Mpc500!!!!!!!
- Thread starter Formant024
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It would depend on what you want.
The MPC500 has the benefit of being able to continue MPC projects on the go and then work on them on your main MPC when you come home and it has a sequencer (though the MIDI inputs are limited and you'd have to use MIDI pass-through.)
The SP-404 has 24-bit/96 Khz sound with a selection of many excellent effects. Sound manipulation is definitely more possible with the SP.
They both have twelve pads as I'm sure you've seen though the SP-404's pads are NOT pressure-sensitive as are those on the MPC500. Sample chopping is the same on both, using your ears or a PC if you want a visual chop.
However, you should keep in mind that the SP-404 is (at this point) half the price and the price difference could be used to buy other things that could make a bigger difference than the added features of the MPC500 (such as VINYL, library sounds *vomits* haha use them but not too much, hardware, soft synths.) If you check Rogue Music, you'll probably be able to find a nice-sounding, inexpensive synth to use in conjunction.
Just my two cents,
Deen
The MPC500 has the benefit of being able to continue MPC projects on the go and then work on them on your main MPC when you come home and it has a sequencer (though the MIDI inputs are limited and you'd have to use MIDI pass-through.)
The SP-404 has 24-bit/96 Khz sound with a selection of many excellent effects. Sound manipulation is definitely more possible with the SP.
They both have twelve pads as I'm sure you've seen though the SP-404's pads are NOT pressure-sensitive as are those on the MPC500. Sample chopping is the same on both, using your ears or a PC if you want a visual chop.
However, you should keep in mind that the SP-404 is (at this point) half the price and the price difference could be used to buy other things that could make a bigger difference than the added features of the MPC500 (such as VINYL, library sounds *vomits* haha use them but not too much, hardware, soft synths.) If you check Rogue Music, you'll probably be able to find a nice-sounding, inexpensive synth to use in conjunction.
Just my two cents,
Deen
The-Shadow
Ego Sum Vox Manus Deus
ill o.g.
They should have maximized that screen area. One stupid little blue screen surrounded by a black border. If that screen was larger, I'd consider it as a take-along unit. Slik said that the MPC 1000 should have been the battery operated unit. I co-sign with that. Lithium polymer technology is getting smaller and smaller. I know they could have crammed a two or three hour LI battery in there somewhere.
T
The Bastard
Guest
think about it tho. a portable mpc, thats sumthin sum1 who travels a lot would need, who travels so much that they would need a portable mpc witt them,
CHEFBOYARBEATZ
Beatmaker
ill o.g.
if they sell this for 400 i might cop it..........
Ominous
OminousRed.com
ill o.g.
Battle Points: 21
Akai MPC500
Pros:
Best Portable Sampler Sequencer out. Can run on batteries. Classic MPC approach to beat production. Very small and sturdy.
Cons:
The USB connection is strictly for data transfer, not DAW control. Does not Phrase Sample.
I got a Happy Birthday e-mail from Illmuzik so I thought I'd drop by and drop a few lines. But instead of leaving a bunch of blah blah I thought I'd leave you guys with something useful. An MPC500 Review. I have outgrown my little Oxygen 8 so I was looking for something else to add to my setup. I wanted to try pads instead of keys. I looked up a lot of videos on YouTube and Google Video about Pad controllers like the MPD16, MPD24 and the Korg PadKontrol. There weren't too many videos about pad controllers but tons about MPCs.
October 2, 2006:
When I went to Guitar Center to get a MPD24, I found out they weren't out yet. They guy tried to give me a brand new MPC2000XL completely upgraded for $1300. I almost went for it but jumping from $199 to $1300 is not what I was trying to do. And you guys claim to be able to get one for E800 some where. But knowing what an MPC can do, I was very tempted. Since he didn't have the MPD24, I was going to get the Korg pads.... but then he broke out the MPC500. For $799 I can have a pad controller for my computer as well as a stand alone sampler/sequencer unit. I bought it as soon as he showed it to me.
October 10, 2006:
My birthday... Before I went home, I stopped by Guitar center to return it. The two cons listed above are the reasons why. I was willing to just use the midi ports to use this unit with my computer. My ultimate goal was to use this unit as an extension of my current setup. I wanted to build beats in Logic and Reason, but use the MPC500 for an ON-The-Go extension of my current setup. Basically loading the same snares and kicks I like to use on my computers onto the MPC, and then load the samples I want to play around with on the MPC500 to take advantage of it's workflow. But since you can't control the DAW through the USB, you need a Midi connection for your laptop. That kills the portability of this unit for use as a controller for your laptop because now you have to carry midi gear to get it to work. But if you are smart you'd be saying, "Ominous... this is a portable MPC, why the hell are you need you laptop when you are holding an MPC?" That's a good point. That's why I didn't trip about the USB situation. What kills me about the MPC500 is it does not Phrase Sample.
For those of you who have an MPC, you know how disappointed I was to find this out. Now, it claims to support phrase samples but I don't see how since the MPC500 has 12 pads and not 16. You can chop up individual files and assign them to pads but the phrase sample feature is way faster than you having to repeat the process for each pad. This for me kills the magic of an MPC. When you are in the groove and you want to just start banging pads to bust out beats, you don't want to have to spend 30 minutes assigning sounds to pads when it could have only taken 10 minutes with Phrase sampling. This goes against the whole reason why the MPC workflow is superior to a computer. You can tap the tempo into the unit instead of trying to calculate it like you do on a computer. And you can spend more time playing with arrangements than messing with Pad Assignments. And the reality of it is... you don't have to have that feature. Without it is the MPC is still the sh*t.
Now don't get me wrong. The MPC500 is an unbeatable unit. You can't get a better portable production station. The freedom of battery power cannot be understated. I'm talking MPC production in you car, on the bus, at lunch... wherever. And as far as I am concerned, you can't beat the MPC style of beat production because it is so hands on and configured around your natural rhythm. And that's coming from a hardcore computer user folks. But... there is no reason why in today's age of technology that you can't control a DAW through the USB connection and no MPC should be without Phrase Sampling.
I mean, just ask yourself these questions. Why can the MPD16 and the MPD24 control you computer's DAW through the USB port but the 500 can't? Why can an older MPC1000 phrase sample but a newer 500 can't? The truth is, you can take your pre-chopped wav files from you computer and transfer them to you MPC and them make beats anywhere you want to go on the MPC500. That's what I ended up doing. But one, the transfer rate was horribly slow. I'm talking annoying slow. Two, if I am going to chop wavs on my CPU, why the hell would I need a portable sampler sequencer when I can just walk around with my laptop and continue to make the beat since I chopped it up on the laptop to begin with? And then on top of all that... once I loaded my sounds onto the 500, I learned the hard way about naming convention. You can't name files for you MPC the way you can on you computer. I have file names that are 20+ characters long. The MPC only recognizes like 9 characters or something. So if you have 10 files named ImpeachthePres_drumloop_01, ImpeachthePres_drumloop_02, etc, etc. It keeps triggering the first sound because it can't distinguish the difference between the files because all it sees is "ImpeachthePres_dr". So then I had to shorten all the names to get the MPC500 to see all the sounds.
Don't take my word for it. Maybe I'm just a retard and I didn't know how to properly use the unit. Maybe it does control your computer through the USB port and I just had my unit set up incorrectly. Don't let me steer people wrong. If you know different... say so. But once I found out it doesn't Phrase sample, I no longer cared to see if I was doing something wrong. And the Phrase sampling issue is the truth because it says it right in the manual. And again, this is only my opinion. In the hands of some you talented producers, you can bang out some nice tracks on an MPC500. But I figured, for what you pay you should get everything it can offer.
Phrase sampling is not an end all issue. But I am sure I don't have to tell you, workflow is so important. The faster and easier it is for you to get you ideas out onto a track, the better. You don't want to waste your time editing samples the way this thing makes you do it. Unless of course, this is all you have.
I ended up getting an Axiom 61. So far I already like it. More keys and drum pads. From what I can tell, it is a Reason workhorse. As soon as I figure it out, I will post a video of how it works with Reason instead of typing a huge ass review. I will still probably get an MPD24 because I ain't dragging a big ass 61 key keyboard around with my laptop. I'll try to get that Axiom video up by November 1st.
Pros:
Best Portable Sampler Sequencer out. Can run on batteries. Classic MPC approach to beat production. Very small and sturdy.
Cons:
The USB connection is strictly for data transfer, not DAW control. Does not Phrase Sample.
I got a Happy Birthday e-mail from Illmuzik so I thought I'd drop by and drop a few lines. But instead of leaving a bunch of blah blah I thought I'd leave you guys with something useful. An MPC500 Review. I have outgrown my little Oxygen 8 so I was looking for something else to add to my setup. I wanted to try pads instead of keys. I looked up a lot of videos on YouTube and Google Video about Pad controllers like the MPD16, MPD24 and the Korg PadKontrol. There weren't too many videos about pad controllers but tons about MPCs.
October 2, 2006:
When I went to Guitar Center to get a MPD24, I found out they weren't out yet. They guy tried to give me a brand new MPC2000XL completely upgraded for $1300. I almost went for it but jumping from $199 to $1300 is not what I was trying to do. And you guys claim to be able to get one for E800 some where. But knowing what an MPC can do, I was very tempted. Since he didn't have the MPD24, I was going to get the Korg pads.... but then he broke out the MPC500. For $799 I can have a pad controller for my computer as well as a stand alone sampler/sequencer unit. I bought it as soon as he showed it to me.
October 10, 2006:
My birthday... Before I went home, I stopped by Guitar center to return it. The two cons listed above are the reasons why. I was willing to just use the midi ports to use this unit with my computer. My ultimate goal was to use this unit as an extension of my current setup. I wanted to build beats in Logic and Reason, but use the MPC500 for an ON-The-Go extension of my current setup. Basically loading the same snares and kicks I like to use on my computers onto the MPC, and then load the samples I want to play around with on the MPC500 to take advantage of it's workflow. But since you can't control the DAW through the USB, you need a Midi connection for your laptop. That kills the portability of this unit for use as a controller for your laptop because now you have to carry midi gear to get it to work. But if you are smart you'd be saying, "Ominous... this is a portable MPC, why the hell are you need you laptop when you are holding an MPC?" That's a good point. That's why I didn't trip about the USB situation. What kills me about the MPC500 is it does not Phrase Sample.
For those of you who have an MPC, you know how disappointed I was to find this out. Now, it claims to support phrase samples but I don't see how since the MPC500 has 12 pads and not 16. You can chop up individual files and assign them to pads but the phrase sample feature is way faster than you having to repeat the process for each pad. This for me kills the magic of an MPC. When you are in the groove and you want to just start banging pads to bust out beats, you don't want to have to spend 30 minutes assigning sounds to pads when it could have only taken 10 minutes with Phrase sampling. This goes against the whole reason why the MPC workflow is superior to a computer. You can tap the tempo into the unit instead of trying to calculate it like you do on a computer. And you can spend more time playing with arrangements than messing with Pad Assignments. And the reality of it is... you don't have to have that feature. Without it is the MPC is still the sh*t.
Now don't get me wrong. The MPC500 is an unbeatable unit. You can't get a better portable production station. The freedom of battery power cannot be understated. I'm talking MPC production in you car, on the bus, at lunch... wherever. And as far as I am concerned, you can't beat the MPC style of beat production because it is so hands on and configured around your natural rhythm. And that's coming from a hardcore computer user folks. But... there is no reason why in today's age of technology that you can't control a DAW through the USB connection and no MPC should be without Phrase Sampling.
I mean, just ask yourself these questions. Why can the MPD16 and the MPD24 control you computer's DAW through the USB port but the 500 can't? Why can an older MPC1000 phrase sample but a newer 500 can't? The truth is, you can take your pre-chopped wav files from you computer and transfer them to you MPC and them make beats anywhere you want to go on the MPC500. That's what I ended up doing. But one, the transfer rate was horribly slow. I'm talking annoying slow. Two, if I am going to chop wavs on my CPU, why the hell would I need a portable sampler sequencer when I can just walk around with my laptop and continue to make the beat since I chopped it up on the laptop to begin with? And then on top of all that... once I loaded my sounds onto the 500, I learned the hard way about naming convention. You can't name files for you MPC the way you can on you computer. I have file names that are 20+ characters long. The MPC only recognizes like 9 characters or something. So if you have 10 files named ImpeachthePres_drumloop_01, ImpeachthePres_drumloop_02, etc, etc. It keeps triggering the first sound because it can't distinguish the difference between the files because all it sees is "ImpeachthePres_dr". So then I had to shorten all the names to get the MPC500 to see all the sounds.
Don't take my word for it. Maybe I'm just a retard and I didn't know how to properly use the unit. Maybe it does control your computer through the USB port and I just had my unit set up incorrectly. Don't let me steer people wrong. If you know different... say so. But once I found out it doesn't Phrase sample, I no longer cared to see if I was doing something wrong. And the Phrase sampling issue is the truth because it says it right in the manual. And again, this is only my opinion. In the hands of some you talented producers, you can bang out some nice tracks on an MPC500. But I figured, for what you pay you should get everything it can offer.
Phrase sampling is not an end all issue. But I am sure I don't have to tell you, workflow is so important. The faster and easier it is for you to get you ideas out onto a track, the better. You don't want to waste your time editing samples the way this thing makes you do it. Unless of course, this is all you have.
I ended up getting an Axiom 61. So far I already like it. More keys and drum pads. From what I can tell, it is a Reason workhorse. As soon as I figure it out, I will post a video of how it works with Reason instead of typing a huge ass review. I will still probably get an MPD24 because I ain't dragging a big ass 61 key keyboard around with my laptop. I'll try to get that Axiom video up by November 1st.
BROUSSARD BEATS
BroussardGoHard
ill o.g.
i don't like the screen that shit is to small
for the same price as the mpc1000 i have
hell no
for the same price as the mpc1000 i have
hell no
Formant024
Digital Smokerings
ill o.g.
Ominous, really, those are not the arguments indeed but personel preference because what you're talking about is basic mpc operating and yes, sometimes you need to work in advance in order to work straight away and sometimes you need to put in effort cuz that what makes your tracks better then others ( so to say lol ).
The DAW control issue... Let me take another example, the bcr from behringer works via usb but if and when you decide that the controller needs to steer more than the pc ( thus chained amongst other midi gear ) then the USB function can be skipped. On another note, if you want to use USB ( and if that was possible to use it to control a daw ) you would need to set the midi driver to a usb type driver ruling out all other midi gear in the setup ( the mpc usb driver would be the only midi driver ) and that really isnt a great thing.
IMO, you need to grow your perspectives on the midi side of producing cuz in my book a setup with an mpc and laptop without a midi device in between are just 2 setups...
Also, it probably wouldve worked fine with reason ( as a daw/midi controller ) and a midi port can be had very, very, very cheap.
The 12 pads, well that can be an issue if all the breaks you chop are 16 beat, but if they're 16 beat than I bet that at least 80% of those phrases contain the same drums, so 12 pads would be sufficient.
Anyhow, this keeps happening, even when the 2kxl came out peeps bought it and either it gathered dust for a year or they sold it after 2 months...and now people are trading in 1k's for 2kxls...same thing lol
The DAW control issue... Let me take another example, the bcr from behringer works via usb but if and when you decide that the controller needs to steer more than the pc ( thus chained amongst other midi gear ) then the USB function can be skipped. On another note, if you want to use USB ( and if that was possible to use it to control a daw ) you would need to set the midi driver to a usb type driver ruling out all other midi gear in the setup ( the mpc usb driver would be the only midi driver ) and that really isnt a great thing.
IMO, you need to grow your perspectives on the midi side of producing cuz in my book a setup with an mpc and laptop without a midi device in between are just 2 setups...
Also, it probably wouldve worked fine with reason ( as a daw/midi controller ) and a midi port can be had very, very, very cheap.
The 12 pads, well that can be an issue if all the breaks you chop are 16 beat, but if they're 16 beat than I bet that at least 80% of those phrases contain the same drums, so 12 pads would be sufficient.
Anyhow, this keeps happening, even when the 2kxl came out peeps bought it and either it gathered dust for a year or they sold it after 2 months...and now people are trading in 1k's for 2kxls...same thing lol
D
duncan87
Guest
shit wouldnt work 4 me..my fingers would press mad buttons at the same time
IMO that shit should be like 500 bucks....For the asking retail price i wouldnt waste my money even tho that thing is sick as fuck. Its only 200 bucks less then the 1000 for fucks sake!....The hell is that?!.....Smart really, at least on Akai's behalf. Those guys are makin bank on all the poor saps that have buku bucks to shell out.
Nyne_Lyvez81
Beatmaker
ill o.g.
my akai mpc 500 is nice i like it i've jus learned how 2 use it but i can only make little patterns like 5 secs long i dont know how 2 make full songs
i actually wanna try out that new shit they got out the akai mpk49 a keyboard and a mpc shit looks ace as fuck but its still got the 12 pads though hit up the site 4 more info if some of you's know wut im talkin about
i actually wanna try out that new shit they got out the akai mpk49 a keyboard and a mpc shit looks ace as fuck but its still got the 12 pads though hit up the site 4 more info if some of you's know wut im talkin about
Nyne_Lyvez81
Beatmaker
ill o.g.
here it is
works on batteries and even has a screen toggle to save batteries. To be released in oktober, on a list price of $799 ( as far as I found it for ).
that shit is pretty sweet once i got used 2 it
Nyne_Lyvez81
Beatmaker
ill o.g.
dude that'd be kinda fuckin sweet i wonder wut that shit would look like? n e one got an mpc3000 even though thats not related to this article?