Reviews and questions about the entry-level MPC500
By littlelio Wed Jan 17, 2007 10:19 pm
I have posted the question, but i think I figured out myself...

It is said that MPC 500 is a 16-track sequencer. Yes it is, you can play 16 different instrument and put them together.

But if there are two people who play drum and guitar respectively and input data in two midi channels into MPC 500 at the same time, the final sequence in the track would lost the channel information and become a single channel.

Maybe you want to say, there is only on pair of midi in/out, how can you input midi data from two instruments? Well this is just an example... another good one is a synthesizer, and it is common to generate many (16 max) midi channels at the same time.

I think MPC 500 is a multi-track sequencer speaking of outputing, but it is just a single track sequence recorder... it will merge all the midi channel instead of recording each incoming midi channel in different tracks...

Of course there is a walk around: don't receive all the channel for a single MPC track, only record a single midi channel one time, and repeat the number of midi channels to complete the entire song... but wait, what's the point of 'receive all'?? if the different channel will be merged into one, the sound module will play this sequence using a single instrument... it makes no sense!

in short,
MPC 500 is a single track sequence-recording equipment, and 'receive all midi channels' function is useless

I am appriciated if anyone could correct me... what about other mpcs?

By oraziodelcore Fri Jan 19, 2007 8:54 pm
maybe this is something that can be corrected in future OS upgrades

there are still a few functions in the mpc500 that needs to be upgraded

I don“t know...Just a thought.
User avatar
By motormind Sat Jan 20, 2007 1:24 pm
littlelio wrote:MPC 500 is a single track sequence-recording equipment, and 'receive all midi channels' function is useless


I don't think it's useless. It's just a way to quickly set up a midi-controller without having to specify what channel it plays on. Any and all MIDI data will be collected on the recording track, similar to the "Omni" input on a DAW. It's there for convenience.

The MPC1000 works in much the same fashion. I think it's okay, since it is meant to be a single-user MIDI manipulation device, not a full blown DAW. The same counts for the MPC500

By cooocooo1 Sun Jan 21, 2007 1:16 am
wow....

more of those elusive "16 track" mpc sequencers...

By littlelio Tue Jan 23, 2007 2:51 pm
Oh sorry, I want to correct the point of 'receive all channel is useless'.

It is useful, when you want to input an instrument via different parts. Such as left hand piano on chan 1,and right hand piano on chan 2. :)