Currently MPC 1000. Which alternative 60 or 2000xl SHOPPIN

I'm sorry to bring this up! i know there's more to music (and production) than which MPC you use. All that aside, at the moment I have an MPC 1000. I love chopping on it, but i can't seem to get the sound i want from it.
I basically want an MPC with bigger pads and, i don't know how to put it, a more open sound i guess.
MPC 60 pros :
Endtroducing is still my all-time favourite album, and i suspect its 12 bit sound is a part of that.
Cons: i know the sample time is like 1.5 meg, which can't be more than about 5 seconds max!! i guess that's like 2 bars of actual recording!
The second con is that i can't find any used in Japan. what's even worse is that some sold for round about 100 dollars at Christmas, and i missed em!!

MPC2000xl pros:
I like the idea of only using my ear to chop samples.
Bigger pads.
Sufficient memory.
Nujabes and Pete Rock rocked the hell out of it (probably with a lot of other amazing hardware feeding it though!)

Cons: may sound exactly the same as my 1000!
heavy as a tank!

Several well informed dudes have already told me they can't hear a difference between the MPC 2000xl and the 1000. With their credentials, i believe them, but even so, i have to check it out! i may buy a grey 2xl in about 12 hours, lol but i'd appreciate any feedback/useful advice.

has anyone made this change from a 1000 to a 2000xl, did it rock your world?

I'm not selling the 1000, it's memory is maxed and it's portable!

cheers everyone!

you can chop by waveform on the 2000xl... it's a good machine, just don't buy it if there are lines or pixels missing in the screen... even if there is one line, that means the lines have begun and soon the rest will come.

second, the mpc60 can do 26 seconds of sampling... but it does it only in mono. If you don't have the ram expansion installed.. it can do 13 megs... but actually 13 seconds is more than enough. it's even more than an sp1200.. so you know you can make full beats with that. The floppies are around 700k so to save a project that filled all the ram you would need 2...

ive found a store with one mint condition mpc60 (5 seconds memory), 2.12 os and several different models of the xl maxed at 32meg.

has anyone switched from a 1000 to a 2000xl and found a significant sonic difference?

I'm not the best, but I'm a fairly capable producer however I tend to over-effect my mpc 1000 tracks
once they enter the DAW. I'm looking for a more open, authentic soundstraight outta the box.

I know Endtroducing was made almost entirely on the mpc 60.

Nujabes rocked a 2000xl but he also had some seriously killer sampling equipment!


I'm gonna buy 1 on Saturday, but which!?¿

ive cut a lot of samples already on my 1000, and I guess they'd transfer easier to the 2000xl.
but I dont wanna buy it if it doesn't sound anydifferent!

first of all.. as I said above, the 60 has 13 seconds of sample time without the ram expansion, 26 seconds with the expansion (which is a total of 1.5megs of ram) there is no 60 with only 5 seconds of sample time.... the 5 seconds is a limitation to the old OS (version 2.12) where each sample can be max 5 seconds... but you get 5 samples like that when you have the ram expansion.

nobody buys a 2000xl for the sound... not coming from the 1000 anyways.... there isn't enough of a difference. Get an EQ instead...


if you need some special sound and have to buy something, buy the 60 over the xl... it has more of a difference in sound from the 1000 than the 2000xl.

Thanks for your help!
Yea it's currently stocked with the plain MPC 60 OS 2.12. the software upgrade is $195 and totally worthwhile if i go for it as 5 seconds is a pretty intense limitation!

I couldn't find out, will the MPC read/play 16 bit stereo wavs?

it's around 500 dollars, which with the software upgrade is 700, basically exactly the same as a souped up XL over here. The pads all worked fine and the screen's hopefully still got some life left in it! barely any scuffs on it!

It's partly the bigger pads but also the sound i'm looking for. i couldn't see anything in the manual about effects on the MPC-60, does it have any?

i'll keep researching, trying to work out the best way to find the sound i'm looking for. i certainly require something less clinical than the mpc1000's sound, and i can't see myself having the patience to learn samplers like the s950 (i'm a.d.d, so unless im hitting drum pads every so often, i get pretty bored!)

the ideal method of comparison would be to resample my music in the store, and compare which sound i like the best out of the xl and the 60, but i'm not sure how easy that'd be!

some of the pads on the more expensive xl's did feel amazing. The xl versions are the MCD multi-card drive or the zip-disc versions, both 32mb. it's my impression that most users have stated they preferred the sound over the 1000 for hip-hop and that the fx are more colourful than the fairly insipid ones on the 1000.

i'm guessing my outlook is a little immature, thinking that one machine's gonna bring it all together or at least get me a lot closer. Endtroducing is my biggest inspiration as a hip-hop artist, and i don't wanna clone him, but i love the nostalgia and the sound of his samples on that record. couldn't really feel his later work so much.
Nujabes, another of my heroes rocked the 2000xl, but as shows here, http://www.gearslutz.com/board/rap-hip- ... ocked.html he was rocking a lot of old gear, and i can't even see an mpc in that picture there.

hmm… still lots of thinking to do! any feedback/advice appreciated, thanks again!

5 seconds isn't an intense limitation... it's perfectly easy to get around... unless you are sampling 4 bar loops... you can easily chop your samples.

the 60 doesn't have effects, but it has an echo send/return.... meaning you can use any external effect box and add some to what ever samples you want using the built in mixer. This is a feature I wish all mpcs had...

it will be slower working on the 60 than the 1000 because it is older.... quick features were not invented yet, You will be having to think more about what you will sample and where you will cut the samples... instead of sampling as much as you want and muting what you don't want with track and pad mute type features. On the 60, you will be shaving the samples perfectly so they end when they need to end... saving you sample time, and on the earlier OS there is no way to mute a sample.

I think forget what people you admire used... the XL is a great fun machine, but you have a 1000... the 60 is old... you may not like using it because it takes more patience.

[quote="mr_debauch"]5 seconds isn't an intense limitation... it's perfectly easy to get around... unless you are sampling 4 bar loops... you can easily chop your samples.

thanks for the advice guys. yea i'm aware it's gonna be a slower workflow. Couple of questions about loading samples
1. will it load 16 bit stereo samples?
2. will it play them as stereo or condense them to mono?
3. if a sample is longer than 5 seconds, will it just flat out refuse to load it? or is it impossible to load a longer sample cos of memory restrictions?

thanks again!

if you cant record a sample longer than 5 seconds... how is it magically going to get longer than 5 seconds after saving it?

ah, I mean if you tried loading one from a disc.

faeriepunk23 wrote:ah, I mean if you tried loading one from a disc.

if you are buying an mpc60 for the sound... you don't load stuff. a lot of the sound comes from recording into the machine, using the machine's analog to digital converters... If you load into the machine instead, you skip that process... you are using the analog to digital converters from another machine.

Wal Martian wrote:

faeriepunk23 wrote:1. will it load 16 bit stereo samples?

The 60 is 12 bit.
http://www.vintagesynth.com/akai/mpc60.php

...12 bit...and 16 bit...

Sampler section:
- Very high sound quality - 40 khz sampling rate for 18 khz frequency response on all drum sounds. 16 bit A/D and D/A converters are used and samples are compressed into exclusive non-linear 12 bit format, providing much lower noise than standard 12 bit linear systems.

Should be able to load 16 bit stereo samples, in the Akai .SND format, with MPC60 OS 3.10...

You may now load all MPC3000 disk files, including stereo sounds. However, the MPC60 cannot read the high-density MPC3000-format disks. To read MPC3000 files, they must first be saved from an MPC3000 onto an MPC60-format disk.

faeriepunk23 wrote:2. will it play them as stereo or condense them to mono?

With MPC60 OS 3.10, it will play them as stereo.

faeriepunk23 wrote:3. if a sample is longer than 5 seconds, will it just flat out refuse to load it? or is it impossible to load a longer sample cos of memory restrictions?

With MPC60 OS 3.10, you can load up to the maximum 26.2 seconds in a single sample (and possibly up to 52.4 seconds with sound compression)

With MPC OS previous to 3.00, not sure, doubt it would load it.

mr_debauch wrote:

faeriepunk23 wrote:ah, I mean if you tried loading one from a disc.

if you are buying an mpc60 for the sound... you don't load stuff. a lot of the sound comes from recording into the machine, using the machine's analog to digital converters... If you load into the machine instead, you skip that process... you are using the analog to digital converters from another machine.

GOOD POINT! looks like resampling is the way! very grateful for your advice. cheers.

Wal Martian wrote:If you like chopping on the 1000, you will absolutely hate chopping on the 60.

I was a fool not to heed this advice! Gone back to the 1000, it's too glorious.