Sampler limitation on MPC-2000; It doesn’t play FM bass well

Recently, I sampled Lately Bass patch sound with 2000XL. (For those don’t know about Lately Bass patch, Google “TX81Z lately bass”)
I don’t own TX81Z, so I sampled from … sample library that I downloaded.

I found out that XL couldn’t render the sound well. The attach sounds like white noise, instead of the nice “bite” that Lately Bass patch gives.

So I imported the the original WAV file via CF card, but result was the same. XL renders the sound very poorly.
I uploaded the the original WAV file, if you are interested. I’ll record the output from 2000XL when I have time.
If you own MPC2000 or MPC2000XL, compare the sound between 2000 and your PC / Mac.

I think this is a good example of how sample rate (Hz) and bit per sample alone cannot determine how sampler would sound.

https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/4249864/audio/latelyC3.wav

well one time years ago i decided to download the 1000hz serato code disk ISO.. anyhow i unpacked the ISO and sampled a bit of it into the 2000 to see if that could achieve anything cool. It just would not play properly.. it glitched serato (i ran the 8 outs from the 2000 classic into a motu box acting as the soundcard in mixxx or some program that accepts it) however cutting a sample and loading it via floppy (usb floppy drive) it worked. You reverse the sample and it worked too..

basically i was just trying to see how software can interact with the tone. I set up the 16 pads with various pitched iterations of the tone reversed and straight up.. short clips that loop which seems to work the same as playing a long segment. they all worked fine, I just had little use for it beyond that.

I don't at all doubt that the sampler has limitations to things like that FM bass sound... the 2000 and 2000xl doesn't have amazing audio fidelity. That doesn't mean it sucks, it is often regarded as great and warm sounding... the 2000 has character... just not fidelity that is comparable to the great sound cards we have on our computers. Sometimes if you want to make big sweeping synth sounds on complex VST synths to sample into a 2000... it can still sound cool, but not always as clear once it is played back by the sampler. That is part of what makes those old MPCs sound dated.

You can still work with it and make something that sounds great but in a very synth focused time in music (whether it's style of current music, or the gear that is out these days that are something we'd want to incorporate into our setups) that lack of fidelity can often be a bit more evident.. we aren't exclusively listening to our vinyl through the interpretation of our MPCs but are in a situation where we are A/B-ing a direct source with the result our MPCs provide.

definitely does something to 'smear' the sound at times - probably most noticeable at extreme ends of the frequency spectrum.
my scientific experience with this is i sampled some pure dc (well generated via audacity and imported via cf card) into the xl to control an analog reactive-light system i built. the idea was for the xl to send control voltage to my light rig.
the pure dc was basically turned into nothing - makes sense as the audio outputs likely have some sort of dc filter.

point being, i knew for sure at that point, that what you put in is not necessarily what you get out.

tapedeck wrote:definitely does something to 'smear' the sound at times - probably most noticeable at extreme ends of the frequency spectrum.

That pretty sums up.
I recorded the same sample, same file, triggered from MacBook Air’s audio out, and from MPC-2000XL. I used M-Audio Quattro USB (!) Yes, it is a super old USB audio interface, so I use old mac (white MacBook with OS10.6) with that. I could think that Quattro itself might have same issue with MPC-2000 (i.e. not very hi-fi) but it’s been serving me well.

The original audio file (16bit, 44.1K)
https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/4249864/audio/latelyC3.wav

LatelyBass from MacBook Air to M-Audio Quattro USB (24bit, 48K)
https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/4249864/audio/lately_mac_mono.wav

LatelyBass from MPC-2000XL to M-Audio Quattro USB (24bit, 48K)
https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/4249864/audio/lately_mpc2000-mono.wav

hey i think nym made a thread on this forum purely dedicated to the quatro and how great it was.

mr_debauch wrote:hey i think nym made a thread on this forum purely dedicated to the quatro and how great it was.

I know. I was on the thread.

ah okay.. i wonder if he still uses it. Is the m-audio one USB 2 or FW?

mr_debauch wrote:ah okay.. i wonder if he still uses it. Is the m-audio one USB 2 or FW?

It is USB 1! I don't think he still use it. There is no driver for 64bit OS Windows and OS X without 32-bit mode.

@JVC do you happen to have any rack samplers that you have tested this on?

JVC wrote:

tapedeck wrote:definitely does something to 'smear' the sound at times - probably most noticeable at extreme ends of the frequency spectrum.

That pretty sums up.
I recorded the same sample, same file, triggered from MacBook Air’s audio out, and from MPC-2000XL. I used M-Audio Quattro USB (!) Yes, it is a super old USB audio interface, so I use old mac (white MacBook with OS10.6) with that. I could think that Quattro itself might have same issue with MPC-2000 (i.e. not very hi-fi) but it’s been serving me well.

The original audio file (16bit, 44.1K)
https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/4249864/audio/latelyC3.wav

LatelyBass from MacBook Air to M-Audio Quattro USB (24bit, 48K)
https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/4249864/audio/lately_mac_mono.wav

LatelyBass from MPC-2000XL to M-Audio Quattro USB (24bit, 48K)
https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/4249864/audio/lately_mpc2000-mono.wav

I found the quattro to be very high quality.Solid box.

well that was old original m-audio before numark bought it..... sound familiar

dryad-66 wrote:I found the quattro to be very high quality. Solid box.

Yes, the performance is solid, just that I have to make sure that there are no other USB devices connected on the same USB bus.
It doesn't work with current Windows & Mac OS (it works up to OS X 10.6), since there is no driver for it.
Quattro USB was released long before Numark bought M-Audio.
With 4 line-in, 4 line-out, plus MIDI-in & out, it is hard to beat.

Anyway, I wonder if MPC-2500 and MPC-1000 would do better job with LatelyBass samples?

Don't know about 2500 & 1000, but my MPC5000 plays the same bass sounds much better than my old trusty MPC2000 regardless digital or analog outputs.
There just is no juice in MPC2000 bass. Timing and midi sync is the other way round. But that's another story.

Ziemeldels wrote:Don't know about 2500 & 1000, but my MPC5000 plays the same bass sounds much better than my old trusty MPC2000 regardless digital or analog outputs.

Makes sense to me. I wonder that if MPC-3000, which is older model, can render LatelyBass sound or not.

Ziemeldels wrote:There just is no juice in MPC2000 bass. Timing and midi sync is the other way round. But that's another story.

Low frequency sound on MPC-2000 is OK to me, but if the sample has high and low-end at same time, 2000 don't would produce distorted sound.
But, this gave me an idea; what if use two samples, one for base only, other for the attack, which has high frequency sound, and layer them on 2000? I think it might work.

Used to use akai CD3000XL, it had better overall sound than MPC2000 and was my "bass" machine. Now usually sub bass sound comes from "Phatt" or "Composer" cards installed in EMU Virtuoso 2000. On top of that goes wider brighter layer from Access Virus C.