Polyphony?

hi this is my first post here, been here for awhile reading up on the mpc1000 before my purchase a month ago (550$ on ebay!). Me and my band have been using the mpc2000 for some years but decided to upgrade to the 1000 cus of size and storage options. my problem is how the mpc1000 works with polyphony, it seems to work differently than the mpc2000. we use alot of long samples on our tracks, 4bars or more. when we play live our drummer uses midi pads to trigger hihats, snares,fx etc...on the mpc. so there is alot more coming ontop of the long samples. with the mpc2000 we never had a problem with samples cutting out but with the mpc1000 we get it quite offen which is annoying live.

it seems to work like this. you play a long sample and during that sample you can play 31 samples before it cuts out, the thing is that 32 voices are NOT used at the same time it just seems to use voice 1 through 32 and then start back at 1 again cutting the first sample out if that is still playing. this seems very stupid cus shouldnt it use a free voice instead of those that are being used.... are you following? is there anyway of getting around this? i mean i can tell my drummer to take it easy but he wont be happy bout that!

anyway is this how it is supposed to work? does akai know about this? maybe could be feature for the next os.

and thanks everybody for all the good information on this forum!

You are correct. I have had issues with poyphony on all of the MPC models, to varying degrees. One thing to keep in mind, as you know already, is that there are more than just the trigger messages running. Note, on, note off, velocity, etc. are all data, so maybe you could thin out what the triggers are actually sending. That is, perhaps the translation device is sending superflous and unnecessary messages you can lose altogether. I am confused about the '32 voice' idea below. Is this scenario in reference to long samples you are chopping up, or the triggered drum samples? You're right tho, it shouldn't matter but it does. My friends in this band The Benzo's use a similar setup to you on stage, and they did have to switch from the 1000 to a 4000. But I feel you can work around it...

make frequently reoccurring samples mono (ie most drum)

and try to use as small chopped samples as possible

this might piss some of my fellow 1000 users off. But the sound of the MPC2000 is much better than the 1000. I never had problems with polyphony on the 2000 and messing with this master level all the time uurks me. I dont care if it uses similar chips or not, to me there is an obvious difference you cannot deny.

but when it comes down to it and you track everything out, does it really make a difference what it sounds like hot off the sampler?

also, you might want to consider using the spdif outs when producing on your 1k. MUCH better sound quality. what i do is i put the spdif out of my mpc into my delta 66, then i tell that signal to go out the MUCH better D/A converters of my Delta. from that it goes into a separate stereo bus of my mackie. that way i can control it separately from sounds playing from my computer.

as for recording A to A (vinyl to the mpc1000) i never have any problem and it always sounds just as good as when i record it to 16 bit on my pc via the delta. i think the problem, if there is one, is in the mpc's D-A converters from its main stereo outs. however, i run live shows off my mpc and really have no problem, so w/e...