The first thing I should do? Remember your first time?

A barely-used MPC2000XL has just blessed my home as of yesterday and I just wanna know ...

What's the first thing I should do? Bless it? Pray over it? Caress it? C'mon yall - what's the first thing yall did when you first recieved your new child? Don't be as corny as my azz, but speak on it...

how bout make a beat?

Turn it on, push all the buttons, open all the screens, push some more buttons, turn it off. Unpack the manual. Go to bed early and read it all night.

Do this for 3 days.

Then read the newbie section on this forum and start making beats.

I am not sure about going evangelical on an MPC.

While reading the manual push the buttons/go into the menus that you are reading about and see what happens, also hit "open window" on everything that you highlight, you'll find alot of options/functions that are often missed and inquired about on these forums.

I did this exacy thing with my ASR10 and and it worked fine for me.
I found out many functions that I would have never guessed were in there.

if you work man take your manual to work and read thru it. get back home turn it on and make your first beat. it might sound like shi* but the hands on way of learning is best.

i suggest you go make a beat. wether it comes out terrible or not go see how the mpc works. and you'll be on your way from there.

learn the ins and outs of your mpc first then move on to your next piece to add to your setup and you'll move up like weezy in no time

damn right lampdog, wish i'd started doing that earlier.....
also throw yourself in at the deep end (of the theory), read through other peoples issues in the production technique forum, gave me much more of an understanding of how weighty this machine is.

First thing? Read the manual!

If you've never had a drum machine before, just get some stock sounds from the web, or from the MPC CD that it comes with, and try to tap out some beats. It doesn't matter what the sounds are at first, just get the hang of programming.
Once you have that, you can worry about finding better sounds, and/or get into sampling and learning how to loop breaks etc.
Then once you have that, you can learn how to chop breaks and stuff.
Congradulations and good luck.

Oh yeah, read everything on this site, on the MPC-Tutor site, and on the sites that Tutor gives links to.

aiightthen wrote:throw yourself in at the deep end (of the theory)

I cut my teeth on Roland R-8 for drum machines.
ASR10 for Keyboard/sampler/workstation.
Triton and 2kxl was no problem when I picked them up.

I used to make beats via computer

Picked up a 2000 made a beat that night, still dont have everything mastered but the mpc is mad simple for real, i love it

bust a nut in the floppy...no seriously...no seriously....no seriously...not

get a few drum samples together and a bass or two..
put snares on the 2s and 4s. put the kicks down wherever feels right. grab Any sample and start playing w/ all the features. learn to zone and trim long samples. use the filter and tuning to get wild.. lay your sounds down one track at a time..snare on track one, kick on track two, sample on three..

got a specific question use the search or read the old ish...
good luck..peace