Has anyone properly A/B'ed a MPC5000 with a MV8800?

Seriously, fanboy acolytism aside, what are the pros and cons of each instrument in comparison?

Personally, I don't like the way Roland GUI's work. I have a VS2480, which is a beast and I couldn't ask for a better sounding machine, but I find it counter-intuative to work with. I've always got on well with MPC's, but I refuse to believe the MV is all bad. If anyone has ever put a 5k and an 8800 on a bench to A/B, I'd like to hear your thoughts.

Cheers.

Cheebatone wrote:Seriously, fanboy acolytism aside, what are the pros and cons of each instrument in comparison?

Personally, I don't like the way Roland GUI's work. I have a VS2480, which is a beast and I couldn't ask for a better sounding machine, but I find it counter-intuative to work with. I've always got on well with MPC's, but I refuse to believe the MV is all bad. If anyone has ever put a 5k and an 8800 on a bench to A/B, I'd like to hear your thoughts.

Cheers.

It is obvious what unit I prefer. However, I do like the color graphics of the MV more than I do an MPC. Roland does have an edge there. Like-wise, the color LCD of the Fantom G is (or at least should be) the future.

I'ved owned both.

what exactly do you wanna know?

Ive owned both and took the mv back. They are practically giving them away in guitar center. I thought the color screen was cool to, and also the linear editing function(looks like a DAW). It has some really cool features and feels like a janky piece of crap compared to the mpc5000. I really dont see a comparison. The ui does not touch the mpc in terms of functionality and either does the sound quality. I took a sample of a guitar riff (which I had to turn the trim all the way up to here it) and when I played it back it was half the volume I monitored the sound at. I really dont care if there was some deeper reasoning of why this happened or why I had to turn the headphone volume all the way up to hear anything. The fact is if it does this out of the box what else will i run into. Guaranteed Rizza is crackin a beat on a mpc5000 right now and the mv is in the closet along with the money he got for endorsing it.

Heres my review from zzounds.com Mind you I did this review last January.

Feature:
ALOT OF FEATURES. if you have a PC with alot of softwarez, alot of the mv features will go unused. You will simply use it as a drum pad and sequencer. Might as well get a 2k with better timing.

Quality:
Compared to Akai, Roland is light years ahead in terms of support.

Value:
The value on this machine will continue to decline. By summer 08' the mv8000 will be worth about 600 bucks and the 8800 will be worth about 900.

Desirability:
The way roland advertises, one would def want this machine. But knowing my needs in music and knowing what this machine has to offer, this machine doesnt fit my needs.

Sound:
degrades your overall sound. However, its dope if you want a grity type sound...

Ease of Use:
I found the sequencer layout to be excellent.

Support:
Never had to deal with them. MVnation.com is the best.

Overall:
If it wasn't for the sequencer throwing midi notes out of place and having to go back and adjust notes to get the right sound, then the MV would def be a MPC killer for me. However this is not the case and the boys at MVnation.com will send you an e-virus if you talk about The MV's timing. You can say anything else negative about the MV but once u start talking about the timing, they get offensive. Check out this youtube video below to get a visual description of what I'm talking about. before you watch the video, understand that his timing with the metronome is off in the beginning, however, listen at the 1:45 mark and at the 2:15 mark to hear the MV place the kick/snare notes out of place. The MV randomly does this and you have to correct it. Its very frustrating... http://youtube.com/watch?v=xhrSIN2fBFY

Go for the 5000. I had an MV before, and it had 3 times lesser effects and the timing of the sequencer was horridly bad.

I had one. but don't own a 5k yet. The timing problem is certainly there. Diegoeskryptic, I do wonder if it has to do with the metronome drifting. The reason is I had the same problem with Cubase. There was a timing bug that they fixed and I got a good midi interface but the problem was still there. I read on the Cubase forum to use a midi sound as the metronome. I switched from the audio metronome to sending it to my keyboard for playback and bam, it worked. The reason is that Cubase has two time bases. Musical and linear. By default one is used for midi. I believe the audio metronome is based on the linear time base. The problem is the two timing sources are not in sync so if you are dealing with midi the audio clock drifts out of sync with the midi clock slightly.

I know this is a confirmed problem with the MV that the audio drifts because it is not sample accurate. That's why you have to slice long audio tracks to keep them in sync. So what if the metronome is based on the same clock as the audio tracks? You will be playing to a drifting metronome and when you play it back it SEEMS different to how you played it. You should holla at the folks at the nation to try this and see if it improves timing accuracy. That is if it allows you to re-rout the click.

They keep saying to lower the ppq. You should not have to do that. My other devices run at 480 ppq and I don't have the same problem. My 4k ran at 960ppq and still no problem. It always recorded exactly as I played bad or good. BTW I always record with no input quantize and know how to operate both machines properly.

To the original poster, The MV is a great tool other than the timing issue. Lowering the resolution does help with that. The advantages are the real time time stretching with BPM sync. Reads acidized with tempo info. Also reads several other formats including mpc200 and s1000etc. Great chopping features and manual non-destructive chopping with the clip board feature. VGA and mouse lets you move sequencer data real easy and makes up for some of the long winded awkward layout. The linear song mode is great and lets you record pattern chantes in real time. Much better than the MPC song mode.

Feature packed like the 4k and the OS is supper stable.

Like all Roland older samplers it sucks some of the high end out of samples. It tries to artificially put it back in with the Roland emphasis parameter. Some will like this character it gives but sometimes it will dull out the sample. Depending on the track this can be good or bad. The filters are not all that great. To me it still sounds better than the 2500.

The effects are alright but you only get reverb chorus and 1MFX plus master. Still way better that what you get on older MPCs and about on par with the 5k

Pads are really stiff and have dead corners.

The load times are really slow.

no 16 levels for pitch

Big and heavy. You don't want to move this thing ever!

Some functions are not easy to get to as the MPC and the layout is a little awkward. This causes a steep learning curve trying to learn how things work because for me it seemed to be unnatural and needlessly complicated. Overall the work flow still is not bad once you get the hang of it. Especially if you use the VGA

MV8800 should be a art deco coffee table might be a better market for this thing. I could really care if it has a vga function or a little color screen that you can barely see since it does not rotate like the 5k. Most people have DAWS these days and want to make there beat with as little light or pretty colors in there face as possible.

I've had the opportunity to use an MV and an mpc1000 with JJOS2 (ok I know its not the 5000). Features aside, what one must consider is work flow ease. The mpc1000 with JJOS2 is quite elegant in this regard. The whole point is getting the beat and melody flowing quickly so no loss of creativity is missed. I know it seems petty but all control can be coordinated by the right hand without moving an inch. The MV, while good, is a bit clunky and rigid in this regard, the lcd screen is needed, but then editing midi notes is not as fluid as that found in a software daw. One thing though the OS is as stable as brick, can't say that for the mpc even with JJ OS2.

one thing that seem to trip people off with MVs sequencer is the quantize feature. it's more evolved than MPCs. different settings affect the groove feel different. it can actually reshape the groove...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KXxxMs-AkMo

I do think MPC pads feel better, and I also think numark is putting out shit on the market.

keep in mind they're different machines to cater to different crowd. there is no winner it's what suits you best. they're unique machines that hold their own with different sets of features.


http://www.youtube.com/user/Berndigital

konc3pt wrote:one thing that seem to trip people off with MVs sequencer is the quantize feature. it's more evolved than MPCs. different settings affect the groove feel different. it can actually reshape the groove...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KXxxMs-AkMo

I do think MPC pads feel better, and I also think numark is putting out **** on the market.

keep in mind they're different machines to cater to different crowd. there is no winner it's what suits you best. they're unique machines that hold their own with different sets of features.


http://www.youtube.com/user/Berndigital

Without regard to deep midi editing(which I can do about a thousand times more in logic) the mv is just not a quality product. I really tried to make myself like this machine and Im not partial at all. i bought the mv before the 5k because it seemed like a step into the future. The concept is cool but it does not work right yet. The MPC might have a lot of bugs but nothing has the feel of one and thats why it is still the undisputed champ. AND ITS GRIMY

fenix wrote:I do think MPC pads feel better, and I also think numark is putting out **** on the market.

Without regard to deep midi editing(which I can do about a thousand times more in logic) the mv is just not a quality product. I really tried to make myself like this machine and Im not partial at all. i bought the mv before the 5k because it seemed like a step into the future. The concept is cool but it does not work right yet. The MPC might have a lot of bugs but nothing has the feel of one and thats why it is still the undisputed champ. AND ITS GRIMY

you comparing apples to oranges...software vs hardware was never fair comparison. we are comparing mpc with mv, remember ? MV didnt work out for you that's fine, when I first got my mpc 1000 or the 2500 that shit was world to me.

there is definately people out there who can make a banger with mv, mpc, fruity loops, reason etc...as I said before different gear to cater to different crowd. there aint no winner is what suits you best.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h1la_2uj_bM

I switched to MV after my 2500 busted, shit ran me 300 to fix. 2 yr old machine with mild to moderate use,wtf ?. Did I mentioned it rattled a little too, yea Numark, yar shit rattles ? It was a rough ride with the MV for bout a week. I was ready to put it back on ebay, the MV is oFF beat!... but once I figured out quantize feature it only got better from that point.

btw nobody mentioned in this post that one can mix and master within the MV, then burn the track with already included CD-R drive!.

There is limitations I dont like about this machine, but it's overall feature set, workflow is real good.

I think MV"s limit of only being able to load 16 sound patches per project is complete bullshit for what's advertised to be all in one solution. Especially with 512MB or 1GB of RAM in that thing the only limit should be RAM.
I got a motif, healty vinyl stack and some vsts I dont even bother loading or creating sound patches for that thing.

On top of that currently there is no multiple output expansions available for MV. Roland decided to stop producing them since they werent selling.

As mentioned earlier MPC pads feel better. I got a mod in mind to fix this

Sampler part of MV, it does sound thinner in comparison to akai sampler. nothing that cant be fixed with some EQing.
I learned fatter sounding sampler out of the box without any EQ could be a good or bad thing.
I think it's better to start with flat sound.

I wish you could resize MV's operational windows to whatever size you like as opposed to being fixed size. oh well.

Cons I mentioned is problems that bother me, with no doubt runs circles around my ex2500 that I sold for the same price I picked up my MV for.

After my expierience with my 2500 I am little weary of current nukai MPC line, I know I'm not the only one who feels like that on here. I see they're pushing towards midi controllers, maybe that's what they should be doing.

gotta go now. I'm off to england in few hours. L8r

I know with the mpc1000 the eq gain at 60 Hz is greatly inflated and the mid-bass around 500 is decreased, that's why when you initially hit your bass drum it really thumps. But this is just a preset in the eq, it's strange how some people would choose one tool over a preset eq setting. I would say the mv is of very high quality. I have A-B 'ed the mv and mpc1000 using the same sequence, using the same eq settings, to my ears the mv has a better stereo presence and a more rounded deep bottom end, but to be honest it is not a huge difference, only a music nerd like me would notice

Ya Im kind of a music expert as well( or nerd as you put it) and I have a vast knowledge like gandolf does magic for music. We are comparing the 5k and the mv8800 since there price range is much more similiar than the 1k and the mv. When I recorded a sample into the mv with the trim all the way up to get a good signal on the mic, the playback volume was about half of the original signal. I dont care if theres something I dont have set right on the godamn machine. You know why? Because this is the most primal **** function of a sampler. This is the point, usability. I dont want to have to leap through menus to find quantize in some pop up menu when I have it in one push of a button with my mpc. I want to make music, and **** with it later in post production. Im tryin to vibe. Its kinda like when your about to **** and you have one of those off brand condoms by the time you get it on... well you know the rest