What all will I need.

I'm going to be using nothing more than a turntable to sample from at first until I can get more loot to get a keyboard and other things. So what attachments am I going to need. My mixer has an RCA out as well as a 1/4 out. Do I need any special cables. Thanks.
P.S. What are your thoughts on buying a used MPC 2000XL. Do you guys recommend it or should I just by a new one.

Buy a new one if u can afford it ,if u can't then buy a second hand but make sure the pads are not worn out and that it has all its insides intact eg memory etc!

Sampling erm, just use your stereo record in from your mixer if your using a simple mixer like what dj's used then plug your phono cables fro the mixer to 1/4 inch mono to rec of mpc and adjust rec level u should be fine.

To add to that last tip make sure that mixer has a pre amp pending on what kind of gear you have may not reproduce a good/strong enough signal to amp that sample right.

Id just get a controller and use soundfonts with my PC. I got a buddy from college who worked at creative labs and according to him, the soundfonts from emu from emu modules, (like the mo phatt etc) sound spot on the actual module. I have the soundfonts banks and he is (for the most part) correct, since the soundfonts are the exact same samples and patches from the module, just with no realtime control knobs and some of the features the emu modules have are absent, and the soundfonts dont take ALL the banks from the module (prolly so you still have a reason to buy the actual module).
The synths on your soundcard are also pretty good (if you got an creative one) just download the SB Live/APS drivers, since the midi timing of the APS drivers is far superior to the bunk Creative cards (they are the same chip inside, but with different hardware around them)
. So 100 dollars for a midi controller and the MPC with a PC with soundfonts and you spend 100 on SF's, you can have the entire proteus library with expansions, and the mo/planet phatt's, just w/o realtime knobs (which is a pain), s cool tho, u just use the MPC to send midi controller commands to the SF synth so you still can control the parameters, but u gotta use the mpc to do it.

This should get u into making tracks with good sounds until you save up for a triton/fantom/motif etc. whateva your flava is. Personally, I like to use some soundfonts is my music, they got some solo violin, viola, cello's in the proteus banks that sound phatt.

OR

just go to guitar center, buy a mo phatt, sample every patch and set it up for use on the mpc, and return the module to guitar center.

Yep - I can confirm that Soundfonts will sound the same as the sounds from the module - Eddie, from Samplecraze makes patches for Emu sound modules for a living - he initially creates every single patch as a sound font - most sounds are less than 2 bytes, which is why they are able to fit 1000s of sounds in a 16MB chip.

This soundfonts thing is an interesting discovery for me, considering I am looking at getting an Emu MK/PK6 and adding the ROMs. How do these soundfonts actually work and where would you recommend I can learn more about them. I am just using the MPC and a CD and various samples at this time but am leaning towards getting a keyboard, but if this sound fonts thing is the same and is actaully cheaper, it seems a good option. Would you load the sounds (ie, from a Mo Phatt font) into the MPC individually? If so, how does one compose like you might on a keyboard? This is really interesting stuff to me. Thanks, BsK

I have an pmc 07 mixer. And what the hell are you talking about DR foo. I need a laymens interpatation. Break it down as basic as possible because you lost me on that one. From what I got out of it is you run your samples through some other program before you send it to the MPC because you can get a better sounding sample. Not sure if that is right but please come back on that and explain.

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