Deciphering the fact from fiction. 60/3000/2000

I see a lot of cats come through here asking if, "Is this MPC's sequencer different or better then the next", etc. Althought this is subjective, I just thought I'd shed some light being that i've used all the MPC's worth using I suppose, and of course, was a longtime MPC 60 user (Now SP-1200..)

The MPC 60/3000 share an almost indentical interface. The 3000 has a few more small features the 60 doesn't have OS wise. Other then that, it's generally the same interface.

The 3000 has a filter and prgm control functions. The filter has a Q control so you can adjust where you want the filtering to take place. It's a descent filter I'd say. Not anywhere close to as dope as a 950, but it gets teh job done. Jay Dee used the 3000 filter a lot on JayLib and the Love Movement (ATCQ).

Sequencer wise, their identical. Same shuffle algorythm. This peice of knowledge came straight from the horses mouth.

Sound wise, they are very different. Besides the fact one is 16-bit, the 3000 comes stock with louder outputs then the 60. The 3000 also hits harder then 60 because of this. I would say the 3000 is fairly bright, and open, but with a hard punch/twack to it. Where as the 60, is very dark (nostalgic sounding even), with a more pumpy-airy/pap sound. (Does that make sense??). Bottomline, 60 is tighter on kicks and cross sticks.. 3000 is harder on snares and hats.

As for the 2000/XL series. They were void of most of what made the MPC series classic. In that, Akai straight jacked R Linn's design/patent. He attempted to buy it back from them, but Akai was shady, knew they could bank off thier dealings, and the rest is history. Because of this, Linn wasn't behind the 2000/XL projects in any way, shape, or form. Akai decided they wanted to be aggressive and go after the rapidly growing producer market. To pull sales, and not have the Linn name to do so.. They aimed to make the 2000/XL a "computer in a box". 1995 (I belive), introduced the era of the 2000. Lots of memory, new sample engine designed from the Akai R&D team, new sequencer algorythm and swing function, and a "deeper" menu based system.

With all that said, the 2000/XL uses a completely different swing algorythm as the 60/3000. So lets put a end to all the rumors and debates. THE 2000/XL SWINGS DIFFERENTLY then it's vintage counterparts. Sample wise, they have a very wide stero image and capture mid/high end instruments well. However, the sound engine as many as you know, derived from one of the worst rack sampler engines Akai has made to date. Never was thier such a piece of shit then the S2000. Sound wise, the 2000 can be boomy and bassy, with lots of EQ'ing and compression. Some say it has no punch, and in itself it is pretty void of bass, but it can be remedied. Even so, it still sounds weak in comparison to the 60/3000. Not to mention the countless "window-within-window" editing. By the time you execute the function you need, your already loosing valuable musical inspiration.

Whats funny is that pretty soon the MPC 2000 is going to reach classic status, rather you like it or not. It is the highest used/purchased drum machine in the history of drum machine samplers. I certainly was never a fan, but facts are facts.

Hope that can shed some light for people. Oh, and the time correct key function operates differently from machine to machine as well.

i sold my asr-10 and my sp12 for the mpc 2000 in 98 ,then i sold the 2000 for the 2000xl and all my friends had the 3000 and they would clown my asr 10
cuz they would say the 3000 hit harder ,but now kayne and the neptunes be on mag covers wit the asr everybody wants one.True,the asr seq. was wack
but the sampler was tight and you could chop up samples with no problem.
but dont get me wrong i hate computer beat making programs but if you have
reason and you use that sampler,i think its called the nn-xt and a good midi controller and recycle its really like having a asr-10 ,i know cuz i owned One for years and i made a lot of dope tracks with that alone,and reason has a much better sequencer,but try to buy hardware,but if u cant, use what u have.Now i own a mpc 60 and a akai mpc2000xl .I love my mpc 60 and i love
my 2000xl ,dont get it twisted even wit the 3.10 upgrade the 2000xl is more powerful it dont look as good as the 60 or the 3000 ,but is it more powerful.i know this cuz my production partner has a 3000 and some beats he like to produce on my 2000.ive owned the sp12,asr-10,2000,2000xl,mpc 60,and i have learned that if your stuff is wack, its wack its just gonna hit harder,and if you like the lofi sampling of the 60 just change the sampling rate in your 2000xl. Just cuz U own a mpc 60 dont make you PRIMO ,i know
this cuz i own one

^Yea that whole philosophy is played.

Obviously no machine is gonna make you tight. You gotta have skills, all the money and equipment in the world ain't gonna save you if you don't.

--Thesis on coloration of sound

The thing I find funny is people refer to 12-bit samplers, namely the SP and the 60 as grimey and lo-fi. I guess in some respects they are?? But thats not my take on it.

I see it like this, an SP (before it's pitched up or down) or an MPC 60 is truer then a 16-bit sampler (for example the 2000). Why do I say this? If you put a record on and sample it, and don't manipulate it, on a 12-bit sampler. It retains all the original warmth of the recording. Including the punchiness, or brightness etc. This is due to the compression characteristics of the older samplers and thier mono linear sampling engines. Now if you take your 2000 lets say, and run a record through it, it doesn't sound the same. It comes out, brighter, and less full. Even if it's in mono. And reducing the sample rate is **** retarted. That makes your samples sound like S***! Same way sampling at lower rates on an EPS/ASR sounds terrible, or S950 at low bandwidth. I sample on the 950 which is a 12 bit sampler, but, I sample at very high bandwidths. It sounds crystal clear, theirs no way you could point it out and go, "Oh, he is using a 12-bit sampler". The only give away would be the filter or perhaps the overall punch, but I doubt it.

What i'm saying hear is that, 16-bit samplers are not true to the sound any more then you could say the same about a 12-bit sampler. If the signal passes and comes out at all different, ie. darker, brighter, etc. then it is not true to the sound. Let face it, record an LP into your soundcard and tell me that shit doesn't sound different then the record itself. Unless your using an Apogee AD8000 or something along those lines ($3,500 is high price to pay for non-coloration).

Another thing I'd like to address is that, if I smack a snare in a small room next to your head, it's going to distort. That type of distortion makes your ears compress the sound so that it doesn't blow your ear drums out. So all around you in the world, sound is not precieved truely as it is. The very records you record on were cut on analog tape. It's proven fact that the third harmonic distortions introduced by tape feels gaps in the sonic listening field that no digital recorder of any cost today can capture. Same thing with using tubes and transformers, verses op-amps. Trans/Tubes = substantially higher headroom. Which means a more honest representation of what you hear.

I'd like to top this off with saying that, i'm not saying that crystal clean recordings and 2000's are not gonna sound good, or get the job done. All i'm saying is no one should fool themselves to think that thier modern sampler of infinite specs, is superior in anyway. It's different, and affects the sound in it's own special way.

-----

I also want to say to you directly Lseals that, you and I both know that no pc sampler sounds like an ASR or any other vintage sampler for that matter. It's not possible do to the gain structure, circutry and filter chips of the older samplers.

Computer audio is soley dependant on what any given person is using. Pc, Mac, this mother board, that mother board, this sound card, that converter. Thiers infinite variations so it's really hard to say that computer audio has a concrete sound period really.

Btw.

This thesis isn't directed at you Lseals. So don't take it personal. You just brought up a subject that I think is played amongst the masses of producers discussions in general, and I felt like touching on it.

Now this is what I'm talking about! Great post Lo Pass, very nice breakdown.

has anyone used a 60 with the +4 dB modification? I'm curious what effect it has on the sound besides louder.

I see your point, but i am thinking about all those new producers out there
who get into all this hi tech stuff about a piece of equipment and forget about the bottom line. In my setup i have a mpc2000xl,mpc 60,triton,proteus,jv1080
ms 2000,motif,and about 4000 old records and i travel out of state diggin for more stuff and i look back and think i got caught up in all the hype, the most
important piece of gear in your set up is your mixing board and cables straight up,learn how to mix,make your own sound, and it depends on what you sample,if you got a dope loop i dont care if its asr,mpc,reason, chop it up
and sell it

Well I'm no engineer...but I know this. I owned two 2000xl's and my 3000 at the same time. When I finally sold the 2000xl's and began to use the 3k, I noticed a difference. Something is different. I can't point it out to you because everybody has their own take on things, but I do know that this box goes boom bap...and I spend a lot less time eq'ing. I just make karate chops and keep kickin from there...

^Word! That is exactly what it is, it's "it". Will leave it at that.

Lseals: I agree with everything you said. And you make some valid points. Gear hype has definately consumed producers minds when it should be the furtherest thing from it.

Goto Ebaums World. Check the clip of that street cat playing drums on with some sticks and some different size paint containers. Blows my mind when people whine they only got an ASR-X or MPC or SP and need "x" or their cipher ain't complete.

In my earlier days I was known to bust out the spoons and pots, no joke.

The end product is all that really matters, choice of equipment will effect the sound, but most importantly HOW you make your beats (processes, time etc). Some equipment is more intuitive than others which again effects it. I know people who have fallen into the trap of always buying / wanting new equipment when they should just get on with making beats, you can be frustrated with a particular piece of hardware / softwares limitations but try and work through it. I had an SU10 (little Yamaha thing) as my first sampler and hardly used it, when I sold it to buy my s950, my friend who bought it shocked the shit out of me with the beats he made on it (they were wicked) it taught me a valuable lesson

for sure, you can squeeze anything out of anything, some gear matches how you work better than others, but cats get real into shopping instead of using what they have already.

I've been messing with a Friend's Linn 9000 lately, first time I've messed with one, since I'm a big 60 head I have to check out the ancestors, and man, it has some cool things about it, but the 60 really has huge improvements over it, but this thing really swings, and the pads are better than any MPC I've ever played. Making paterns with the stock sounds brings back so many memories cuz they were used on so many albums, it's crazy. You can see Linn's genius in this thing and where the stuff for the 60 came from real easy.

"Whats funny is that pretty soon the MPC 2000 is going to reach classic status,"

That I can see. It seems that every piece gets it's 15 minutes.

"It is the highest used/purchased drum machine in the history of drum machine samplers"

Maybe Mr. Linn should have reconsidered Akai's deal? I don't know all the details, but if I had a chance to get my name on the worlds most popular sequencer/sampler, it would make for a very nice mark on my resume, even if the pay was not good.

"Akai straight jacked R Linn's design/patent."

It is normal that if you are working under contract that any design you make belongs to the company. It may have never been "his" design. It is also possible that Akai offered a deal to put Linn's name on the MPC2000, but Linn jacked HIS price up ten times and thus Akai could not afford him (Akai was small company of only 20 employees). Then the MPC sales went up 30 fold without the Linn name? Maybe Akai did not need him anyway. I dunno, just speculation.

Good to see you again Mike!

I've been reading mad Linn interviews the last couple of days since I'm checkin out this linn 9000 a friend got (with forat mods, oh yeah)

Apparently Linn had very good protections on his ideas, since they were developed in the Linn 9000 the world's first sampling drum machine / sequencer and then the Midi Studio, which never made it to production but is visibly very much related to the MPC 60 as well as functionally pretty much the 9000 with better implementation.

Akai approached him becuse they needed an idea / design guy, and his company had just folded becuse he wasn't so good at the manufacture and marketing side of things. The Midi Studio became the basis for the MPC 60, with Akai's resources, Harware design and implementation was mainly David Cockerell of EMS fame.

anyway, Linn had great protection over his ideas, but the contract with akai wasn't so good, so when Akai wanted to do a cheaper MPC, they could cut him out of the picture and save on his design fees. I don't know if he would have raised them, most people get raises, even contractors, so I don't know if you know something I don't about that (if you do , wink )

Even so, linn's ideas were so protected, that they had to change many aspects of the MPC 2000 to avoid any lawsuits by making it different enough design wise to have a good defence. hence, the pads on the right of the machine, the removal of the dedicated buttons for the shift and number pad menu system, things that were now adopted by many manufacturers and less defensible by Linn. Like the Roll button (his invention) quantizing, etc. Cutting out the main inventor is a good way to save money and make your product cheaper, what did rohan call it, savage cost cutting? something like that. Plastic case, thin metal bottom casing, optional 8 outs etc. I wouldn't care how popular something is, it mainly sold because of the legacy of the other MPC's and what it inherited from them, so Linn is responsible for a lot of their sales.

Interestingly enough I read today that when they designed the 3000 it was Roger that said it would be great if they ported the OS to the 60 for the customers, Akai people weren't into it, and so Roger Asked if they would mind if he did it, and they said go ahead, so he did. I thought it was more of a F-U to Akai for cutting him out of the MPC design, but apparently it was started well before the 2000.

Thanks Roger!

Well, lets look at the drum machines that Roger Does have his name on...

LM-1, the first with Quantize, note repeat, swing, real sampled drum sounds, set the mold that has yet to be broken.
Linn Drum, (cheaper better version of LM-1, )
Linn 9000, first drum machine with user sampling / full midi sequencing, first with rubber square pads (much thicker and better feeling than any MPC or copy I've tried.) Hihat decay Slider with realtime sequencing,
MPC-60 - Need I say more?
ASQ-10
MPC-60II
Roland R-70 ( he worked for roland on these designs)
Boss DR-660
Roland R8-II
MPC 3000

All other frum machines copied at least 3 of his ideas, the Sp-1200 took the linn 9000 as a model, by 1986, everyone had a cheaper knock off, much like emu did with the drumulator after the linn drum, Roger Linn Essentially created the whole market or Professional Drum Machines / Sequencers, and the Sampling drum machine.

I don't think akai had anything without him, and it is Roger who explicitly states that he had nothing to do with the 2000, it would have been in akai's favor to have people think he was involved with the 2000, even if he wasn't because of his legacy, basically inventing the Drum machine as we know it, like Moog did the synth as we know it, but he didn't have anything to do with it, it isn't just a pay to use the name, the machines he worked on have a certain design aesthetic that you feel, he got paid for his ideas because he was a fountain of ideas, with a track record like that, saying that akai didn't need him is kinda low. It's more like they took what they got and faked the rest.

I think Lo Pass Filter had it right.

Lo Pass Filter wrote: By the time you execute the function you need, your already loosing valuable musical inspiration.

I easily have to disagree with that.....

interesting thread... some people dont care bout this chit, but to me its cool to read about...

Boogie Man wrote:

Lo Pass Filter wrote: By the time you execute the function you need, your already loosing valuable musical inspiration.

I easily have to disagree with that.....

I easily have to agree with "Lo Pass Filter" without a shadow of a doubt

I`m curious no hate. Does Mr. Linn still receive royalities for the 60 and 3000 models cuz Akai Japan stlll displays, promotes and sells them second hand refurished I think.