Reviews and questions about the entry-level MPC500
By theworks Sun Nov 11, 2007 4:18 am
I'm thinking about picking up a 500 because of the portability. I have an XL hooked up to my protools interface (running 8 outs). is the 500 compatable with the xl if I was to get a CF card reader for the xl. I am just curious if there's a way to dump the MPC 500 beats into the XL so it doesn't take all day to multiptrack in protools. Any hlep would be appreciated.
By oraziodelcore Sun Nov 11, 2007 7:20 pm
theworks wrote:I'm thinking about picking up a 500 because of the portability. I have an XL hooked up to my protools interface (running 8 outs). is the 500 compatable with the xl if I was to get a CF card reader for the xl. I am just curious if there's a way to dump the MPC 500 beats into the XL so it doesn't take all day to multiptrack in protools. Any hlep would be appreciated.


no I'm afraid the mpc500's beats can't be transfered to the mpc2000xl
but you can send prgms & seq(single seq) + wav samples from the mpc2kxl to the 500.

By shocks Tue Nov 13, 2007 5:32 pm
i have both.
they are not compatible. You could do something if you have scsi with the 2000xl or a usb zip drive. I think the .pgm and sequence files are compatible but ive never tried it.

By oraziodelcore Tue Nov 13, 2007 8:43 pm
shocks wrote:i have both.
they are not compatible. You could do something if you have scsi with the 2000xl or a usb zip drive. I think the .pgm and sequence files are compatible but ive never tried it.


I usually trim my sounds inside the mpc2000xl before transfering them to the 500.

I'm running 1.14 Os on the mpc2kxl &
1.13 on the mpc500.

sometimes I audition a sample or a loop in the bigger mpc
and record it to a seq.
a single sequnce is possible to load in the 500
also single prgms with wav files.

I keep the names on the sampled files under 8-10 caracters
always 16bit 44100hz and (note: .wav files do work) before transferring them to the mpc500.
And I allways transfer on a separate CF card(not used on the 2kxl nor the 500 so I don't risk erasing any files exceeding the 8caracter limit.)

By Cosmic Tue Nov 13, 2007 9:27 pm
-theworks, first thing to be known is if the 2000xl is a zipdrive or multicard reader for its memory.
i hav an xl and 500. my xl is the one with the internal zipdrive. i wanted to convert my sounds and programs to my 500 but was the biggest pain in the ass. first i had to transfer the sounds from the zip disk to my computer, and then from my computer to compactflash cards for my 500.
problem was, every file i had... wen i would transfer it, it would only show i think either 8 or 10 letters max for the names (like orazio was saying). so all my samples that had longer names, their last letters would b cut off. and then wen i would load a program, it loaded the full names (which is different than the cut off names), so it wouldnt load the sounds into the programs since they were now spelled different.
it was a real long process, but i had to change each name individually on the computer in order for me to use my old programs correctly. hopefully u dont hav the zipdisk2000xl, caus it will definitely happen to u too. im assuming u do hav it since u wrote about getting a cf reader. if ur willing to spend the money, definitely do that first to get the cf reader for the xl, caus that process i went through was hours of horribleness.
but after, yeah i took the sounds and put them in the 500. it loaded the programs also, but since the 500 only has 12 pads, it carried the extra 4 over to the next bank and etc etc, till the last original 2000xl bank doesnt show up.
basically some things r compatible and some arent. just always keep in mind, 500 only has 12 pads, so compared to every other mpc, its gonna hav that conversion wen loading programs that originally had 16 pads per bank.
another issue to keep in mind, the new mpcs hav a different way to layer sounds per pad compared to the xl. i love the new way a lot more, it can layer 4 sounds per pad, compared to the xl triggering two other pads ("simult"). also, im not sure if they hav different lfo's or not.

there are some differences wen transferring programs from the xl to the 500, so just do the research first. itll work, but just not 100% the same.

By oraziodelcore Wed Nov 14, 2007 9:37 am
Agreed!

Sorry for forgotting to mention about the 12 pads and the loss of the extra
padbank from thempc2kxl.

But you can allways save that 4th bank into a new prgm. and load it up individually