hello...thinking of buying have questions

hi.. im new to the forum. ive been searching the threads but i havent really found the answers to my questions.

1) ive been looking at the mpc1000 for use in live shows. mainly to play samples which could be up to 3 minutes long. so im looking to assign one pad to trigger a 3 minute long sample. then while that is playing.. trigger other samples that maybe 1 sec - 20 secs all in time with music that is performed by musicians. i know this machine is an excellent sequencer/sampler.. but what i described is what i mainly want to do, manually trigger samples using the pads live.. is this feasible?

2) im a little confused about the "flash memory card" that i see on the promo pic on the front of the mcp. it says 64mb. i know i need to up the memory right off. i saw the mini usb port on the back.. says "record in" are you guys using external usb hardrives? could u use a 500mb thumbdrive(flashdrive)?
i know i must sound retarded.. but the last sequencer i used was an alesis sr-16 drum machine in the early 90's.

3)more memory questions. u guys are adding internal ram? up to 256mb.. i saw in a thread. is that memory that can be used for storing samples to be accessed? or is that memory being used to increase bank capacity or something like that?

thanks in advance for helping me..

there are various ways to load the sample into the mpc memory, including the new internal harddrive option and compact flash cards.

however the main limit is how much you can store in RAM at one time::
this is 128 megabytes, max. More then that and you will have to pause to load new stuff into RAM.

The mpc plays samples straight from ram, it does not stream them straight from the flash or HD.

you should be looking at the roland sp-404 or similar also, since the mpc series may have too many functions you don't need and don't need to pay for...

my 2cents

if you have a laptop, use the MPD and reason

thank you for the quick responses.
yeah i was briefly looking at the roland mentioned. if i remember ...it has rca stereo out. i could deal with that. but i would prefer to have a 1/4 mono out.
one reason that i was looking at the akai was because pad respons is immediate when using them for triggering samples.. most of my samples need to be triggered exactly in time... and guessing when the sample will play is something im already dealing with.
as for the laptop...that is a valid option.. but i dont have one that i would want to take on the road and i was hoping to have have a simple external device with not much load time.

sleepersriddle wrote:there are various ways to load the sample into the mpc memory, including the new internal harddrive option and compact flash cards.

u said new internal hd option? there is only ram in the machine now. does that mean there is already room for a internal drive? is it scsi? i know im asking a million questions.. i just need to get the right machine... soon.

in that case, trim your samples accurately and get an sp404...does anyone know anything cheaper that this guy can use?

most definitely don't get an mpc1000 - it's not for you - way too expensive for the simple tasks you're trying to get done.

In answer to your questions:

1) I'm not sure about OS 2.10 (haven't had a chance to play with it yet) but certainly on past operating systems it's been a bad idea to trigger very long samples and then lots of short ones over the top as some 1ks have a nasty habit of cutting long samples short, especially when there's a lot going on and eating up the polyphony. By all means use the MPC for those short samples, "manually triggering samples using the pads live" is basically what the unit does, but I would use Cubase/Tools or maybe an iPod for any backing tracks.

2) The flash memory card is used as more permanent memory to save your projects and samples to once you power off the unit. This is seperate to the internal RAM (expandable to 128MB) which is volatile and will lose its memory when unpowered. The USB port (1.1) is unfortunately hard-wired to the flash card; essentially an internal flash card reader, it cannot be used for external drives (unless you have an iRiver or something with browsing capability, which can read from the card in the MPC). The "Record In" that you saw refers to the record-in jacks above it.

3) The 128MB RAM is used purely for storing samples.

4) The internal hard-drive is now a possibility, up to 80GB I think, but you need to purchase a special interconnect from Akai that is compatible with the MPC's internal bus (a weird one I think). You can save and load from this drive like you do from the flash card, but remember that the data's destination is always the RAM - the sampler won't read directly from the hard drive or flash card. You need to open the machine up to fit it. A list of compatible drives should be on the Akai website.

Hope this helps, buy a 1000 and have fun...

Antonym wrote:in that case, trim your samples accurately and get an sp404...does anyone know anything cheaper that this guy can use?

most definitely don't get an mpc1000 - it's not for you - way too expensive for the simple tasks you're trying to get done.

cool...thanks for the tip. the sp404 is fairly inexpensive. i have a boss br-8. its a mini digital 8trk. i could use that for my long samples, then trigger shorter ones with sp404.

its awesome to get info about equipment so quickly.

what about a sp-202

might not have enuff memory tho..

You could still trigger long samples with the 404. I belive with a 1 gig card it can hold up to an hours worth of sample time. It doe sound like the the sp 404 suits you the best plus with the 404 you can resample, and you get good effects.

MPD=waste of money