question about muting & un-muting via hitting the pads

[knobsmcgee]

yeah, some ppl do live shows based around multitrackers.

[POLIDO]

I own a MPC 2000XL and am thinking about getting a SP-404SX mainly for live performances. I find myself limited with the MPC2000XL, performance-wise.

The main problem with any MPC (i believe, don't know much about the 2500 and 5000 other than that they are somewhat buggy) is the low memory. In the SP you don't have to worry about that since the machine is playing directly off of a SD card. I've got my 2000XL with max memory, 32mb of RAM, the equivalent to 189 seconds of stereo sampling and 378s of mono. I don't know about what you're thinking of incorporating into your live set. And in order to change tracks i.e. to clear some RAM memory and exchange samples you need to load up a new program which isn't super duper fast and you can't leave anything playing from the MPC. The track muting system however is perfect, you open a new menu and the MPC screen shows you a map of the pads and you can also easily SOLO any pad or track, considering you might have a track with just drums but for example you just want to mute the snare really quickly, you can do that.
Another thing you might want to think about is portability in a live show. Considering all the effects and memory in the SP-404SX I would probably advise you to get that and find a "ghetto"-way to mute/un-mute your tracks.

To sum up, the MPC 2000XL is capable of live performance however you really need to work alot around the limitations. With the SP-404SX is the same. The perfect sampler for me would be a hardware sampler with a powerful sequencer(2000XL), lots of memory and effects+knobs(SP404) and other features such as sample editing(e.g. time stretch).

[7th CITY]

i didn't read everyone's response but i have a video that i made that will show you how to do it.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=leroeH3fVTM

[TGN]

Maybe you wanna think of an electribe sx instead of sp or mpc...It got mute and solo buttons...