Moving to the MPC X after 20+ years on the 2000XL

Support and discussion for all of Akai’s modern standalone MPCs including the MPC X / X SE, MPC Live 1, 2 & 3, MPC One / One+, MPC Key 37/61.
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Re: Moving to the MPC X after 20+ years on the 2000XL

By B-Wise Thu Jan 02, 2025 4:56 pm
Supraphonic wrote:Having said that, I am still slightly confused with sample trimming / assigning / programs. Like every once in a while a sample I assigned to a pad has been changed into another sample.


This part trips up everybody at first. There like 3 places to edit samples & not all of them have the same features. Like you can only discard/extract sample in the sample editor. I was losing my trying to find that that in the track editor.

Then, in the sample editor you have trim & chop, which can be confusing. Once again I would just take the time to see what each menu offers & then you'll be flying. I really like how you can assign a sample to Pad & have each pad have their own start & end points like the ASR-10.

Also, don't sleep on the 8 drum FX in the track editor. You can use those to change the sonic textures of the sample in non destructive way. I did some video on it if to give people some ideas:

AKAI Sound Design Tips: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=P ... ueWsvFekcW

P.S. I'm using the Akai Force, but the info can be used by MPC dudes.

Re: Moving to the MPC X after 20+ years on the 2000XL

By Supraphonic Thu Jan 02, 2025 6:13 pm
Lampdog wrote:
Supraphonic wrote:....go faster?

Fingers on touch screen


The only way, unfortunately. The thing is, I have the screen almost in a 90 degree angle in front of me. Using touch screens is easier when you have them as horizantally level as possible so your fingers rest on the surface. They way I have it set up means that I have to kind of poke the screen with my finger, and it’s awkward.
I find that the other way to use the screen is to sort of place the screen inside your palm so that your other fingers are holding it from behind and use your thumb to press the screen. But then again that only works closer to the edges where you can reach with your thumb.

Again, the positives far outweigh the negatives.. But some things just could have been improved a lot.

Re: Moving to the MPC X after 20+ years on the 2000XL

By Supraphonic Thu Jan 02, 2025 6:19 pm
B-Wise wrote:This part trips up everybody at first. There like 3 places to edit samples & not all of them have the same features. Like you can only discard/extract sample in the sample editor. I was losing my trying to find that that in the track editor.

Then, in the sample editor you have trim & chop, which can be confusing. Once again I would just take the time to see what each menu offers & then you'll be flying. I really like how you can assign a sample to Pad & have each pad have their own start & end points like the ASR-10.

Also, don't sleep on the 8 drum FX in the track editor. You can use those to change the sonic textures of the sample in non destructive way. I did some video on it if to give people some ideas:

AKAI Sound Design Tips: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=P ... ueWsvFekcW

P.S. I'm using the Akai Force, but the info can be used by MPC dudes.


Yeah. Does not feel very intuitive yet. When I record new samples and edit them in the sample edit window, for some reason some of the sounds in the programs get replaced by the new samples, even without assigning them anywhere.

I’ll eventually get the hang of it tho… It’s just kind of frustrating atm.

This again comes back into the touch screen issue: i find myself accidentally clicking on things and choosing options that I don’t want because the screen is too sensitive at times, and other times I need to press it multiple times in order for it to accept the action. And sometimes with different samples there are different options ”activated” that I don’t remember doing.

The drum fx were surprisingly good, tried them out on a few sounds. Very convenient!

Re: Moving to the MPC X after 20+ years on the 2000XL

By B-Wise Thu Jan 02, 2025 6:48 pm
Also know that with the touch screen you place your finger on the parameters you want & then while keeping them pressed you move your finger away from that parameters & still change the value. This may be helpful when your finger is blocking the view of the parameter. Moving to the black egde of the screen breaks the connection. I hope that make sense.

For example in touch 1 of the mixer faders that you can slide up & down then move your finger to the left or right without letting go of the screen. Now moving up & down still controls the first fader you touched. I never seen anybody mentioned this.

Re: Moving to the MPC X after 20+ years on the 2000XL

By Supraphonic Thu Jan 02, 2025 7:33 pm
I am on Sample edit screen, trimming samples. Left sub menu on the screen says ”PROGRAM”.
After painstakingly editing about half a dozen samples, suddenly all of the edits disappeared and i am seeing full Wavs again with no edit points.

Have I accidentally pressed something on screen, or what happened?
I simply turned the jog wheel to go to the next sample, like I had been doing for the last five minutes and suddenly all of my edits disappeared.

I feel like some very random stuff happens every now and then, and I’m left scratching my head as to what happened.
Last edited by Supraphonic on Thu Jan 02, 2025 7:35 pm, edited 1 time in total.
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Re: Moving to the MPC X after 20+ years on the 2000XL

By Lampdog Thu Jan 02, 2025 7:34 pm
Discard only shows up in TRIM.

TRIM, CHOP or PROGRAM. Only certain options show up in those. Ensure you're in the correct mode for what you wanna do.

Re: Moving to the MPC X after 20+ years on the 2000XL

By Supraphonic Thu Jan 02, 2025 7:37 pm
Thanks for the answer, but I was not trying to discard: i simply wanted to highlight the part of the sample that I wanted to be playing, without discarding. Like I have done with all of the samples in this project.
I feel like I didnt do anything besides move to the next sample, and all of the samples I was working on for the previous five minutes returned to their original state.
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I use 2.15x on MPC X and MPC Key61. I don't use 3.x

By Lampdog Thu Jan 02, 2025 7:39 pm
Supraphonic wrote:I am on Sample edit screen, trimming samples. Left sub menu on the screen says ”PROGRAM”.
After painstakingly editing about half a dozen samples, suddenly all of the edits disappeared and i am seeing full Wavs again with no edit points.

Have I accidentally pressed something on screen, or what happened?
I simply turned the jog wheel to go to the next sample, like I had been doing for the last five minutes and suddenly all of my edits disappeared.

I feel like some very random stuff happens every now and then, and I’m left scratching my head as to what happened.

Check for slices = PAD or ALL.

PROGRAM will show the full wave for how it looks in a program.
CHOP will allow you to make slices.
TRIM is your traditional trim and edit samples.

Again, ensure you are in the correct mode or some options will be greyed out.
Ensure your wave slice selection PAD or ALL.

Re: I use 2.15x on MPC X and MPC Key61. I don't use 3.x

By Supraphonic Fri Jan 03, 2025 2:13 am
Lampdog wrote:Check for slices = PAD or ALL.

PROGRAM will show the full wave for how it looks in a program.
CHOP will allow you to make slices.
TRIM is your traditional trim and edit samples.

Again, ensure you are in the correct mode or some options will be greyed out.
Ensure your wave slice selection PAD or ALL.


Thanks man… appreciate the help!
I’m going through the manual as well and am slowly getting the hang of this.
Just finished a beat a minute ago, my first one on the X.
Baby steps.
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Re: Moving to the MPC X after 20+ years on the 2000XL

By EnochLight Sun Jan 05, 2025 3:48 am
Supraphonic wrote:After a few weeks of looking into it, I found myself pretty impressed with all the quality of life improvements and all the bells and whistles, and in the end I concluded that the MPC X would be best for my needs. Today I managed to grab myself a used unit, the black one, and I figured I’d write down some first impressions and thoughts after the first few hours of using it, coming from years spent on the 2000XL.


Are you still on MPC 2.x on the new (used) machine? Or did you grab the public MPC 3 beta? Because there are some vast differences between them (pro tip: if you're still on MPC 2.x, don't get used to assigning the same Program to multiple tracks)... :nod:
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Re: Moving to the MPC X after 20+ years on the 2000XL

By Fanu Sun Jan 05, 2025 8:41 pm
Supraphonic wrote:Thanks for the answer, but I was not trying to discard: i simply wanted to highlight the part of the sample that I wanted to be playing, without discarding. Like I have done with all of the samples in this project.
I feel like I didnt do anything besides move to the next sample, and all of the samples I was working on for the previous five minutes returned to their original state.


It’s good to understand that there’s a general sample edit, but in editing a program, you can edit how that sample is played by that program, and the same sample can be played differently on different pads.

For example if you want to permanently trim the sample, that can be done, but note that the same sample can have different start points on different pads for example.

Make sure you understand what mode you are in when changing the sample parameters.
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