What is the point of a dedicated sampler, eg: Boss 303, S950

I'm guessing that these might have been more useful in the days before RAM was cheap and sampling time on the MPC was plentiful, but I still see people talk about using them nowadays.

I know the Boss has some cool effects on it, but it doesn't seem like that would warrant a whole additional piece of gear--would it? I've never felt that the sampling capabilities of an MPC are limited, but I'm still fairly new to all of this

Basically, I'm looking for an excuse to buy more gear so please tell me what additional features a dedicated sampler would provide me (using MPC 2500 JJOS)

it's another avenue for making music.


Now..... you need an excuse right? How about this? What guitarist (professional or not) has only 1 guitar? They have an acoustic maybe, an electric.. probably a strat or something similar... maybe a tele.. maybe a hollowbody etc... each guitar has it's own entirely different sounds and characteristics... they don't always try to make one guitar sound like everything.

A mechanic doesn't have only one tool.. he has a whole case of tools.



As for the 303... it's a good little box that is great for sound design... but it's pretty rugged and grimy.

mr_debauch wrote:it's another avenue for making music.


Now..... you need an excuse right? How about this? What guitarist (professional or not) has only 1 guitar? They have an acoustic maybe, an electric.. probably a strat or something similar... maybe a tele.. maybe a hollowbody etc... each guitar has it's own entirely different sounds and characteristics... they don't always try to make one guitar sound like everything.

A mechanic doesn't have only one tool.. he has a whole case of tools.



As for the 303... it's a good little box that is great for sound design... but it's pretty rugged and grimy.

Fair enough, but it still seems a bit redundant.

Let me phrase it this way: on my "to buy" short-list, I need a keyboard for bass lines, a Technics SL, a better cartridge, an audio interface/mixer, and more records. Am I right in assuming that a dedicated sampler is probably less important than any of these?

I realize my questions may not have a clear cut answer, but I've never really gotten a good understanding on why someone would use a sampler with an MPC. Is it really just about the sound you get from it?

If you don't feel a need for it, you almost certainly don't need it.
It's just one more OS to learn to complicate things.
But one day you may take your mpc to it's limits and want more. Then you will be ready.

So yes. atm. it sounds like your money would be better spent elsewhere.

*Pilchard* wrote:If you don't feel a need for it, you almost certainly don't need it.
It's just one more OS to learn to complicate things.
But one day you may take your mpc to it's limits and want more. Then you will be ready.

So yes. atm. it sounds like your money would be better spent elsewhere.

Cool, thanks for being the voice of reason. It's easy to get caught up in buying all this gear, justifying it as "necessary" for my workflow but like you say...that's just one more thing to learn & keep me from mastering my MPC.

Rack samplers are great but, I have a room full of equipment (far too much) and I know maybe better than most that it's best to limit yourself to just a couple of pieces and learn them inside out, thereby getting the most out of them.
(wish I could take my own advice).
The number of times I have to break out the manual to achieve one little thing when using units that I haven't used for a while...... (drives me mad that I can't remember).

So yeah. When you are ready for some extra sampling power, you will know. Until then, keep banging on what you have.


And have fun.

oh for sure... you need to get the essentials before you go for bonus stuff...

really you don't need anything besides a computer... and maybe some speakers (or headphones) and an interface... but then one day you may want some more options.


The 303 is not for everyone, but it does act as a great addition to the mpc in my opinion... especially if you are running an old mpc. Is having 2 samplers redundant? yeah, but they sound different... the mpc isn't just a sampler... it's a killer sequencer. If you owned a 303 first, an mpc would not be a redundant purchase to add to that... because the 303 sequencer isn't great.

303 might be outdated but with a 64 MB smartmedia chip you have 3 hours of sample time. I have made tracks on the 303 alone and say it can do whatever you want it to, only thing lacking is pitch tuning.

As for this topic, if you have a 500 or 1000, you can swap the cf card with an SP404 with a cf reader, not the SX. Just use the 404 as your sampler feeding it cassettes, vinyl and whatnot then manipulate. Then just take out the cf card and insert it into the MPC and Shazam! The samples appear in the loading screen waiting to be assigned, chopped and sequenced.

BoyOfVirtue wrote:

*Pilchard* wrote:If you don't feel a need for it, you almost certainly don't need it.
It's just one more OS to learn to complicate things.
But one day you may take your mpc to it's limits and want more. Then you will be ready.

So yes. atm. it sounds like your money would be better spent elsewhere.

Cool, thanks for being the voice of reason. It's easy to get caught up in buying all this gear, justifying it as "necessary" for my workflow but like you say...that's just one more thing to learn & keep me from mastering my MPC.

Ok, less than 24 hours after posting this I found a 505 on Craigslist for $30

Thanks for all the help regardless

I would buy that before I could finish blinking.

Good luck with it.
Hope it serves you well.

The plot thickens....

I grabbed the SP but he included the wrong AC adapter still a good deal though.

Also, I grabbed this mixer for $40. A "Texas Audio DS 7000". I could not find ANYTHING about it on Google which probably isn't the greatest sign but whatever. As long as it's not total crap, I'll consider it a win

I don't know about the latest soft-samplers, but to me the advantage of a dedicated HW sampler lies in the ease of control and in the filters which may be better. I use the EMU 4XL which has (almost) unlimited editing plus some great filters, great dedicated effects, and a sound which is just fantastic. The MPC is better at looping, though.

that mixer might wind up sounding like crap... who knows the quality until you test it......... but it looks worth it for 40 bucks because of the effects and knobs.. as well as the little paragraphic eqs.. that looks like you could make some cool shit on that.

MPCs are phrase samplers. rack mounted samplers such as the akai S series are full samplers. MPC are rather limited when it comes to playing scales and chords.