MPC 2500: Q&A

its ova now! im gettin one! ok but the timestretching is recycle-like or live 4.0-like also can u record track mutes? stop me if im botherin you i no u busy!

Let me get back to you with the track mutes.

It has different methods of time stretch. There is the recycle-like function, the MPC 2000XL chop method, pitch change without effecting tempo, and tempo change without effecting pitch.

Not to change the subject...I just hope that feature is added to the 1000's new OS coming up cause I hate having to create a new program when i want to use the sounds from a different program with the program that i have my chopped samples on

try that and see if you can take like a 4 bar sample with vocals to 40 bpm realtime with no degredation or u know what im askin stop soundin like an akia rep i no all the specs bro!

Q: yo jahrome YOU remember on the mpc 2000xl when you select a program in the main screen for samples then maybe one day you would select a midi track BUT you could turn the wheel and select what program on what channel so you would basically flip thru the sounds of a keyboard from the mpc 2000 or 4000? is that on yours? if not then how will you do that?


A: YES! It wouldn't be an MPC without this function. This is one of the first functions I looked for. But Akai has upped the ante on this one. They have added one more function that I asked for and can't believe they added it. I am testing it now and will post my findings.

The MPC 2500 has incorporated an easier way not only select patches from an external..but to also select different sound banks as well.

In the previous MPCs, I had to set my XV-5080 to Patch Bank A. Using the program change function of the MPC, I am able to select/assign XV patches 1-128 in Bank A from the MPC. This is great but XV has 8 banks of presets sounds, and 8 expansion board slots adding many more sound banks. I always wanted an easier way to fly through thousands of sounds directly from my MPC without having to program all these MIDI changes.

Enter the MPC 2500. From the MIDI program select function in the main window, a press of a button opens and addition window which will allow you to set the MSB and LSB for each track. This will allow you to set a different bank of sounds for each track:

In the XV-5080:

Preset A MSB: 87 LSB: 64
Preset B MSB: 87 LSB: 65
Preset C MSB: 87 LSB: 66
Preset D MSB: 87 LSB: 67
Preset E MSB: 87 LSB: 68
Preset F MSB: 87 LSB: 69


By assigning the values above to seperate MPC tracks..I can quickly run through 700 patches from my MPC without touching my XV5080!

This is one of the main features I was asking Akai for! With the additional MIDI OUTPUTS connected to more synths..you can possibly access over 8,0000 external patches without stepping away from the MPC!

nooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

mpvxt wrote:
tempo change without effecting pitch
try that and see if you can take like a 4 bar sample with vocals to 40 bpm realtime with no degredation or u know what im askin stop soundin like an akia rep i no all the specs bro!

Slow down Pa.....

An Akai rep wouldn't take the time to do 1% of what I am trying to do. They would just say..hey, its the new MPC..has the legendary pads and feel so go buy it......

You know what I mean. And I am not sure I know exactly what you are asking. There are several methods that you can use to play with the tempo and pitch of samples. Which one do you want me to test for you? The MPC 2500 does not have the 'real-time' timestretch like Roland's variphrase technology. So please state specifically what you want me to investigate.

lets say you sampled michael jackson into the main screen, 4 bars, and synced it at 100 bpm. then you turned the wheel down to 50 bpm changing the tempo without changing the pitch in realtime. will the quality be the same at 50 bpm as the original?

This post has been edited:

The MPC 2500 has the sample slice feature or recycle where it will chop samples according to the amplitude of instruments in a track. It will create a program with these chopped samples. You can also choose to convert these chopped samples to a patched Phrase. Then you can use real-time tempo control that doesn't affect pitch.


The MPC 2500 also has a timestretch function in the sample editing menu. I loaded a 3 minute Camp Lo song, the classic 'This is it'. The original tempo was around 90 and I changed it to 120. It took about 15 seconds and sounding great. It didn't effect the quality of the song at all. So next, I did the same thing but slowed the tempo to 40. This 3 minute sample took 1 minute to process. When I played it back..the song was just creeping along..slow as heck. The vocals in the track were pretty good..the beat stuttered..but thats what happens when you take this feature to the extreme. It easily passed that test. Attempting this test on the 2000XL can take up to 10-20 minutes! This feature rivals the timestretch function of the MPC 4000. It is at least equal in this term.

any luck with the questions i had regarding the midi CC functions, Q-controls, etc?

Posted by lank
any luck with the questions i had regarding the midi CC functions, Q-controls, etc?

I will look into these functions more and report back.

i can't find it now, as i am extremely tired. however, there was a question asking if you can play a CD and sample live...... the answer is YES you can.

Now thats cool. thanks Sparq for answwering my question.

e jahrome where is that promised review? its friday dude.. people are getting curious bout that machine
give us some stuff

Posted by drumtrack
e jahrome where is that promised review? its friday dude.. people are getting curious bout that machine
give us some stuff

My bad...almost done. But you can easily see that I have been very active this week answering alot of questions.

I will give it an overall favorable review but I will tell you my disappointments as well.