MPC-60 vs SP1200

In the end, there are countless ways to make a beat, and some just are more intuitive to one person than they are to another. Then it becomes a matter of either adjusting to the machine, or adjusting the machine til you find one that fits your "way of doing things" for lack of a better term.

I find that they way my mind operates, in terms of workflow and "what step is next" was somehow more in tune with how the 60 operates. It took using an XL for the past two years and then playing with a 60 for two weeks for me to figure that out.

That's the point though, right, to find the machine that is right for YOU, based on the way you would intuitively do things? Sure, in a sense, your way of intuitively doing things might be affected or created or shaped by the machine, so then its a matter of finding the fastest, most natural, most speed-of-thought process for you, and I think I found mine.

That was all I was saying. To each his own, we all know what we want, and we all find different ways of getting it. MY dreamcar might not be your dreamcar, my dreamwoman might not be yours, its a matter of taste, or preference, of priority, and for the money, the 60 seems to be a closer match for me than the XL was. That is by definition a personal opinion, and we all consider our personal opinions to be our personal realities, dont we?

The reality is, that based on the way my mind operates when making music, there is no more intuitive and natural way to express than that then with the 60. If I stumble onto something else that fits even better, I'll move onto that, but in the meantime, I think I've found my match, and will stick with it until I feel limited by it. I had begun to feel limited by the XL, but its hard to realize youre limited until the limits are removed, as was the case when I used a 60 (ironically a machine that is more "limited" technologically than my XL).

I say potato, you say po-tah-to. I say tomato, you say to-mah-to.
Let's call the whole thing off.

-Sir Tickimus Tockington III, Esquire

On the ASR keyboard the function keys, numeric keys, data slider and curser keys are all together. They are located in such way that you can put your hand on the ASR an not have to pick it up.
You can pretty much just extend your fingers and reach the heavily used and major functions.
On the Rack the numeric keys are to the far left, function keys are in the middle and the curser keys and data slider are to the far right.
No matter how you look at it that's 2 handed or more movement type job.
You can get use to it but it will slow you down if you are chopping samples on the ASR rack as compared to the keyboard.
I preferred my MPC-60IIex over my MPC-2000 with the options but I prefer my MPC-2000xl studio over my MPC-60Iex.
I would prefer the 60I over the 60II, because of the sturdy case and variable screen positions.
The reason I prefer the xl to the 60I is I used to use both Mac and PC because I used things like Sound Forge.
When I went totally Mac the xl allowed me not to miss Sound Forge and the PC.
The 4000 on the other hands takes it to far and can become a distraction if you are not careful since it's just so similar to sitting at a computer.
In fact I prefer to sample in the xl then load it into the 60 (w/ MPCeditor) let the the 60 do it's auto normalization and then use the sample in the 60.
Just seems to have better dynamics on some samples that way.
I agree that it's personal choice.

Yeah, that' crazy. That's why I like the 60, I don't have to move my arm from the armrest unless I'm hittin pads.

So let me get this straight, you don't do any audio editing on your computer since you've switched to mac? I don't get the missing soundforge bit.

I dig the sampling in the xl then importing into the 60, you're exploiting something few people even try, the MPC editor kind of forces you too since you are importing 3k files, but you are additionally going through the XL, very cool. I find a difference between importing from the editor and sampling straight, and I use both depending on which is better at the time, but I find you get better highs from importing.

Now back to sampling into the emax at 16KHz, first time I've tried anything other than 28k and 42KHz, man I love this thing!!

Well I'm a Pro Tools man so I just don't do any sample editing on the computer anymore.
Want to hear something really crazy, time compress a rhythm in the xl then load it it to the 60, the math does transfer well.
Just watch eBay and you can see the original owner still sitting a most of the 60I's.
You can see where they use to lean, if they wore a chain, a ring and if they preferred the data knob or keypad.
The thing with the Emax is when a person is learning how to use it they need to learn it's personality as well.
It doesn't have all those kool features that are standard now, but it has features that a lot of samplers at that time lacked.
So you can do some things with that old sound that maybe another 12-bit couldn't pull off.
That's why I don't like the EmaxII the 16-bit becomes really noticable.
The Emax screens and flow are real similar to the SP that why I like the keyboard and didn't get a rack.
I basically have it about 5' high with a tilt and stand up to use it just like I do with the SP.
Yet another case of preference and how you like to work.

Yeah, a buddy of mine has his emax on the top tier of his A frame, it's simple interface makes that set up pretty convinient.

Check my post in the 12 bit samplers thread, I think it's in Studio environments or production techniques, I go into detail on some of the things I've been looking into on the emax, I agree wholeheartedly with what you say abou it's personality,

Are you a detective? How can you tell if they wore a ring?

My 60 is in great shape, one of the cleanest I've seen, but I didn't get it from the original owner, a hip hop producer owned it before (no one you've heard of unless you're into Korean hip hop.)

Ok here it is, this is what I posted over in studio environments about the emax.

Oh man I was gonna post this over at the 60 forum, but I'm using the emax just now.

One really cool thing about the emax is the "Preset" concept they use.
It doesn't mean factory sounds.

Basically, you sample what you are sampling in the first preset, unless you are making copies of voices to edit them, then you need to copy the preset so it will actually copy the sample, you can have multiple copies of a sample in a preset, no sample memory required, but to edit the copy, it needs to be copied into sample memory, like the mpc in assigning one sample to multiple pads, edit the sample, and all the pads are edited, but in the emax, you can define the range, you don't need to assign the copy to each key.

When you go to a different preset, it can be a copy of the original, or you can copy individual voices from another preset (or multiple presets) to a new preset, with different key range assignments, tunings, filter settings, everything but sample editing and the digital effects stuff, as it overwrites the original sample or takes more sample memory in a copy.

OK, you wih me still? These presets, you get 99 of them, and you can switch them from the main screen by just punching in the number or using the slider. SO you can have weird tunings, different key assignments, crazy filter effects, transposed tunings, different envelopes, all on the same sample! So you got a sample in preset one on one key, make a new preset and you can have it keymapped, transposed, filtered,etc. All accessible at the flick of the data slider. It's like having multile programs of the MPC with the same samples, but without having to load anything.

It really speaks to the music concrete philosophy behind the emax. That was the only real precendent to digital sampling (besides the fairlight and such) many of the terms are similar from tape editing, and the logic is all from there, I guess that may have been the market they were going for, making tape editing effects cheaper and quicker.

To use multiple presets at the same time, you need to go into supermode, which I haven't tried yet, but with 8 voices, if you use all 8 you will only have monophonic output.

I'm really loving the design of this now, all the shortcomings are most welcome once you realize what you can do to just one sample and make it sound very different.

I still havent gotten too deeply into weird looping in conjuntion with the presets, but I just had to share my new understanding.

Ive owned the 60, 2000, 2000xl, ASR-10 keyboard.

I first started with the 2000xl. I learn the in/outs pretty quick and loved everything about it. Then I started to find that it took way to long to do what I wanted it to do. So I started doing more and more research on other machines and the 60 stood out. I sold my XL, picked up a 60 and couldnt believe it. Everything I hated about the XL didnt apply to the 60. I hated the menu's. The 60 took care of that. The 60 sounded so a lot more authentic as well. The sequencer and the pad felt much better too. It was like going from a tonka toy to a real machine. While I had my MPC60 I bought a ASR-10 keyboard for the filters and quality sampler. These 2 machine are the exact same in the way of layout. Super easy to use, menus are very easy to understand they dont get in the way of your creative process they actually add to it. I would make my drums on the MPC and everything else on the asr. Money got abit tight so I had to sell one of em. I choose to keep the asr. I found the asr has way more features(filters, more sample time). I dont regret mty decision I love my asr, but do I ever miss that 60's sequencer and sound. But my asr can do everything I need it to and in a timely fashion (drum programming takes abit longer), but Ill get another 60 soon.

kutdown

^^^^^

He sold it to me

Tic's always rubbin that shit in hey!

It's interesting to hear how so many prefer the 60 interface to the XL.
For some reason, I like using the Open Window button more than the kind of "choose a number from the list" menus of the 60. To me, the Open Window thing is more like a PC interface where you move the mouse around and double click on the parameter you wanna tweak....and my mind thinks more this way, so it's actually faster to me.
It seems I'm in the minority on this.
One man's garbage is another man's gold.

itchyvinyl wrote:It's interesting to hear how so many prefer the 60 interface to the XL.
For some reason, I like using the Open Window button more than the kind of "choose a number from the list" menus of the 60. To me, the Open Window thing is more like a PC interface where you move the mouse around and double click on the parameter you wanna tweak....and my mind thinks more this way, so it's actually faster to me.
It seems I'm in the minority on this.
One man's garbage is another man's gold.

itchy,
I agree that the open menu is cool.

kutdown,
look at what you're rubbing in Tic's face (your Avitar)

EL,
people's rings, finger nails etc use to bump the 60 in the areas of heavy use.
Now with the age of the paint the you can see all the bemishes caused by that.
The old school samplers tried to find creative ways to offer synthesis capabilities and creative means.
Since most samplers now are based around the groove and drum loop mentality they lack that out the box method of creativity or just call the typical functions something else to try and make it seem like something new.

the one thing that would make the 60 easier for me to deal with would be if it could simply address a 100mb ZIP as 1 partition or if I could buy 25mb ZIP disk

FYI

Emax for sale = $100
(not mine)

http://www.craigslist.org/sby/msg/63908999.html

go for the rack unless you got acreage in your studio.

Make sure you get an HD SE as well, it helps (scsi can be added)

Yeah Ntalec, the file limits on partitions are quite bothersome, but I did some stoned math when I got the scsi and figured that 20 5 Mb partitions let me use the most amount of space effectivly, but I always fill up my 60 pads and use most if not all the sample memory, so my calculations were easy. Using smaller partitions is much easier with the 60, large ones are only used for computer transfers in my place.

But if you think the 60's scsi is bad, the Emax scsi only sees 20 MB of a zip or other Hard drive!! No partitions possible, but that is 36 programs.

My problem was based on when you try to use that ZIP in a computer.

No, transfer disk is the only way, make a disk in the 60 just for transfers, maybe 4 partitions since the comp only sees partition one, then have a 60 only disk with your real shit, then dump want you want to the partition disk, push it into the MPC, load, then switch to your MP disk and save, anything you want going to the computer you save on the transfer disk. The MPC editor has a cool XP format option, btu my MP disk never touches the computer.