I just copped a new MPC 1000 and......

mercyplease · Post by **mercyplease** » Thu Sep 21, 2006 10:42 am

Patch wrote:I got a question...

You can bang out beats in a million ways. Does it sound better if you do it on an MPC 1000/2000/2500/3000???

If you use the same sounds in a software drum machine/sequencer, does it sound different?
?

it will sound the same or very close but thats not really the issue. Using an MPC you will be programming with feel as you have no midi latency THAT makes a huge difference to the end result.

minimal · Post by **minimal** » Thu Sep 21, 2006 10:46 am

deckme(N)tal wrote:i just installed the new independent os 1.0....and now i have got autochromatic, chop shop, grid edit, multiple pad change....it is becoming a beast (my mpc!)

I'm considering buying one as well... does the new unofficial OS has some step sequencer-like function? I remember seeing some screeshots but I'm not sure...

mercyplease · Post by **mercyplease** » Thu Sep 21, 2006 10:53 am

deckme(N)tal wrote:you can get MPC-like results on TF/Live...but with this time schedule:
MPC:5 minutes
TF/Live: 25 minutes, after that, you are bored and you don't want to hear that drum loop anymore....at least for me....
.

Well said and exactly true. I dont know if Im in the minority here but when I program anything in Live once I have a few tracks running it becomes a waste of time and frustrating due to latency. Sure I can program non fancy striaight rythms but anything with feel and groove its a dead horse. Live has an awful high midi latency compared to the daws I use. They suffer from this as well but much later on in the project.
When Live is said to be a performance instrument I take that statement with a pinch of salt. Its more like a rehearse and store your performance for later on stage.
about fifteen years ago I first tried a PC/mac for music the first thing I noticed was the midi latency yet and we still have this problem today.
Theres been a resurgence of hardware according to my local music shop. I think this issue has a lot to do with it.
No one should bother telling me to adjust my latency settings.

mercyplease · Post by **mercyplease** » Thu Sep 21, 2006 11:15 am

bermudagold wrote:the way i understand it,...and this far from gospel.....there are three issues

1) the mpc sound.....the sound people here and revere comes from the ad/da converters in the box that provide a certain sound to your samples that people instantly like....with no tweaking.....people originally thought it was just the mpc lower bit rate and if you used a bit reducer and a compressor in a software DAW like LIVE,...u could achieve this sound.....but most people i know and countless posters on forums say they cant acheive this and thats because u cant emulate akais converters.....,could you with bit reducers, compression, eq, and the analog warmer plugs (saturation{to mimic tape}, artificial harmonics{to mimic vinyl}, amplification overdrive{to mimic pre/power amps}, and delayed phase adjustment of left and right channels{to mimic hardware maximiser/exciters like BBE}; eventually accomplish this in live or another daw?.....maybe.....but people have chosen rather than spend all that time, money, and clock cycles chasing that elusive sound when they can get it from an mpc instantly.......and lots of people want that sound,..can hear it in a blind test.....there is something psychoacoustically pleasing about it.....so if u wanna use both i would record audio into live and not try and bounce midi.....see point 2

2) there is the timing/groove issue.....since daw are sample accurate,...it is probably the mpc timing that is indeed off/strange/special....or some combination of the above.....it gives extra groove to peoples music that apparently wasnt played in......people believe this is because (and i dont know if the new ones have this)....the old ones you werent visually accurately cutting ur samples......so every sample would have a different amount of dead space at the beginning and end of ur sample.....leading to a sort of forced swing as hits would be alternate from being a lil late to a lil early......could u acheive this in a daw?.....u can play in swing/groove because it is a feel,...but u have to have talent(the feel)......the box is not going to add something interesting to it for u by itself ....like the mpc can.....again for many the mpc is an easier route.......again some developers have talked about emulating this with an algorithm to randomly or intelligently add a varying amount of dead space to the beginning or end of samples in a daw before u lay down the pattern with ur piano keyboard or pad midi controller.

3) then there is of course always placebo

Well said.

muthafunka · Post by **muthafunka** » Thu Sep 21, 2006 11:23 am

Have to come clean and say I've been thinking about the mpc again for just this reason, always seems that once I have a few tracks going the responsiveness of my Trigger Finger just goes to shit, trying to play drums etc with any kind of feel is just not possible. One super-attractive feature of the mpc 1000 is the usb sample transfer too, heck if the beats are tight and you want to do it all ITB just dump the midi file over to Live and use the same samples.
Using a Fireface 800, tried latency up/down...whatever, wading through midi sludge I am. Haven't had time to really try and pin it but have been thinking about posting something about this recently as it's been quite a turn-off for a long time and thought it might be something suspect in my setup, apparently not. Any other Fireface users care to talk latencies/timing etc??

robin · Post by **robin** » Thu Sep 21, 2006 11:25 am

My mate's a techno producer. He swears by his mpc2000xl. Needless to say I'm working on him lending me it for a bit.

deckme(N)tal · Post by **deckme(N)tal** » Thu Sep 21, 2006 11:51 am

http://www7a.biglobe.ne.jp/%7Empc1000/
^^^^ new os webpage...
This makes the mpc 1000 an huge machine...yes there is a step sequecer too (grid edit)
i like to use mpc to program beats and live to arrange them (fx etc.)
a must try..!

robin · Post by **robin** » Thu Sep 21, 2006 11:57 am

So does anyone who knows their MPC onions know if the new MPC500 is going to be any good?

Any drawbacks to the design etc?

I know it's a little early to comment but anything glaringly wrong at this stage?

funknotik · Post by **funknotik** » Thu Sep 21, 2006 12:00 pm

deckme(N)tal wrote:i only used fruity loops midi...and it better than live one...in terms of timing strictly
i dunno about pro tools, reason or logic...

Hey just wondering do you really thing flstudio timing is better than live!! I've been thinking the same thing for a while. But everyone keeps saying "LIVE IS perfect it cant have bad timing FLSTudio is for toddlers!!!!"
I think fl has better timing tooo!!

funknotik · Post by **funknotik** » Thu Sep 21, 2006 12:01 pm

deckme(N)tal · Post by **deckme(N)tal** » Thu Sep 21, 2006 12:12 pm

it seems that in mpc500 u can not slice samples...but it recognizes samples sliced in to mpc 1000 and 2500.
the screen is really little and it has got no additional outs.
So cool, if you want something that runs with batteries or just to mangle on a live stage....if not just buy the 1000, more versatile,complete, good for studio and live gigs too...

robin · Post by **robin** » Thu Sep 21, 2006 12:13 pm

deckme(N)tal wrote:it seems that in mpc500 u can not slice samples...but it recognizes samples sliced in to mpc 1000 and 2500.
the screen is really little and it has got no additional outs.
So cool, if you want something that runs with batteries or just to mangle on a live stage....if not just buy the 1000, more versatile,complete, good for studio and live gigs too...

OK cool, seems like the mpc1000 is still the one to have.

muthafunka · Post by **muthafunka** » Thu Sep 21, 2006 12:42 pm

No roll/repeat button on the 500 either? Have a look at http://musicthing.blogspot.com/ for more info /opinion. Feeling the 1000 though, might have to try borrow one a while.

john gordon · Post by **john gordon** » Wed Sep 27, 2006 3:18 am

i just picked up a mpc 1000 again and with the new os.i realize that having that with live is an amazing set up.i will never get rid of the mpc again.

STRATEGY_510 · Post by **STRATEGY_510** » Wed Sep 27, 2006 6:09 pm

bermudagold wrote:the way i understand it,...and this far from gospel.....there are three issues

1) the mpc sound.....the sound people here and revere comes from the ad/da converters in the box that provide a certain sound to your samples that people instantly like....with no tweaking.....people originally thought it was just the mpc lower bit rate and if you used a bit reducer and a compressor in a software DAW like LIVE,...u could achieve this sound.....but most people i know and countless posters on forums say they cant acheive this and thats because u cant emulate akais converters.....,could you with bit reducers, compression, eq, and the analog warmer plugs (saturation{to mimic tape}, artificial harmonics{to mimic vinyl}, amplification overdrive{to mimic pre/power amps}, and delayed phase adjustment of left and right channels{to mimic hardware maximiser/exciters like BBE}; eventually accomplish this in live or another daw?.....maybe.....but people have chosen rather than spend all that time, money, and clock cycles chasing that elusive sound when they can get it from an mpc instantly.......and lots of people want that sound,..can hear it in a blind test.....there is something psychoacoustically pleasing about it.....so if u wanna use both i would record audio into live and not try and bounce midi.....see point 2

2) there is the timing/groove issue.....since daw are sample accurate,...it is probably the mpc timing that is indeed off/strange/special....or some combination of the above.....it gives extra groove to peoples music that apparently wasnt played in......people believe this is because (and i dont know if the new ones have this)....the old ones you werent visually accurately cutting ur samples......so every sample would have a different amount of dead space at the beginning and end of ur sample.....leading to a sort of forced swing as hits would be alternate from being a lil late to a lil early......could u acheive this in a daw?.....u can play in swing/groove because it is a feel,...but u have to have talent(the feel)......the box is not going to add something interesting to it for u by itself ....like the mpc can.....again for many the mpc is an easier route.......again some developers have talked about emulating this with an algorithm to randomly or intelligently add a varying amount of dead space to the beginning or end of samples in a daw before u lay down the pattern with ur piano keyboard or pad midi controller.

3) then there is of course always placebo

4) The MPC's internal summing??

STRATEGY