Figuring out my perfect live setup

Hi all, first post

signed up to get some insight & discussion on what will suit me best for a live performance.

I've been an MPC owner in the past (2000xl) and am considering a 500 or 1000 to use as the hardware lynchpin in a new all-hardware live set.

spent the entire year working on my first album in my home studio setup:

- macbook pro w/ ableton live 9 (DAW)
- vermona drm-1 mk3 (analogue drum synth - mega tweakable but lacking certain sounds)
- mfb-522 (analogue 808 clone)
- dave smith mopho (analogue mono synth - bass, leads, fx)

i'm going to ditch the drum machines as they are both a bit limited, and have picked up a nord drum dirt cheap since they just introduced the 2 - hoping this will allow me to keep some expressive tonal/perc stuff going with my workflow as the drm1 does this pretty well - just far from portable!

so here's where i see myself getting back into the mpc game. I already DJ around europe doing serato sets, and already do produce in Ableton, but I really want to avoid an ableton live set if possible. I would really like to be playing an all hardware set. my initial thoughts...

- mpc500 / mpc1000 (all loops/clips and midi patterns)
- nord drum (recieving midi from pads / patterns) mono out
- dave smith mopho (receiving midi from pads / patterns) mono out

what i would really like is to have the L / R sampling inputs on the mpc serving as mono ins for the nord drum / mopho so that i could process the input signal using the onboard filters/effects - a bit of research indicates this might be somewhat possible using jjos but i will need to read up some more. this would make my whole setup pretty damn compact though, since effectively my whole set would be sent to the outs of the MPC.

i am leaning towards the 1000 for this reason, but the fact that stores are still selling the 500 new is also tempting. weird that when i was last in the market, the 1000 seemed brand new and the 2000xl was not quite a relic, but certainly well past its heyday! now after a few years away the nearest equivelent is also used-only. weird

JJOSXL adds separate filter/fxsend/volume per channel to INPUT_THRU screen, processing L and R separately. It could glitch when changing settings, if the sequencer is playing but it is definitely usable.

Funkydrops wrote:JJOSXL adds separate filter/fxsend/volume per channel to INPUT_THRU screen, processing L and R separately. It could glitch when changing settings, if the sequencer is playing but it is definitely usable.

interesting, thanks!

what sort of glitching are we talking? catastrophic/performance affecting or just slightly odd sounds?

If you're willing to invest into a reliable machine don't let you hold back by the fact that a MPC 1000 can only be bought in the aftermarket. Bring it to a repair shop for maintenance like repairing some tact switches that are maybe a bit stiff or other things that aren't that smooth anymore after a few years of use.

Also the 1000 has more (midi) inputs and outputs giving you more flexibility in case you want to change your setup or want to add another piece of gear to you setup. The track mute feature on the 1000 is also better to operate than on the 500, which seems to me quite an important function for live performance.

sound can be out of sync or some sample may not trigger for a split second if you turn on/off the input thru or if you change filter mode. Nothing serious.