Newbie-Question about RAM...

Hello,

I am interested in why Akai is selling the units with that poor MB of RAM?

In times where you get Gigabytes of memory with your Computers - why is the amount of RAM in an MPC that few?

I understand that Kickdrums and Snares are very short samples and you can store a lot of them. But what happens if I have that really freakin synth sound, that lasts about 20 seconds and I want to store it - can I only put like two or three of them on my MPC and then it is full?

I don't really get that.

For safety reasons: I am totally new to that whole MPC-thing. I want to bring my music live on stage and now I'm trying to find alternatives to my notebook, because I had some bad experiences and don't really trust in it anymore.

the RAM is an upgrade, any of the older producers including myself will tell you that the amount it comes with is sufficient to put beats together. The upgraded RAM allows you to go nuts but is not critical

I think u should get more familiar with sampling. From past to present.
And 16mb of RAM should be more than enough. I can make tracks with only 750kb of RAM. It depends on sample processing too.

Plus most of the time it's not necessary to use such a long samples. Especially not 2 or 3. U sample maybe 2 or 4 bars. And maybe a few short one shots like horn stabs. It's sampling, and not recording complete songs.

Check a few youtube videos, so u can get the hang of it. Those guys use maybe 10seconds of sampling memory for a whole song.

Thanks for your quick answeres!

Actually I do know quite a bit about sampling because I play in a HipHop-based Band where the DJ used to produce Beats with an old Akai 2000XL. In the last years we changed our way of creating songs from "simply" playing Beats to writing "real" songs with a lot of different parts and chords (and also with live instruments)... if you are interested than have a look at http://www.myspace.com/klartexthiphop .

I have a lot of projects where I want to use loops and samples. Samples are not the problem I guess, but what do I do if I want to have that long soundscape-synth-sounds or maybe a verse of real vocals?

I know that this is not the usual way of working with an MPC, but at the moment I am searching for new ways to bring my music to the crowd. The Akai would give me the important feeling of security on stage and also the flexibility to shorten or lengthen parts of the song for improvisation - this is why I could'nt use a simple HardDisRecorder.

A last question: If I have a 2GB FlashCard or the huge 40GB harddrive installed in the Akai - is this the way to solve all my problems and thoughts and can I load the songs directly and quick from the disk?

I really appreciate every one who takes the time to answere me. I do love the MPCs and the original way of working with it... I simply want to find out what else you can do with it and whether it combines with my vision of songwriting.

well if you want to load huge files off the HD or CF you will need the RAM.

If you want a sampler with a lot of RAM, go with a Roland MV... 1Gb.
IMO... too much RAM memory makes people sloppy with thier beats.

the truth that nobody really wants to admit is that mpcs are real simple machines.
but that's good for some things.

The newer crop of MPC's w/ upgraded ram can hold over 24 minutes of mono sampling time. This isn't enough?

no, that's plenty for what ought to be done on MPCs
but compared to what DAWs do, that's absolutely nothing
not to mention, maniuplating large audio files like that in the mpc is extremely unwieldy

you take something like cubase, protools and reaper and look at what you can do to comp, splice, split and manipulate audio compared to the mpc and the size limitation comparison makes more sense

folks want to look at mpcs as if they were daws but they're strictly compositional

PCs and MPCs are both computers, MPCs are just a hell of a lot weaker technologically than PCs are.

I was mostly responding in reference to this comment.

SteveFromBerlin wrote:But what happens if I have that really freakin synth sound, that lasts about 20 seconds and I want to store it - can I only put like two or three of them on my MPC and then it is full?

Yeah but your right, in comparison to a daw the mpc isn't much. To do any more with a hardware unit you would probably need a 360 Systems Instant Replay. Those cost a grip! I'm thinking of getting an SP-404 as a "poor mans" Instant Replay.

kneebone77 wrote:I was mostly responding in reference to this comment.

SteveFromBerlin wrote:But what happens if I have that really freakin synth sound, that lasts about 20 seconds and I want to store it - can I only put like two or three of them on my MPC and then it is full?

Yeah but your right, in comparison to a daw the mpc isn't much. To do any more with a hardware unit you would probably need a 360 Systems Instant Replay. Those cost a grip! I'm thinking of getting an SP-404 as a "poor mans" Instant Replay.

Don't get that **** SP-404. It has no editing at all! You will end up throwing it into the wall when you find out that you have no attack/decay nor can you pitch the samples!!!! You can timestrech in realtime (sounds ugly), and have alot of effects. It is as much a sampler as the KP3 from korg (which is much cooler). Get the 500, throw 128Mb in it and you'll be happy. It will get you almost 1500 seconds of sampletime!!! If you need more sampletime than that, get a Mac and a soundcard!!

eimer wrote:

kneebone77 wrote:I was mostly responding in reference to this comment.

SteveFromBerlin wrote:But what happens if I have that really freakin synth sound, that lasts about 20 seconds and I want to store it - can I only put like two or three of them on my MPC and then it is full?

Yeah but your right, in comparison to a daw the mpc isn't much. To do any more with a hardware unit you would probably need a 360 Systems Instant Replay. Those cost a grip! I'm thinking of getting an SP-404 as a "poor mans" Instant Replay.

Don't get that **** SP-404. It has no editing at all! You will end up throwing it into the wall when you find out that you have no attack/decay nor can you pitch the samples!!!! You can timestrech in realtime (sounds ugly), and have alot of effects. It is as much a sampler as the KP3 from korg (which is much cooler). Get the 500, throw 128Mb in it and you'll be happy. It will get you almost 1500 seconds of sampletime!!! If you need more sampletime than that, get a Mac and a soundcard!!

Well first off I have other samplers that I use as samplers, the SP-404 is compact and battery powered which makes it nice for what I want to do. Don't need attack, decay or any intense editing really because as I said I'm gonna use it like a "poor mans" Instant Replay and most likely will be shooting in my wavs via USB.
http://www.360systems.com/docs/prod_ir_main.html

The fact that I could fit it with at least a 1 GB compact flash card giving me over 3 hours of CD quality stereo audio makes this more than perfect for triggering off whole backing tracks for live performance. My only hopes are that I could trigger it with a "stutter stop" effect like the MPC pads in mono mode and that it will allow me to play "samples" that are up to 4 and 5 minutes long. (whole songs.)
My only mild regret is that theres no D-Beam ....

To me, it seems like phrase samplers were meant to not hold as much ram as their counterparts do.