Sound Quality

jig nice wrote:I thought the A/D/A conversion of the MPC's were something that was desired? If I use the spdif ins/outs, I might as well keep making beats with Cubase and Battery.

Why

megaton, i couldn't be less concerned with what you think might be wack

Antonym wrote:good to hear about the master fx outs, sometimes folks leave em on and forget about them

i say digital out because it's a more detailed, higher quality sound. by that i mean it's closer to the exact thing that's being played thru your mpc - undergoing less conversion than something that's going out the analog outs into a mixer out the mixer into your monitors out your monitors. you know? i have compared em side by side and if this makes sense the analog is way softer sounding, and not necessarily in a good way.

when tracking i aim for most of my high detail stuff to get tracked via spdif. lead sample for sure. snare drum and hats, almost always spdif. bass drum and bassline? analog outs.

the sp404's outputs aren't grounded (them being rcas) compared to the main outs of the MPC (them being balanced, but remember that the individual outs are unbalanced!).

i used to like the sp404's sound because it was "rough and frosty." it adds more character to the sound (even before fx). however, i keep my samples in the mpc as dry as possible (besides layering). this is the way i personally like it - i wouldn't want my sampler to color my sound unless i had wet/dry control over said color.

i was talking to transformermonkey about this before and i think i made a more convincing case on the telephone. but remember - after a certain point, you're kind of knocking your head against a wall when you're struggling/striving/dying for a final sound right out of the mpc1000 or any sampler for that matter. it's just not that step yet - that's daw work, mastering and all that jazz. the mpc1000-4000 etc just isn't suited for that type of work.

all in 1 box sounds are destined to be kind of limited. i'd advise you to leave that work for later, during the 2nd half of song construction and manipulation in the daw.

another example is panning. i prefer doing that sooo much more in daw than in the mpc. everything is dead dry and unpanned (unless the sample is stereo) in my mpc until daw. it's best suited as a compositional tool, after all.

most of this sounds pretty obvious but good stuff to mention anyway...

jig nice wrote:I thought the A/D/A conversion of the MPC's were something that was desired? If I use the spdif ins/outs, I might as well keep making beats with Cubase and Battery.

i think that only goes for the roger linn ones and perhaps a little bit for the 2000(xl) but that depends on your taste. the rest of the mpc line just seems to have an eq curve on the main outs to distinquish themselves from your pc i think.

the main reason for people to get a mpc i think is hands on control...except for the roger linners... who probably want the "human feel" and vintage conversion.

Flaxter wrote:New to the world of MPC.
I just ordered an MPC-1000 over a Roland SP-555 today. Hope I don't regret choosing the Akai. It was the pads, screen and option to fit an internal HD that sold it for me.

Don't get your hopes up about the pads. You stand a pretty good chance that one or two of them won't even work.

= )

hey, it was still a good choice to pick the mpc 1000 over the roland sp 555... come on. but i think you should buy the sp 555 anyway as a compliment to your mpc 1000... if your a samplist that is!

Don't get your hopes up about the pads. You stand a pretty good chance that one or two of them won't even work.

I see what you mean about the pads. No where near sensitve as the pads on the Korg padKontrol!
Feel as if i should be hitting them with a feckin' hammer!
Oh well

I felt the same way. You can turn up the sensitivity on the pads which helps a bit. An alternative tho is just to plug your padKontrol into the MPC. I did that, then built a pk preset where scenes 1-4 are banks A-D, then scenes 5-11 rep each octave on a keyboard assigned chromatically.

Nice idea. Will give the padKontrol method a try for studio use.
Turned up the sensitivity and it's so much better.
For some reason half my pads were set to 4 and the other half 2???
8 or 9 seems pretty good.

gunmetal wrote:hey, it was still a good choice to pick the mpc 1000 over the roland sp 555... come on. but i think you should buy the sp 555 anyway as a compliment to your mpc 1000... if your a samplist that is!

Don't tempt me