SPOON!




Beats, gotta love em. MPC's make hiphop beat creation feel natural and damn fun to make.. but analog or digital? what is right for you?


Choosing the right MPC can depend on a few different factors. The biggest factor though will be your current beat making setup and the style of beat making that you are most comfortable with.

For example, If you are a PC or MAC guy, and you are thinking of throwing a piece of hardware into the mix, you may not need a 5000, 4000, or even a 2500. You might just mostly use it for midi drumpad triggering, or the occassional drum sequencing, etc. Or you might be one of those guys (like myself) who like to use it strictly for its sequencing abilities, and use it as the focal point of your studio setup. For the latter, the 60, 3000 and 2000/XL are perfect additions. If you want to move away from making beats on the computer completely, or at least want to have the option available to do so in the most powerful way, the 4000 is a beast, followed by the 5000, 2500, and if you are on a tight budget or need portability, the 1000.

i;d recommend going with a vst like ni's battery 3 $200 and a mpc 3000 ~$1200used or a mpc 2500 ~$1000used. sample everything through the 3000 into your daw. the 3000 has a great thick sound, and overloading it's circuitry with the gain control on the back will give you the classic mpc drum sound. then use it's sequencer to trigger inside the daw. Saving your work is as quick as command save. no freezing during chopping, quick slicing and all of the paramaters available in the mpc plus more, time stretching, saturation, lo-fi hipass filters and mute groups which the 3000 dosen't have.


my friend in CHI-TOWN who make rap likes his workflow, note repeat, aftertouch to velocity, swing+shift features and pads.
So he bought a 3000 and installed a cardreader.
Samples to 3000, transfers them to DAW (audio outs or digital) for chopping and editing, uses card for swapping samples, triggers drums from MP and syncs it to DAW (Daw as sound module and mixing facilities)

BOOM BAP!!!

The MPC 2000xl is simple to use and has great punch with the drums,but what I like the most is the user friendly sequencing.

Dude i know in San Diego has got a MPC 500, he says it's awesome and runs on batteries

beats on the beach!


What to Look for in a good MPC:

1. Swing.
2. Natural dynamic response on drum pads.
3. Pressure-sensitive note repeat (also called roll).
4. The playback timing should be very accurate.
5. You need good beats.
6. Try not to let the technology get in the way of music-making.


now go rob a guitar center and get a MPC, and make some beats!

 

word

 

I vouch for the MPC 1K. I didnt get the unit first until I learned and practiced it's secrets. This is the unit that I know so well it will make me rich. I am gutter authentic, ghetto compatible and I will tell you you cant bang out a driving beat out of no computer. Why? Because of power. The electric current loses its "momentum" or snappiness inside a pc. The electric force is cut back and redelegated to power the many components alongside a demanding OS in terms of instruction cycles that need to pass the advanced transistor fields. The mp is powered likewise but triggers fresh and snappy(audio and midi) because it rocks a tiny os and has a far shorter instruction/trigger path than advanced processor architectures. Im running mine unexpanded with only 16mb memory and is on dual boot with JJ free 3.14 and JJ OS3 1.14 (this os i updated regularly).

 

I have a fair amount of samplers/sequencers:

a MPC2000xl,a MPC2000, Maschine, Triton LE w/sampling option, Emu Mp-7

plus rack mounts like the Akai Z4, E-mu Esi-4000, Korg DSM-1, etc.

I think the MPC is a bit overrated. The MPC-60 and E-mu SP12/1200 had flavor (like any other 12-bit sampler), the mpc-3000 was a workhorse, but anything from the mpc 2000 and above is nothing special really.

The whole cool thing about samplers originally was to have a blank canvas to discover, manipulate, and create new sounds. Nowadays is all about how close can I sound to ____ successful producer...which is why everyone is trying to sell drum libraries.

In my opinion, the slightly older workstations (2000-era) are the most underrated. You usually have a full sampler, sequencer, and effects, all right in front of you, plus a good bread-and butter sound library. Because most folks only used them as preset machines, older workstations are usual seen as played out and can be snagged for dirt cheap. I paid around $150 for my Triton Le. You could easily find a older Motif, Triton, or Motif for way less than buying a MPC and sound module.

I literally have put my MPC, MP-7, Triton, and Maschine side-by-side and made beats, one after the other. I found they have more in common that different. They're all just pattern based sequencers. Unless you're trying build up MPC live finger-drumming chops, you can make the same beats on any of these if you develop your ear and read the effin' manual.

 

This is probably the biggest load of rubbish ever written on Audiosex...