Ableton Forum

Im thinking of buying an mpc1000.

I really want to sequence my drums in that and record everything to live. OR just use the mpc as a midi controller when sequencing my drums.

Any mpc user have done this? Is it hard to set up?

TRUST ME YOUR DRUMS WILL ROCK AND 16 LEVEL PAD

if you end up just wanting the pad interface, you should get the MPD16 which is a USB midi interface of the mpc1000 pads

the8bitdeity wrote:if you end up just wanting the pad interface, you should get the MPD16 which is a USB midi interface of the mpc1000 pads

I agree with this. Unless you want to use the MPC1000 for sounds there is no need to buy one. Their nostalgic now and some people are suckered in to buying them because of their history. Get the MPD16

...and the timing between the MPC and Live is not so tight, but the MPD pads are not as responsive as the MPC 1000 pads in my case. I use the MPD only for travelling now.

I'm not so sure the MPC is the miracel cure for beat making. Sometimes I like to render some loops from live and sequnce in the MPC, but Lives sequencer is way more flexible in my opinion.

The MPC's convertors do sound really nice though. For example, my 808 and 909 samples sound terrible in the Impulse but rock in the MPC.

If you could find one used, say for less than $700, go for it. Otherwise, save the money for some good plugins or something else.

The other way would be to sequence your drums in the mpc then drop the midi file and sounds into Live! The mpc isn't purely a nostalgia thing imho, the sound and the timing's different for sure, as is working up beats away from a computer monitor. That plus the usb connectability of the 1000 sure make it a tempting toy if you've got the $$, I've seen them around here for about ¥85,000 new (US$810) so why not? Much more resaleable than plugins too!!

devil's advocate

i was also wondering about getting rid of my rm1x
which has not a good tempo with live
and buy a mpc1000

i would tend to use it with beats and send the outputs to some effects ...

yeah mpc 1000 is good for making beats on first and then sampling the beats into live
the thing has a good master compressor that compresses without the squashing sound. makes beats sound real big.
beware of the notorious dropout notes though with long samples

this thing does sound better than the impulse, i don't know why.(cant time stretch hits though)

and last, if you are going on a sample spree the thing is built for that. i'd sample hits on this anyday opposed to anything else. oh and a hint: the 128mb upgrade is really a 256 chip, so buy 256.[assuming you're getting one]

Yes the compressor is good, as are the filters, but the rest of effects leave me unimpressed. I will admit that the sound coming out of the 1000 is really punchy, and yes its great for sampling. Rather than render in live, i'll sample directly into the MPC for its bigger sound.

What really makes it much more useful to me is the fact that I can assign each track to a different MIDI channel. In live I can setup a bunch of midi tracks to receive on different channels. I usually put a few microtonics, maybe an impule, sometimes other synths. Each track has four banks, and you can assign these to, to clips, whatever. With the MPD, it much more limited as an input device.

hmmmm.

Got you thinikin', didn't I?

A little thread hijacking here, but microtonic simply rocks hard, MPC compressor or no compressor.

Agreed! Microtonic is badass and I need to buy it. Damn you all!

<--- Runs away crying.....

steve-o wrote:Got you thinikin', didn't I?

indeed. after owning too much hardware and now having almost none, this is a piece that i give second & third thoughts to. taking some of the heavy lifting off the cpu in the drums etc dept is a really attractive idea.

Ja,

I wanted the MPC 1000 to process the drums also. I just wanted to do everything drum wise in the mpc, and then just sequence the results in live. Though I do have battery, and the mpd16 would be a great alternative.


I'm considering both.


Thanks again fellas


any more suggestions