Some Clarification with respect to reading Akai CDs

Hello everyone,

I first want to thank anyone for the time taken to respond to some questions. The local guitar center did not have an MPC4000, nor did the sales man know much about them.

As I believe, when you load a multi-sample in a sampler, it is referred to as different things. In a Roland unit, its called a Patch. In a Yamaha it is called a Voice. From here on I will call the Akai version a 'program' because that is what I remember it being, if this is wrong, please try to understand what I'm trying to say below.

I realize that the MPC series can load in Akai multisample cds. The MPC4000 has a full fledged sampler and huge HD space.

1. Is it possible to save an entire CD worth of sounds to the hard drive, almost like how you can put a new rom-chip inside of a hardware rompler, and then assign the programs to tracks upon need?

2. What is the limit for the number of programs loaded (ie, the # of multi-sample instruments loaded at one time)?

3. Is there a way to quickly preview through different sounds stored on the HD? On hardware synths, you can scroll through the presets and audition them without much delay between changing the sounds.

4. If this is possible, does the sound eat up ram when using the multisample in a song or does it stream from the hard drive, letting you use all the ram for sampling?

I hope I was clear enough in the descriptions of my questions above. If anything is unclear I can try and clarify. I have used an MPC1000 and owned an MPC2000xl for about a year so I believe I'm using the correct terms.

Please respond to my post with any help with the above issues.

Thanks,
Jeff Ortiz

EDIT:

http://www.mpc-forums.com/viewtopic.php?t=31482

This post seems to deal with the issue of copying an entire multi-sample CD to the hard drive. I will monitor that one for replys as well.

all sound have to be loaded into RAM

1. Is it possible to save an entire CD worth of sounds to the hard drive, almost like how you can put a new rom-chip inside of a hardware rompler, and then assign the programs to tracks upon need?

yes.

2. What is the limit for the number of programs loaded (ie, the # of multi-sample instruments loaded at one time)?

Up to 128 parts (programs) per multi

3. Is there a way to quickly preview through different sounds stored on the HD? On hardware synths, you can scroll through the presets and audition them without much delay between changing the sounds.

yes, you can preview sounds from the HD prior to loading them.


4. If this is possible, does the sound eat up ram when using the multisample in a song or does it stream from the hard drive, letting you use all the ram for sampling?

they do not stream from the HD, at least not yet (probably never). The programs must be loaded to ram in order to use them as an instrument.

you can preview wav files, but not programs, from the HD

you can also copy cds and and stuff from you computers hd using AKAISYS (that is a program that you load on to your computer and it allows your computer and MPC4K to talk to one another and to tranfer databack and forward via USB cable.)
And as was sed you can preview sounds (not whole programs) from the MPC4k's HD as well as the CD drive.

As far as I know you CANNOT load an entire CD or any part of a CD of samples directly to an MPC Hard Drive. You must load samples, programs, etc into RAM and then save them to your hard drive.

Thanks everyone for the replys. You all have been really helpful in my attempt to understand this beast. My MPC4000 is in the mail and on the way!

Here is a topic to note: http://www.mpc-forums.com/viewtopic.php?t=31482

A user describes a way to load entire CD's into the MPC via the aksys software and CDxtract. I have both so everything should go as planned.

Thanks again,
Jeff

dustone wrote:2. What is the limit for the number of programs loaded (ie, the # of multi-sample instruments loaded at one time)?

Up to 128 parts (programs) per multi

Actually, you can have more then 128 programs loaded into the memory, only 128 are available for a Multi. But you can have multiple Multi's loaded which each have access to 128 Programs. Then you can switch between Multi's program changes.

I don't think there's a limit on how many programs you can load other then memory constraints.


Cheers,

Dave

fader-pro wrote:As far as I know you CANNOT load an entire CD or any part of a CD of samples directly to an MPC Hard Drive. You must load samples, programs, etc into RAM and then save them to your hard drive.

you can if you use Akaisys