Post your views and questions about the Akai MPC2500

By Otayo20 Tue Oct 03, 2006 6:33 pm
I sold my 2k for a 2500 and I love it. I felt a lil limited on my 2k as far as the filters. That alone was the big difference for me. As far as tranfering sounds?......i havent been succesful. I didn't work for me at all. I dont know if it's how I saved my filed but it just aint happening. I just use my dudes 2k to dump those beats when needed.
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By The Maker Tue Oct 03, 2006 6:37 pm
DJ-T wrote:Zoning is basically sliceing, the XL only goes to like 16 but you can continue chopping it in little piece. 1k can zone or slice up to 64 which is good and not good . not good for beginners,but good for advanced users.


Well this is the 2500 forum and the zoning on the 2500 is much better than the XL.
Just like Zoning on the XL is better than on the 2000.
The fact that someone is a beginner or not has nothing or very little with how they chop or how useful it would be. :roll:
Chopping is nothing but a person's vision of how something should be arranged.
That's pretty much the reason why people can chop on a ASR, S-950, or computer as well as MPC.
Still I know what you were saying if you meant from the point of learning.
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By DJ-T Tue Oct 03, 2006 9:32 pm
The Maker wrote:
DJ-T wrote:Zoning is basically sliceing, the XL only goes to like 16 but you can continue chopping it in little piece. 1k can zone or slice up to 64 which is good and not good . not good for beginners,but good for advanced users.


Well this is the 2500 forum and the zoning on the 2500 is much better than the XL.
Just like Zoning on the XL is better than on the 2000.
didn't say better,jus different.
The fact that someone is a beginner or not has nothing or very little with how they chop or how useful it would be. :roll:
Chopping,slicing,Zoning ,same thing, if you are a beginner like I was 20yrs ago,I would have said what the ???? is Zoning? Chopping is nothing but a person's vision of how something should be arranged.
Depends on your interpertation
That's pretty much the reason why people can chop on a ASR, S-950, or computer as well as MPC.
I had the ASR-10 and couldn't chop anything,until I got a better understanding what the numbers meant.
Still I know what you were saying if you meant from the point of learning.
[b] that's good [b] 8)
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By jahrome Tue Oct 03, 2006 10:22 pm
We can talk features until we are blue in the face (or purple). But as of today, there are so many MPC 3000 and 2000XL users that really don't give a fluk of what an MPC 2500 or a 1000 can do. I personally love my 2500. But besides quickly sequencing keyboards and programming drums...I can do things faster and have more power at my finger tips with the software I have. Effects and filters? No MPC can compete to what I have installed on my mixer or software. Sample editing?? Take your pick..most software is more powerful than an MPC...Recyle does a much better job at chopping....

SO we can talk for days...but I will never use my MPC as an all-in-one solution because it just doesn't cut it for me. Its the center of my studio not the only thing in it.

So if the 2000/2000XL is limited compared to a 25000..than the 2500 is limited compared to my software.
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By Cod Wed Oct 04, 2006 5:14 pm
Ive been using 2000xl's for years, in april I bought a 2500 aswell

yeah its great having usb / more memory / more functions / fx etc

BUT:

It doesnt sound as fat.
It doesnt groove as nicely - the swing's all wrong.

Worth getting a 2500 without a doubt it is a good machine..

But mate whatever you do dont sell the 2000xl cos you'll regret it.
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By jahrome Wed Oct 04, 2006 5:45 pm
It doesnt sound as fat.
It doesnt groove as nicely - the swing's all wrong.

Worth getting a 2500 without a doubt it is a good machine..

But mate whatever you do dont sell the 2000xl cos you'll regret it.


Wow...I really never heard anyone say that the XL sounds fat???

All MPCs have a certain feel..IMHO. When I started on a 2000 and then moved to a 3000, I thought the 3000's grove sucked. Now I understand these are just different machines with their own characteristics.

And you will not regret selling the XL. You can pick them up for a few hundred bucks.
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By cyrus Wed Oct 04, 2006 6:38 pm
Otayo20 wrote:I sold my 2k for a 2500 and I love it. I felt a lil limited on my 2k as far as the filters. That alone was the big difference for me. As far as tranfering sounds?......i havent been succesful. I didn't work for me at all. I dont know if it's how I saved my filed but it just aint happening. I just use my dudes 2k to dump those beats when needed.


I agree.

Well, my story is, that i went from the 2xl to the 4000 then to the 2500............Mainly for financial reasons at the times of the switches.

anyways, I dont really miss the 4000. But with that said, There was alot of overkill on it. The biggest differance for me from the 2xl to the 4000 or 2500 was the filters. When you are chopping samples you have so many more options with a lp, hp, bp filters. They arent the greatest filters but they are good for getting your ideas down and further tweaking during mixing.

also, if you stick with the 2xl, then atleast upgrade your zip drive to a card reader. It is so nice having a 1 gb card that is fast and easily transferable to and from a computer............and down the road its just gonna be more of a pain.

on the 4000 i really really miss keymapping. that would be a big reason for the 4000. Obviously there are some other nice things, but keymapping is the big one.

The only thing that kills me with the 2500 is the data wheel quality, lack of stereo to mono in edit. Lack of copy and insert in edit, lack of similt function, some random gliches sometimes when saving.

however, I think the 2500 is an overall good choice.

i think with any of the units you can make some heat and they have all you really need. SO dont get jealous of the newer machine, if you are making heat right now, I dont think there is any one thing on the 2500 that would really really make things "better". Yeah, there are some goodies, but its not a huge jump. but maybe you consider newer-more up to date hardware a good enough reason...............................now if you were going to go from the 2000 to the 4000 then id say hell yeah!
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By medullabuzz Wed Oct 04, 2006 11:27 pm
jahrome wrote:
It doesnt sound as fat.
It doesnt groove as nicely - the swing's all wrong.

Worth getting a 2500 without a doubt it is a good machine..

But mate whatever you do dont sell the 2000xl cos you'll regret it.


Wow...I really never heard anyone say that the XL sounds fat???

All MPCs have a certain feel..IMHO. When I started on a 2000 and then moved to a 3000, I thought the 3000's grove sucked. Now I understand these are just different machines with their own characteristics.

And you will not regret selling the XL. You can pick them up for a few hundred bucks.


Yeah, but I really, really miss those coverters on the 3000 - they were soooo warm...

"different machines with their own characteristics" - that right there's the key! When you know where to go to get what you need, that's when the magic happens and you know you've got your room down right!
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By The Maker Thu Oct 05, 2006 12:59 am
medullabuzz wrote:
Yeah, but I really, really miss those coverters on the 3000 - they were soooo warm...



With the routing and resampling ability of the 2500, I don't miss anything about the sound of my 3k.
If you take the two and compare them long enough or are really familiar with the sound of the 3k you can easily develope methods that will allow you to get a warm fat sound out of the 2500.
I was surprised how far you can take the sounds of the 2500.
I was also surprised that the 2500 defaults to Master Effects on, I would rather that they were off by default.
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By medullabuzz Thu Oct 05, 2006 12:36 pm
The Maker wrote:
medullabuzz wrote:
Yeah, but I really, really miss those coverters on the 3000 - they were soooo warm...



With the routing and resampling ability of the 2500, I don't miss anything about the sound of my 3k.
If you take the two and compare them long enough or are really familiar with the sound of the 3k you can easily develope methods that will allow you to get a warm fat sound out of the 2500.
I was surprised how far you can take the sounds of the 2500.
I was also surprised that the 2500 defaults to Master Effects on, I would rather that they were off by default.


I'm sorry, I should have said I was referring to the A/D converters - everything I sampled was just so real and very warm - I'm not talking s**t about the MPC2500 though; they definately get the job done.
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By DJ-T Thu Oct 05, 2006 12:59 pm
I agree with med: on this ,3k has such a natural warm fill in listening to your drums.The 2KXL is slightly low than the 3k when it comes to the warmth.After playing around with all the MPC's for over 20yrs,I would recommend options to anyone of the MPC's as far as getting the warm kicks and stuff.Why? because your still going to need the warm punching
sound at the Mixing down and Mastering.Truly I'm looking to purchasing the 4k later and then getting the 2kXL back in my setup. 8)
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By jahrome Thu Oct 05, 2006 10:05 pm
medullabuzz wrote:
Yeah, but I really, really miss those coverters on the 3000 - they were soooo warm...


So if I load the same samples in my MPC 3000 and 2500, you would be able to tell the difference?
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By Groove66 Thu Oct 05, 2006 11:47 pm
IMHO, the 2000XL is 'One' of the punchiest (please do not confuse this with Phat or Fat :lol: ) sounding machines of the mpc range. It can get tinny with sounds that already have midrange honk, but the XL does have a nice middy kinda sound to it. If you load up a rim shot or a nice Tambourine hit on an XL, you will hear the XLs midrange coloration...good or bad (its all subjective and opinion based). All i know is that my 4k or 2500 does not have this characteristic. The 2500 does sound kind of scooped in the mids, and has a more hifi'sh sound to it right out the box.

Again, im using my ears, my monitoring, and its totally opinion based. :)

By Peter Quistgard Fri Oct 06, 2006 1:43 am
Otayo20 wrote: As far as tranfering sounds?......i havent been succesful. I didn't work for me at all. I dont know if it's how I saved my filed but it just aint happening. I just use my dudes 2k to dump those beats when needed.


I gave up on that too. Like 90% of my old beats contain filenames with more than 8 characters and i don't feel like having to spend an hour with every one of those to get them on the 2500. If it even was only that and the beats would just play then like they used too, but everything is messed up!
I deleted everything i never finished, put everything else well organised on a few mo-disks and recorded the beats i'm still feeling as mp3s so i can sell that outdated piece of crap (yup, i learned to hate it). If I'll ever need anything i made back then i'm gonna borrow a 2k. I think my greatest experience with the 2500 was transfering ALL my drumsounds i collected over the years via usb within minutes. This took me weeks on the 2k!
Last edited by Peter Quistgard on Fri Oct 06, 2006 5:12 am, edited 1 time in total.
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By RealWorldDealings Fri Oct 06, 2006 2:38 am
Iwon't...my workflow is already steady...