i'm picking it up tomorrow morning, so i'll let you know smoove. But basically I'm getting it because RZA said it was cool, and I really liked Kill Bill so I think it makes sense.
Lets see. For me, not using a computer for music, just email and porn, it combines both my MPC and my 8-track recorder in one box, which will be better for my workflow I believe. The 8800's sampling features are much stronger, similar to those found on the 4000, with a more in depth chopshop, and it has resampling, which will be so cool for me.
8 tracks of straight audio can be recorded and played with your beat, cool for doing things with my friend who plays guitar, and for scratching. With Audio Phrases I can create a loop, scratch in a melody, then change the loop tempo and have the melody timestretch all in realtime, which will be good for live performances.
Automated everything, from the effects to the mixes, you can record a song by simply track muting. you can build a song linearly or by sequences like on the XL. From what I've read, the MV gets deep when you "open window" which some people have complained about, not being able to find shit cause it's 3 windows back, but the VGA is supposed to fix that no prob. The VGA will be nice for linear song building, just being able to see everything spread out will be nice for me at least.
In the end, if I hadn't been able to get such a great return on my mpc, I would have kept it and upgraded around it. But instead of now buying another sampler to resample and for more memory (8800 i bought comes with 512RAM), instead of switching cords when I want to record guitar on my 8 track then chop a section of it, instead of then taking everything I have off my 8 track and putting it on the computer so I can export it to audio, and a bunch of other things too, i got the 8800 for 400 cash after selling my MPC. It wasn't a easy decision. When I finish a beat, I'll try to add all the fancy bells and whistles to it that the 8800 offers and I'll post it up, so you guys can check it out. I hope my workflow improves with this. The MPC is the best and most intuitive for sampling and chopping, but it seemed like the MV will carry me a bit further down the process all in one box.
Plus Its really shiny silver and it has a color LCD!!! WOW!!!
