fauna wrote:@ beardface - nice to see another SH-32 user! i love my 32.
but seriously, you've got a bit of a problem, mans.
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.
EsromCole wrote:@Beardface: What you think about the MPC500? I've been considering getting one but I've heard so many horror stories I don't know what to believe.
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!
