Heh, yeah I'm a bit of a gear freak... The SH32 is brilliant, it taught me a lot about how to build proper synth sounds without being reliant on altering presets.



The MPC500 is a good little machine, but WAAAAY more complex than the SPs, especially the save/load functions. The limit screen makes sequencing and sample chopping tricky, but I'm spoiled by the 606 & Recycle's wave editing. That's pretty much it for the negatives. Heaps of folks seem to hate them (and they aren't even 202, 303 & 404 loyalists...) but I don't see why. Mine doesn't hum loudly with batteries or eat them like popcorn, it doesn't feel like Akai cheaped out on it as hard as some would have you believe either.

Only catch is that you've got to spend a little time getting your head around the different approach to the Akai set up. Pluses are that everything's exportable. I dig that you can back up whole songs in Akai's own format & play them back in different models of MPC, plus the range of sampling/resampling tweaks are great (but it has very few internal FX, which could go either way depending on your perspective). Plus it can play back something stupid like 32 voices at once, my 606 can only do 8 & I still get by. So sample despots can rule supreme & unchallenged for years with these bad boys.

Overall, I'm glad I bought it as a portable sketchbook for songs to flesh out on other gear. What I'd like to know about the horror stories is how did the user treat their MPC, what preconceptions did they have in the first place of the product & what long term changes they've made are. Its one thing to buy a dud product, its another thing to break it through ignorance.

Hope that's a bit of balance, cheers!

Appreciate the mini review man. Helps put things into perspective.

i just robbed my living room of an entertainment center. i needed to do somn so this is my current setup. the mixer on top is a vestax and one turntable is techinics and one is numark. monitors are on top also they are the little fostex 5 inch powered monitors. the 202 is sittin down low i missed it in the pic. the records on the table are mine(the white boxes arent records) and the ones on the floor are my parents that im "borrowing". i dont see how they are so square when they had such a cool music collection?

Here's my new production area after I moved to a new appartment.



Greets from Van Gogh

hi
what's your keyboards?

the smaller one: Casio SA20
got it for 8 bucks on a flea market, has some nice sounds on it but sounds really artificial

the large one: Casio CTK 450
I have that one since 7th grade. I like the large scale and the strings and flutes on it

I run them though my effect pedal but I don't use em that often nowadays. It's cool to have them connected to the loop pedal and build up some jams, though.

Sweet setup. I really like that Jarmusch poster you've got up. That movie was badass.

A SNES? Cool shit blindfold!!!

The RC-2 is pretty cool... I'm still hoping they make a new one. Sth. between the 20xl and the RC-50... The RC-25? Hello, Boss??? LoopPedals need MIDI!

Yep, definitely is, especially with that soundtrack!



Yo man, That's like the 303 of the consoles
Yep, that'd be cool to have some MIDI timing between a loop pedal and a SP, the loop would perfectly stick to the rhythm *dream*

By the way, I just bought that guitar from my christmas money and it's so awesome to have a fully functional guitar again

thanx
i got an SA5, and somtimes, filtered by the 303 or the esx1 you can obtain nice'n'weird sounds...

Where did you get those shelves? I'd like to do something similar with my electribes.

hey guys,
found some plywood in my neighbours garbage made a bit of a desk lol, its nice making beats not sitting on the floor.

I'm glad to see Canucks like PBR and 224s. There's hope for ya'll after all!

that's ^^ actually a pretty solid little set up. nice work.

hey waxy - i think the rc-50 has midi.