Is 16MB memory a piss-take or am I missing something?

Reviews and questions about the entry-level MPC500
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Is 16MB memory a piss-take or am I missing something?

By SteveO Tue Oct 04, 2011 9:29 pm
:?: Hi! New to this and just got an MPC500 on the cheap! I have been using Ableton and Mixcraft to create tunes and usually end up with tracks which are about 30MB saved to my PC as .wav files, reading the manual for the MPC500 I have 16 MB to play with! barely half a track! Scary as I have an XR20 which stores loads of my drum/bass/percussion ideas without a hitch!? please shed some light? anyone? :?:
Last edited by SteveO on Fri Oct 07, 2011 7:51 pm, edited 2 times in total.
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Re: MPC500, sorry but is 16MB memory a piss-take or am I mis

By Ill-Green Tue Oct 04, 2011 10:01 pm
Well the XR20 got its own sounds within the memory so that can't be compared to an MPC.

16MB is pretty decent for a sampler but you can upgrade it up to 128 MB. The sequencer on the 500 just records note events, so 16MB should be sufficient for a good 4 songs.
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Re: MPC500, sorry but is 16MB memory a piss-take or am I mis

By tapedeck Tue Oct 04, 2011 10:08 pm
the light i might shed is ...did you get a different piece of gear and then expect it to act just like yer other piece of gear?

i mean you dont order a pizza and go 'why doesnt this taste like a burger?'.

the mpc is not a computer running ableton and mixcraft - it does totally different things.

the other light i might shed is that literally thousands of hit songs have been made with 16mb or less....sometimes WAY less, like 400k.

making yer gear work for you is part of the process.
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Re: MPC500, sorry but is 16MB memory a piss-take or am I mis

By Lampdog Wed Oct 05, 2011 12:18 am
tapedeck wrote:the light i might shed is.....

R U using the mpc like you would a dedicated time based recorder (like recording to a
tape cassette), which it is not designed to be used as?

Until you get that memory upgrade you'll have to be strict with your ram management. mpc500 works everything within that
16mb ram while powered on. Sounds, samples, workspace, songs, midi, is all in dynamic ram.
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Re: MPC500, sorry but is 16MB memory a piss-take or am I mis

By MeSoHordey Wed Oct 05, 2011 3:52 am
Lampdog wrote:
tapedeck wrote:the light i might shed is.....

R U using the mpc like you would a dedicated time based recorder (like recording to a
tape cassette), which it is not designed to be used as?

Until you get that memory upgrade you'll have to be strict with your ram management. mpc500 works everything within that
16mb ram while powered on. Sounds, samples, workspace, songs, midi, is all in dynamic ram.


It's liberating once you get used to it. I get totally bogged down with all of the VST options available to me in a DAW and forget about the music completely.
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Re: MPC500, sorry but is 16MB memory a piss-take or am I mis

By padlock Wed Oct 05, 2011 8:39 pm
still, i sample mostly in stereo unless i hear a solid hard panned sample to fk with or need to craft a sound.
16mb(~14mb) is enough for a shitload, you just use it as a sampler and not something to load entire songs and chop in, cut up loops on ur pc then import, id be chopping up loops on my mac if i had a 500 n e wayz.. i dont see a problem..

the limit is one of the best functions of a mpc imo

get ur ram n call it a day..

:wink:
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Re: MPC500, sorry but is 16MB memory a piss-take or am I mis

By Pastor-of-Muppets Wed Oct 05, 2011 10:16 pm
SteveO wrote:usually end up with tracks which are about 30MB saved to my PC as .wav files


that's a complete track, exported to a single continuous audio file, and a 5 minute wav file of silence will be the same size as a 5 minute wav of music - the 30MB is just the space it takes for a wav file of that length, nothing to do with the musical content of the file.

now think about it, that track probably consists of only a few sounds (some drums, some synth, some vocals, whatever) repeated over and over and over. the total memory needed for all the individual sounds is much smaller. a kick drum sound might take a kilobyte (for example), but be used dozens or hundreds of times in a track, but it only uses that one kilobyte of memory until the track is mixed down and exported to a .wav. make sense?

in your mpc you can have hundreds of short samples in 16MB, and can repeat them and loop them as many times as you like to create a complete track. Playing a kick drum sound hundreds of times uses no more memory than playing it once. Until you record that track onto your computer it will use up much less than 16MB


(the description above isn't quite accurate, as a track of 100 bars will use slightly more memory than a track of 20 bars, but that uses up sequence memory not sample memory, and sequences use very little space)
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Re: MPC500, sorry but is 16MB memory a piss-take or am I mis

By SteveO Fri Oct 07, 2011 7:48 pm
Pastor-of-Muppets wrote:
SteveO wrote:usually end up with tracks which are about 30MB saved to my PC as .wav files


that's a complete track, exported to a single continuous audio file, and a 5 minute wav file of silence will be the same size as a 5 minute wav of music - the 30MB is just the space it takes for a wav file of that length, nothing to do with the musical content of the file.

now think about it, that track probably consists of only a few sounds (some drums, some synth, some vocals, whatever) repeated over and over and over. the total memory needed for all the individual sounds is much smaller. a kick drum sound might take a kilobyte (for example), but be used dozens or hundreds of times in a track, but it only uses that one kilobyte of memory until the track is mixed down and exported to a .wav. make sense?

in your mpc you can have hundreds of short samples in 16MB, and can repeat them and loop them as many times as you like to create a complete track. Playing a kick drum sound hundreds of times uses no more memory than playing it once. Until you record that track onto your computer it will use up much less than 16MB


(the description above isn't quite accurate, as a track of 100 bars will use slightly more memory than a track of 20 bars, but that uses up sequence memory not sample memory, and sequences use very little space)


Cheers Pastor, you have just explained exactly what I needed to know!! It now becomes clear ;)
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