the origin of the "MPC" name...

so a couple of months ago Mike McRoberts blessed this forum with some old AKAI anecdotes... most notably the following story about how the MPC60's name was created...

mike_mcroberts wrote:I was the product manager at Akai when this came out. In the US, Akai was distributed by International Music Company (which also owned Charvel and Jackson guitars). The president was Jerry Freed. It was Jerry's idea to add the flipup screen, which the home office in Japan agreed to. I was in Jerry's office one day, and he asked me what ADR15 stood for. I said that the ADR could stand for Akai Drum Recorder, but the number 15 had no relationship to it. Jerry said, "Let's brainstorm. What is this machine?" I said, "Well it's basically a MIDI production center, it's got a 60,000 note sequencer....". Jerry interrupted me and said, "How about MPC60?" And the name was born. The next prototype that arrived in late 1987 had the MPC60 name and the flip screen. The company gave me the ADR15. I used it heavily at home in my little studio for a few years, and then sold it to someone in LA. Later on I wished I hadn't sold it because it was definitely one of a kind. But I think it's great that 25 years later, the MPC name is still there.

this would seem to imply that there was no previous use of the name "MPC" before they had that meeting and that the initials were created to mean "MIDI Production Center"... something i always thought was the case.

however, i recently stumbled upon some interesting info regarding an older company called MPC Electronics Ltd. which was started by Mike Coxhead and Clive Button in the very early 80's... apparently, they created an electric drum machine with large pads called the MPC-1 [aka the MUSIC PERCUSSION COMPUTER]. very few units were made before MPC Electronics was eventually acquired by AKAI in 1984. yes, that's correct... AKAI bought a company called MPC Electronics before releasing their first MPC.

from what i can gather, AKAI was interested mainly in the technology used for the drum pads... something they would go on to develop further for their own MPC line.

now i bring this up only because the original MPC Electronics was actually named after the founder [Michael Peter Coxhead]. this is no coincidence because over the years he has also started other unrelated companies with his initials [such as "Musicians Preferred Choice" and "MPC Property Company"].

so... if AKAI already owned a company named MPC Electronics [which originally created the pad technology] before creating the first MPC sampler... it would seem likely that AKAI actually changed their meaning of the initials rather than come up with those initials from scratch...

in a nutshell, if what i'm deducing is correct... the MPC name may have never come to fruition had it not been for a man named Michael Peter Coxhead. i'm surprised that this fact nor Coxhead's name have never been mentioned here on this forum. EVER.

here are some pics & links i was able to gather....


picture of Mike & Clive with the MPC-1:





a vintage magazine ad for the MPC-1 MUSIC PERCUSSION COMPUTER:





a youtube video of the MPC-1 in action:




MPC Electronics summary from SynthMuseum: http://www.synthmuseum.com/mpc/index.html


Michael Coxhead's wikipedia entry: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Michael_Coxhead


info on Clive Button from his website: http://www.clivebutton.com/



Clint, this info needs to go into the book...

he'd probably laugh at the ren in 2012...


it WAS a "hybrid" it seems though!!!

Excellent post. I was checking this thing out just the other day from that vintage music ad site. Speccy's were the shit and I still gotta get one for my collection.

Didn't know AKAI bought that co. Good shit!

crossings wrote:

Clint, this info needs to go into the book...

This was discussed at some length on a popular forum. The conclusion was that this was just coincidental. Thats the problem with these historic theories, you'll never really know the truth.

Some of the stuff Mike said in his posts appears to have been contradicted by others on the Akai development team, so it may be impossible to verify such things without absolute proof. Cross-referencing is an important part of research and verifying information, you can't take everything as gospel no matter who you listen to.

It could be true, it could be coincidence, who knows...

Cool dig, thanks for posting.

Haha this is sick, I love the little drumsticks. They're like pencils.

hardware "drum mix" is on some leetdawg shit f'reals!!!!!!!!!!

Nice sounding machine though, quite interesting.

everything i posted is based off of internet research... so i still need verification that MPC Electronics was in fact bought by AKAI. the only sources i've found that make that claim have been wikipedia and other comments on the internet... so that doesn't mean it isn't true, but i would like a more reliable source to confirm it.

here's some more interesting info i found on MPC Electronics taken from this website here: http://audiotools.com/en_mi_dead_m.html ...they also have the manual for MPC-1 available for download if anyone's curious enough to want to check it out.

MPC Electronics Ltd.

Founded by and named after Michael Peter Coxhead in April 1982 and based on his farm just outside Willingham, Cambridgeshire, UK. MPC Electronics was based around a prototype of an electronic drum kit designed by Clive Button that had had been flogging around potential investors in 1980 to no avail. He met up with Mr. Coxhead in early 1981 who decided to take a chance on it and together the partners had transformed the prototype into a productionised version by December 1981. Before plunging further money into the business Mr. Coxhead decided to exhibit it at the 1982 winter NAMM show to gauge the reaction and the positive vibes he got in particular from USA MI retailers convinced him to go ahead with the venture.


The device had by this time been dubbed simply “the Kit” and was an electronic drum kit with a slight twist in that it was intended to be triggered by your fingers although the production version had 4 of the trigger pads large enough that a number of drummers used it with sticks as a sort of a practice pad. After coming back from NAMM with orders the equivalent of 250 thousand pounds, a “Product Of The Show” award and offers of distribution from MXR Innovations in the USA, from Great West Imports Ltd. in Canada and Atlantex Music Ltd. in the UK Mr. Coxhead went on to incorporate as MPC Electronics the following April and make a deal with local electronics subcontractor Medco Electronics to make the electronics and an Israeli firm for the hardware with final assembly and testing being performed by the 2 partners at Coxhead’s farm.

Despite initial teething problems such as the cases arriving from Israel being of such bad quality as to be unusable the company had managed by the summer of 82 to not only get the Kit into full production but they had also introduced single sound expanders that could either be used clipped to the side of the side of the Kit to add extra sounds to it or as standalone drum sound generators, like the kit these got simple names including “the tymp”, “the clap” and “the synkit”. By August that year the company had grown to a 10 men operation and estimated that to meet orders for the Christmas season from the USA they would have to take on 20 more.

Sales of the Kit slowed down in early 1983 and the company hit some distribution problems, they stopped dealing with Atlantex in the UK and decided to start selling directly to punters via ads in the music press and later that year their USA distributor MXR went into liquidation. MPC responded by introducing the MPC Drum Computer, a sync box that allowed the syncing of the Drum Computer to tape and more expander modules for the Kit including a bass drum and hi-hat pedals. The Drum Computer (later renamed MPC-1) was a slightly oddball design as well, basically the sound generators were expanded developments of the ones in the Kit and featured much more comprehensive sound shaping options, the pads had been enlarged to allow the use of drumsticks, there were now eight channels/pads and in addition the unit could work as a drum machine. Not a traditional step time input one but rather a real time input variant but the designer had consulted drummers on the issue and they preferred the real time input via the pads, you could get an expander module that allowed you to control the MPC-1 from a Sinclair ZX81 with a 16k expansion pack that allowed you to edit or create rhythmic patterns in step time in addition to allowing you to save to tape and so on.


The MPC-1 sold reasonably rather than well, it was a bit expensive at around 900 pounds locally and at that price was in competition with and actually slightly dearer than digital drum machines from MFB, Dr. Böhm and Suzuki Musical Instruments that had better programming features and sounds, and a little later with similar pad/drum machine boxes from Allen & Heath and Dynacord that although more expensive featured digitally sampled sounds and much more advanced operation. And even though improved from the original Kit, the sounds were not all that impressive next to a Simmons drum or even a high end Roland analogue drum machine of the day.

MPC Electronics started the development of a budget sampling keyboard in early 1983 and to extend the life and utility of the MPC-1 introduced the “Stage Pads” in late 83 but that were drum trigger pads that were the size of a real drum and could be used as a replacement for real drums in kits or to replace the kit as a whole. In 1984 the company followed up with the DSM series (or Drum Synthesiser Modules), but that were the sound generating circuits from the MPC-1 placed in a 19” rack mount format that allowed those that wanted an electronic drum kit but had no interest in a sequencer/drum machine an option that was cheaper than the MPC-1. Later the same year the Sound Pad drum triggers were redesigned into a hexagonal shape rather than the original round one, this was to satisfy the American market that wanted pads visually similar to the Simmons hexagonal ones.

Even though their products appear to be selling fairly well, in particular in the USA, MPC disappears without a trace in 1985, the digital products that the company had talked about in trade shows never saw the light of day and new additions to the DSM range in late 84 or early 85 seem to be the last products the company introduced. One factor in the company’s demise may be the introduction of the Simmons SDS 8 in late 1983 but that offered people better sounds at only slightly higher prices than the DSM modules were going for. Mr. Coxhead went on to hold out a number of mostly music related ventures in the 80’s and 90’s but retired in the last decade while Mr. Button went on to become a freelance designer of bass and guitar amplifiers running his Clive Button Designs from the UK until recently when he relocated his operations to Bali, if you take a look at his homepage you will find pictures of most MPC products including the Kit prototype under the “Other” heading.

Watching that video actually makes it look like a pretty dope machine. The velocity looks nice and sensitive, looks like it would feel good to groove down on that thing.

interesting theory however i doubt mike mcroberts would go through the trouble of posting that information so many years later if it weren't true. most probably just a coincidence but it could be they had those initials in the back of their mind consciously or not...in any way it doesn't really contradict his statement imo.. nice find on the ad though, definitely a eery resemblance with renaissance, crazy it predates it by 30 years, those guys at MPC electronics were definitely thinking ahead!

daftmunk wrote:it could be they had those initials in the back of their mind consciously or not..

You could be right.

There are 26 letters in the alphabet, so to come up with the same three letters in sequence would be a mammoth coincidence. But coincidences do happen, however unlikely.

Like this.. http://www.mpcforum.com/forum.php and this http://www.mpcforum.pl/, and this http://www.moving-picture.com/, and this http://www.bankofengland.co.uk/monetary ... rview.aspx

Mike McRoberts version of events is more 'romantic' and plausible. But did Mr Linn himself have no say at all in the naming of the product? and what about the big bosses at Akai Japan? And what was the ADR15 prototype name all about? We will never know...

since this thread is interesting... I am replying so I can find it again in my posts. Good job on the research... that machine reminds me of an oldschool analog drum machine and an octopad mixed together.

clint246clint wrote:


This was discussed at some length on a popular forum.

Here is the thread I was talking about, came across it during my 'research'.

http://www.gearslutz.com/board/electron ... chine.html