best gear for live beats n' stuff?

k, so I went to this event last night where cats were just playing mad beats and doin' all kinds of trippy effects and edits. I've pretty much been strictly MPC since I started making beats, but it's always been in a studio context. what gear/software do you recommend if I ever wanted to rock a crowd with my bedroom creations? I saw Maschine and one of Akai's smaller joints on stage last night, but I don't know specifics.

If you already have a mpc i will say get a sp 404/303. They are dead simple and give you some things you cant do with a mpc. The sp arent perfect but with a mpc as brother it will give you allot of new options for live stuff. You set some optional outs from the mpc to go trough the sp and then set some quick effects over it or resample it.

Some people swear the 303 has a better sound but i cant any big diffrence. If the 404 is cheaper in your country buy a 404. It also have batterys wich is nice for some jamming on the go.

Here in holland i got my sp 404 fore 140 euro...

bloc

well its not just about the gear is it, i mean it helps but good music can sound like good music on any instrument usually. But yeah gear depends on what you want to do musically as well. I mean no point buying a synth if you are not going to use synth sounds. Another cheap SP?0? is always good fun and a good idea, but the list is endless and you will need lots of roadies. Another thing to think about is how to move the gear. Rack flight cases, cases for MPC, cases for cables. Investing in decent flight cases should be a high priority if you wanna gig a lot.
mixer is also a must if you have multiple gear and want control over your live mix.
Just watch every live recordings of electronic acts out there and play spot the synth like i do. Live gigs not film clips, as usually the stuff isnt pugged in, in videos.

bloc- yeah, I've been interested in the 404 for beats on the go...

bliprock- perhaps I should've been more specific... I'm not looking for new beat-making gear. I intend to keep using the MP and my current set up. what I'm looking for is a way to just freak the stuff I've already made if I find myself on a stage. I'm not trying to take this big 2000xl anywhere! the smaller and more portable, the better.

really though, I've been getting to urge to invest in some new gear, so now may be the best time to look at an inexpensive mobile beat-making set up.

ableton live on a laptop.

although, you would have to take some time to break your tracks down into separate loops, but if you don't plan on taking the MPC on stage with you, you'd have to take that step regardless. and once you get the hang of ableton you may wanna get a midi controller designed for the software... like the akai APC40 or APC20 or something.

word, crossings. I figured ableton would make an appearance in this post. thanks, I'll look into it.

I'm spending most of my time on my MPC1000 learning how to play live drums. I figure with a few samples and incredible live drums you can pretty much knock over any venue. Memorecks comes to mind..

theStudent wrote:k, so I went to this event last night were cats where just playing mad beats and doin' all kinds of trippy effects and edits. I've pretty much been strictly MPC since I started making beats, but it's always been in a studio context. what gear/software do you recommend if I ever wanted to rock a crowd with my bedroom creations? I saw Maschine and one of Akai's smaller joints on stage last night, but I don't know specifics.

Maschine for sure.

don't listen to emptysea... he's a rep for NI products and he LITERALLY only posts in threads with the word "maschine" in them... just look at all his posts and you'll see what i mean... not to say maschine may not be something you'd like... but i wouldn't listen to that advice when coming from him in particular.

crossings wrote:

ha! good lookin'

lots of people like the 404, at the time i had one i didnt like it, hard to load sounds too, they took some weird card and there was no usb in the back. (if im not mistaken, i think there are 2 versions the 404 and the 404sx---- one of them has CF cards like an mpc 1k or 2500, and one of them has these weird other cards that are hard to find now)

in retrospect, i think it would be cool to use with an mpc though.

the main reason i didnt like it is when i had one, i didnt have a soundcard so i was relying on a memory card reader for my computer to be able to drag and drop samples into it... never got it to work. i think the usb card reader i got for my computer was **** up.

but i bet it would record sounds in just fine, and i bet you have a soundcard, or if not, you do have an mpc

oh yeah

the efx on it are bananas too.

both of the sp-404's use compact flash cards... it's the sp-303 that uses the older harder to find smartmedia cards. i used to have the original sp-404... i bought it the day it came out... i'd been WAITING for it to come out for a couple months... but i eventually ended up selling it and buying the sp-303... some may disagree, but i'm one of those that does believe that the sp-303 has a nicer lo-fi sound to it... whereas the the 404 sounds a bit more "glossy"... and the 404's sequencer has buggy quantization. just my 2 cents on the SP series.

Just because I would recommend Maschine doesn't mean I'm a "rep for NI products". I wouldn't mind being a rep for NI but no, I'm all about Maschine because it's the truth and I like sharing info on gear I enjoy using.

emptysea wrote::roll:
Just because I would recommend Maschine doesn't mean I'm a "rep for NI products". I wouldn't mind being a rep for NI but no, I'm all about Maschine because it's the truth and I like sharing info on gear I enjoy using.

so that's why you ONLY post about the maschine and strictly in threads with the word the "maschine" in them on an MPC forum? blow me, beeotch. you ain't fooling anybody over here...

Believe what you want. I first came here as a MPC user and have gone through several MPCs for years before I found the answer in Maschine.