Official: MPC X 'Special Edition' Now Released

Lampdog wrote:

LivePsy wrote:We spent money for Flavor Pro because the the MPCs are too clean.

This has given me the different sounds I look for every, single, time, on drums. Don’t sleep people’s..

This is a great comment. Don't sleep on Amp Sim.

The 1000 that i currently have sound very transparent indeed but my biggest complaint is the quality of the low and band pass filters that don't hold a candle against the live 2 filters.
As for the sound and all that mpc 3k dead horse beating that doesn't seem to end anytime soon. why don't you just develop your own signature style of mixing your beats instead of relying to the output of a specific machine for that? really guys we have all the tools in the universe to add dirt to our sounds yet we keep wasting time over doind A-Bs between older and newer machines.

He does.. I'm not sure you guys are giving dude his due.. he has Grammys.. he was on the Friday soundtrack for - sake.. many artist go to him FOR his sound.. he does have a point.. the 3000 does hit harder, no amount of dirt will get you there.. I'm just not sure it is fair to compare them.. this cost less then that for not counting inflation, plus all it can do..

kja wrote:... he has Grammys.. he was on the Friday soundtrack for - sake.. many artist go to him FOR his sound.. he does have a point.

In fact... a very simple yet crucial point: use your ears

MPC-Tutor wrote:Interesting to hear the talk about people with roots helping in the MPC community, I am banned from his Facebook group MPC Gang, no idea why, I even chased it up to ask him direct, via Facebook messenger, never even got a response. Never had any direct interaction with the guy, ever, not now, not in the past, so no idea what the issue is.

So am I but thats because I called him names when he pissed me off lolol. Not missing shit by not being in that group.

kja wrote:He does.. I'm not sure you guys are giving dude his due.. he has Grammys.. he was on the Friday soundtrack for - sake.. many artist go to him FOR his sound.. he does have a point.. the 3000 does hit harder, no amount of dirt will get you there.. I'm just not sure it is fair to compare them.. this cost less then that for not counting inflation, plus all it can do..

the sound difference is not as dramatic as people think in most circumstances most can barely tell the difference especially that many people are listening on compressed formats as an end consumer, so he might be making a mountain out of mole hill in most instances, and somewone as his level has access to all the out board gear needed to comphensate for any sound differences.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XR-BzsclmO0

It's all about harmonic distortion in the top end, the 3000 does it beautifully. And in a mix it does play a role in cutting through. You can achieve similar results with EQ and distortion/compression etc, but the point of these machines is to have it out of the box without any tweaking. Imo the best of both world is to a have rack samplers with the desired color (for the MPC 3000 it is the AKAI S3000 series (S2800/3000/3200), for the MPC 60 it is the AKAI S900 series (S900/950)). AND use modern MPCs such as the X to sequence and be able to sample clean and transparent. There you go, end of debate.

If there is so little difference why then are many old records still being sampled more than new ones? Are they just better produced songs or is there something that is just sonically better? And streaming platforms report older songs are being played more than newer. I welcome the workflow of the newer MPCs but I still value the sound quality from the older ones.

Now, back to Splice to find a sample I don’t think anyone would use.

I think there are 2 kinds of people that complain when it comes to "sound quality". The top pros that have mixing engineer ears and can apreciate the nuances of the different freq bands, and prefer the sound of one machine or daw or fx or something to another (usually dont complain as much), and people who's beats are weak and blame the tool instead of them own.
I don't say my beats are fire for everyone, taste is taste. But I feel I can make a hard hitting fire beat in any platform, hardware or with my hands tapping on a table and singing. IMO Some tools are faster and more apropiate to do some tasks than others, but at the end of the day with this mac vs pc type of discussions I think it comes down to the artist more than to the tool.

This is my take on the Sound Quality of the MPC X SE. Its clean as a Whistle! The problem is...Lot of Old Heads don't want a Clean sound. They want it Dirty, Colored on the Low End. In a weird way, the Old Sound is Warm. Not Hot, Not Cold. Just enough Distortion to make it sound good.
My Problem is...These Bozos are mad at Akai for getting Better with the DACs inside the MPC. There are soooo many ways to achieve that warm sound with insert effects on the Main Out. You can make the track sound as dirty as you want! Everyone wants Instant Sound without tweaking. Thats why Akai is makin money from 3rd Party Plug-ins/Expansions. Take advantage of the Lazy Beatmakers! $$$$

Imagine me getting mad at Chevy because some dude designed Power Steering to help me steer easier. "Nahhh I like the Old Way Better, It helps with my Tricep development!"

Slow down there, young'un. Some of us who've given up on hiding the grey hairs like it clean and precise because we remember what it was like, dealing with factors like tape noise floor and incremental wow when you go more than a copy or two from the original recording. It's all fun if you want the audience to feel the grit as part of the sound design, but at any other time it's pain in the rear like the morning after a texas cook-off.

This brings me to another major point: as producers we all want to have ultimate precision in what we lay down, but take a look around you at the people listening to music - not your producer buddies, but people that you don't know.

You got the gymbunny with mass market earbuds, listening to distorted pop rock over the clanking and thumps of the gym machines, or the noise of the treadmills.

You got the dude walking down the street, whose solution to the construction site noise is to crank the ear damage on his Beats by Dre.

You got the receptionist yawning on her way to work in her '99 Buick, listening to 24 hour dancepop radio with her dying stock sound system.

You got mom with some off-brand bluetooth speaker sitting on top of a fridge so that it's out of the way of the screaming kids, cranked to demolition volumes so that she can actually hear Def Leppard over the sound of her teeth grinding.

You got the carpenters and drywall crew with a jobsite radio parked in top of a pile of dirt that the excavator left when digging the foundation, singing along to working rock radio with their own replacement lyrics between the timing of their own hammers.

None of these people are anywhere near listening room golden ears circumstances. Not only wouldn't most of them recognise the difference in their sound sources in a tuned room, they wouldn't care and would want to go back to work, or the gym, or chasing the kids. And before you start talking about real music fans, think hard about the listening conditions in the last live show you attended. Audiophile conditions, they're not.

Dope beats, hot licks, lyrics that move people will always trump that 3dB difference in the 6500Hz range.

pspsounds wrote:If there is so little difference why then are many old records still being sampled more than new ones? Are they just better produced songs or is there something that is just sonically better? And streaming platforms report older songs are being played more than newer. I welcome the workflow of the newer MPCs but I still value the sound quality from the older ones.

Now, back to Splice to find a sample I don’t think anyone would use.

your confused bro people are sampling old record because in the 70s and early 80s the studios and instruments had a certain tones that and soul/creativity that is valued as a sample source; but that has nothing to do with the converters on the mpc 3000 or the mpc 60.

so sounds in the 70s was a unique time of creativity and technology merged to create magic and this combined with studio techniqes at the time all combined to make the most same rich source material.

the mpc 60 and 3k are valued for their converters; so that what ever they samepled is slightly warmer, thicker and more weighty, and beat played on those out puts are somehow glued together with more warmth and punch.

so ur conflating two seperate things

Sound is chosen because you like it and it feels right for what you want to do. Then you mix it so it translates as much as possible on shitty speakers. If music is made in the first place for people that don't care that much in mind, something is messed up creatively. Some audience do care a lot.

These machines give a precise fell, Boards of Canada is one example of artistic use of that feel attached to old gear. It's not all about "my beat's bigger than yours on these refrigerator speakers". Not everything is meant to be played in a club on mono speakers and subs eating all the mix out of the air.

Any of y'all run your MPC Live/ONE/X through an Analog Heat?

Koekepan wrote:Slow down there, young'un. Some of us who've given up on hiding the grey hairs like it clean and precise because we remember what it was like, dealing with factors like tape noise floor and incremental wow when you go more than a copy or two from the original recording. It's all fun if you want the audience to feel the grit as part of the sound design, but at any other time it's pain in the rear like the morning after a texas cook-off.

This brings me to another major point: as producers we all want to have ultimate precision in what we lay down, but take a look around you at the people listening to music - not your producer buddies, but people that you don't know.

You got the gymbunny with mass market earbuds, listening to distorted pop rock over the clanking and thumps of the gym machines, or the noise of the treadmills.

You got the dude walking down the street, whose solution to the construction site noise is to crank the ear damage on his Beats by Dre.

You got the receptionist yawning on her way to work in her '99 Buick, listening to 24 hour dancepop radio with her dying stock sound system.

You got mom with some off-brand bluetooth speaker sitting on top of a fridge so that it's out of the way of the screaming kids, cranked to demolition volumes so that she can actually hear Def Leppard over the sound of her teeth grinding.

You got the carpenters and drywall crew with a jobsite radio parked in top of a pile of dirt that the excavator left when digging the foundation, singing along to working rock radio with their own replacement lyrics between the timing of their own hammers.

None of these people are anywhere near listening room golden ears circumstances. Not only wouldn't most of them recognise the difference in their sound sources in a tuned room, they wouldn't care and would want to go back to work, or the gym, or chasing the kids. And before you start talking about real music fans, think hard about the listening conditions in the last live show you attended. Audiophile conditions, they're not.

Dope beats, hot licks, lyrics that move people will always trump that 3dB difference in the 6500Hz range.

Absolutely Correct!
Oh btw...I'm an Old Head 49yr