this thread's pretty awesome. esp being familiar with IIIII's tunes and trying to fit the gear to it.

i think i'm w/ reingbear and niq - i think it depends on where you wanna go. the 555 fits (pro'lly) w/ yr workflow and right brain, but the mpc's strengths can totally open doors.

howevs, working w/ an mpc is not like working with an sp- series.

together tho, they can really complement each other.

BUT - i still recommend a sp505 to every head on here.

to all who doubt the power of loop capture and 555's effects

viewtopic.php?f=5&t=6050

the "synth" sounds were made by overdubbing over and over with loopcapture with only filtered drum hits and very short sounds....no synth was used at all

infinite layering=bizarre ass sounds

you dont know the 555 till you try one. the shitty youtube vids don't do it justice.

unfortunately that's true. there are no many good videos about the 555. i saw one with an half-bored dj wich try to explain the machine; not good at all...

anyway here some videos about this old 2000xl:

time stretching
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y4471IZae-g&feature=related

Jel (anticon rec) Drum and Sample Practice
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=upKMyOh8Ch4

Akai MPC-2000XL Deep House
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aY4O-X_HVXM&feature=PlayList&p=ADEEFA32F722B46E&playnext=1&playnext_from=PL&index=5

^^ i agree w/ u guys... there are no vids plus i went to the local guitar center to try one before and they had NONE not even a 404... so that's how i ended up w/ my 2kxl... @ the time it was only spending a few more bucks and it got me away from sequencing on the computer( which i still do time to time, like now cuz my midi cables went bad...)

Can you explain more about the chromatic pitch?

three knobs live pitch shift
1 2 3
pitch 1 pitch 2 balance

so you can make a three note chord

then if you save a scale or series of chords you can play melodies out of a sample...

really cool but sometimes very wild sounding (which for me is perfect)

yes, that's a cool trick i use also with the sp303 or the sp505.
but real pitch is real pitch (depending on what you have to do indeed).

the cool part isnt that it pitches its that you can play back saved notes like samples

and

real pitch is overrated

man I want a 555. It seems to me like the MPC's take too much scrolling around and are less intuitive. The fx memory aspect sounds so nice... man.

Stick with the Roland!

ish i should have never looked at this post...i miss my 555 now! i got it the day it came out but a year later i sold it and got a ASR 10. and i sold my 2000xl so i could get the 555.....i miss all of those damn things. lol...but to persuade you to get something i will have to say a 555 (it is also a audio interface 24bit if i recall) and that is really good. AND the other big plus is you can track mute stuff on the 555, i saw someone talking about tracking out your beats with the 2000xl, well you can do the same dang thing with the 555 just by adding the SUBSONIC effect to each sound (then turn the nobs off/to the left if i recall) and if you loop capture your sample patterns you can have your sample on one pad...argh this is hard to explain....but now i have to try...

lets say you have your samples chopped up how ever you want, record them to a pattern....then record the pattern with loop capture, making all of your chops into one sample for 4 bars or 2 or what ever. that way you will have all those chops on one pad with them already in a pattern of your liking....then take that and add the subsonic effect to it and then add that effect to your drums and what ever else you got. then figure out witch nobs need to be turn...so that the sound is muted (with the subsonic effect). then when you preform you can turn on and off the effect for the pad you want.

you can do this with the 404 too...i think. i had that dang thing too, back when it came out. i go through samplers like baby wipes! by the way, anyone want to buy a sp 303? hit me up.

hope that explained it...to tired to go into more detail. but you can track out each sound if you feel like it.

i know how that feeling goes....

and i just saw your vids on the 303 the other day
"now you got me reminiscing on the 555" made me laugh then feel a deep sorrow...

finally someone else to vouch for the 555, im only one guy against 20000 mpc heads haha . the interface is such a huge plus....




i do the same thing on th 555 but with the Djfx looper looping silence...haha

i love this because you can get your ideas down in a simple fashion then multi track them out and make it mixed better or develop the idea more...
should work on a 404 fine

ive never used a 2000, but i do have a 1000 and i gotta say its mostly a fucking bitch to just make music. now sayign that ive made some of my best beats on it and ive done it pretty much everyway possible.

you make some crazy mind expanding shit, just judging you on your sound i gotta go with my man HD.

i guess my point is fuckkkkkkk submenus

the cool thing about the SPs is that you can just jam and let things play out in weird ways, and then you find out what sounds good. It's by ear and hands, you know what I mean? I wouldn't want to have to read through the MPCs lists and deal with time delays and whatnot. Not knocking the MPC, but if you want to make psych stuff or tap out beats live, improvise, whatever, I think the Roland stuff sounds like it works out better. If the way you work is with a preplanned sound and beat in mind, and you like to sit and "work," it seems like the MPC is the way to go.

the menu selection on the 1k crushes the 2kxl... it's FAR more complex and ive played on my buddies 2.5k and wouldnt want it... so its not the farest to bust on the 2kxl... like i mentioned b4.... the workflow of an SP kills an mpc but if the desire was to create compositions with more structure/ tracking ability then somethin like the 2kxl can work...

not to bring this dude in like he champions these units but Prefuse73 rocks both a 2kxl and a 4k... dude hates computers... so saying that u cant do complex joints on an mpc isnt fair... it's about what he would chose to do with them... I LOVE my 606 (it's tattoo'd on my neck, all gangster n shyt, lol) but the 2kxl allowed me to do the stuff that i wanted w/o having to track everything on a computer first then re-editing and all this other jazz...

so its still a coin toss...