common price. 2000's are are always the cheapest MPC's to get.

Like Clint said comparisons of the actual functions are all over this site.

..but I'd also take a step back and think of the more obvious questions. Its no good getting the best deal in the world if you never use the damn thing. So..

1) If you don't mind being tied to your PC when you make a beat - then I'd suggest Maschine. Probably has the best resell value out of the 3.
2) If you like simplicity - then 2000
3) If you want a lot of functionality and don't want to stare at a PC screen when you create stuff - then mpc 1000 but there's a lot to learn and I'd say the sound from a 2000 is better - its a matter of opinion.

So don't just make it case of 'most features for the best price' Hundreds of features don't really matter if you only use about 10. Really sit down and think about exactly how you want to use this machine. You'll only make the right decision once you have the facts about what each can do and as has already been said - its all covered here.
All 3 have a lot going for them.
Z

I wrote that one sentence wrong. I meant if you plan on buying more than one box overall, go for the best deal. But if you're only getting one really analyze the decision, like the good advice zippertafari gave.

Having said that...

You can't go wrong with a 1000 it's portable and it works standalone.

Machine will chain you to your computer, which is not very polite.

The 2000 is not so portable and will take you back in time, if that's what you want.

clint246clint wrote:Machine will chain you to your computer, which is not very polite.

You should take this into serious consideration. Maschine doesn't run well unless you have a decent soundcard for your computer. I've used both and would recommend the 1000, but don't trust my opinion.

séance wrote:

clint246clint wrote:Machine will chain you to your computer, which is not very polite.

You should take this into serious consideration. Maschine doesn't run well unless you have a decent soundcard for your computer. I've used both and would recommend the 1000, but don't trust my opinion.

Opinion, but a very fair assessment. Don't expect to doing any serious work with Maschine on Realtek onboard/ASIO4All. You can get it low latency but your track count will be severely limited due the extra cpu load the ASIO wrapper will cause. Performance gets incrementally better as you go up the price scales.

A $150-$300 interface should get you up to 16 tracks with some FX VST in there at a 128 sample buffer with about 6-7ms latency. I mean round trip latency, some apps only report the input and processing latency, but leave out the output. As you spend more it gets better and better, but like séance said, factor an interface into your cost. If you want performance a millisecond or 2 near an MPC, you'll have to invest in something $600-$2000. Steinberg MR series, MOTU, Apogee and RME for example. (I have an RME, it's heavenly).

MPC 1000 with JJ is the best value in the MPC realm in my opinion.

zippertafari wrote:If you want a lot of functionality and don't want to stare at a PC screen when you create stuff - then mpc 1000

Nah. You don't have to stare at the computer screen while making music with Maschine. And Maschine arguably has the most amount of functionality and the most current technology (and the most potential for growth) out of the three.

emptysea wrote:

zippertafari wrote:If you want a lot of functionality and don't want to stare at a PC screen when you create stuff - then mpc 1000

Nah. You don't have to stare at the computer screen while making music with Maschine. And Maschine arguably has the most amount of functionality and the most current technology (and the most potential for growth) out of the three.

I'm not going to bite, but if you can provide an answer to the question "Do you need a PC/mac within a hundred mile radius if you want to fire up Maschine and use it to create beats" other than "yes you do" then I (and some others I suspect) would be intrigued to hear it.
Nothing wrong in wanting the most bang for your buck, I just wanted to point out that its what about what eddiemonsta wants and not what looks good on the spec sheet. I was more than happy to go from a 2500 with JJOS to a 3000 even though its going back quite a few years in terms of technical progress.
$ 350 isn't an insignificant sum, and I wanted to be as clear as possible. We don't know this person - but it wouldn't hurt to do the same if you're offering advice.

No one said anything about Maschine not needing to be connected to a computer. Duh.

In actual use, Maschine feels very much like a self-contained hardware like MPCs in terms of workflow. And aside from a few obvious things like import/export, drag&drop, naming projects...etc. you really don't have to look at the computer screen or touch the mouse and do everything from the hardware.

I guess it all depends on your setup. Personally, I would grab the 2000 but that's just personal preference. I like the sound that comes out of that machine, the 1000 is kool but it sounds way too clean to me. Ive heard a lot of great things about the Maschine but like they mentioned earlier if you don't want it to be "chained" to your computer then I would say the Maschine is not your option. Now if your focusing on doing live stuff definitely grab that 1000, (not only that finding a 1000 in that price range is really difficult) The 1000 is the best from both worlds. Its computer friendly and still has the MPC sound but do your research on all three, see which one fits you more cuss in the end the choice is on you.

Good Luck

Tha_Skywalker wrote:The 1000 is the best from both worlds. Its computer friendly and still has the MPC sound

I disagree. Sorry but Maschine is definitely the "best of both worlds" when it comes to being "computer friendly" and having a hardware-based hands-on workflow.

As for "MPC sound", other than the MPC60 (which Maschine models in its vintage sampling mode due to its 12bit nature), it's a common myth based on ignorance. There's really not much to the cheap converters in those other MPCs.