Akai rack samplers? and MPC's

N

Nina tha don

New member
As some of you may already know i wanna go all hardware and ditch my fl studio rig. but i have never had the chance to use and yet, so i was wondering a few lil' things about the akai mpc's and rack samplers

1. Can the patches be organized like software, i mean like by instrument? so all synths are together, all keys are together all drums, and so on .

2. can i add hard-drives to the rack samplers so i can have larger libraries?

3. how exactly would i add the patches i make on my computer to the sampler, and mpc? and if you can organize them like i asked in my first question how would i add these patches to the right sections?


thank you
 
I think the first question you should be asking yourself is why do I wanna switch to hardware?.... Alot of cats get caught up in the moment & make sudden descions...but u gotta know what u want first.
 
ReamOO said:
I think the first question you should be asking yourself is why do I wanna switch to hardware?.... Alot of cats get caught up in the moment & make sudden descions...but u gotta know what u want first.
Click to expand...
i been thinking about it for almost a year so its not just a spur of the moment type thing.

i have fl studio and i dont like having to use 3 or more software's to work how i like to. and when i hear tracks produced in all hardware vs all software they sound 10 times better to me...even if its almost the "Same beat".

im not trying to spend a million on hardware, i just want to get an mpc 2500 and aS1000 rack
 
I feel what you saying. I'm planning on going hardware into abelton live in 2013. But still have all of the (more advanced) sounds in software as well. Not doing it to better my working process though.....just for a new feel and enjoyment. Doing some live performance recordings and stuff like that. But to me nothing beats the workflow of software. If a sound is recorded with hardware.......you have that sound in hardware...(that's the beauty of software). Choosing the sound of what you want, then you have it to work with in a transparent sampler in software.
 
901_Rice_Street said:
I feel what you saying. I'm planning on going hardware into abelton live in 2013. But still have all of the (more advanced) sounds in software as well. Not doing it to better my working process though.....just for a new feel and enjoyment. Doing some live performance recordings and stuff like that. But to me nothing beats the workflow of software. If a sound is recorded with hardware.......you have that sound in hardware...(that's the beauty of software). Choosing the sound of what you want, then you have it to work with in a transparent sampler in software.
Click to expand...

i plan on getting into sound design, and was planning on running all my custom sounds through hardware and then converting them to software formats. but i see no point in coppin a nice mpc and sampler just to color sounds that i'll use in m software....so thats the main reason i decided to go hardware instead of hybrid.
 
No doubt.


You can do all those things you mentioned above. But keep in mind some rack modules you can't save. So if u build a patch, you can't save it. So make sure theres some kind of memory there for you to do that....You might want to look into getting a workstation so you can do and have all in one. Unless you just really want an MPC, which is understandable, but a workstation may work better for you. You can find good cheap ones.

Me personally, I have a MPC1K & Motif ES6. Same stuff I started off with 4 years ago. I aint gonna lie, when I first started making beats I had FL & hated it lol so I ditched it right away...just didn't feel right for me so I went hardware. Mainly because I knew thats what I wanted from the start but the dude at Guitar Center played me into getting FL instead lol!! Anyway, I knew what I wanted before I got it so thats what Im trying to say.

Also too, a lot of new racks u can transfer to pc so u can save your patches & kits....Motif racks aren't that expensive nowadays.
 
i wanted hardware from the beginning too im just broke, lol.

i want an mpc for my drums, but i wanted the rack for all my other sounds.
can i add a hard drive to the rack? and if so would i still lose all my patches when i turn it off?

ReamOO said:
No doubt.


You can do all those things you mentioned above. But keep in mind some rack modules you can't save. So if u build a patch, you can't save it. So make sure theres some kind of memory there for you to do that....You might want to look into getting a workstation so you can do and have all in one. Unless you just really want an MPC, which is understandable, but a workstation may work better for you. You can find good cheap ones.

Me personally, I have a MPC1K & Motif ES6. Same stuff I started off with 4 years ago. I aint gonna lie, when I first started making beats I had FL & hated it lol so I ditched it right away...just didn't feel right for me so I went hardware. Mainly because I knew thats what I wanted from the start but the dude at Guitar Center played me into getting FL instead lol!! Anyway, I knew what I wanted before I got it so thats what Im trying to say.

Also too, a lot of new racks u can transfer to pc so u can save your patches & kits....Motif racks aren't that expensive nowadays.
Click to expand...
 
As far as Racks & hard drives, Im too sure...I think the Korg Triton Rack can do that but as far as I know, Im not sure...But like I said u can do that with a keyboard workstation. But you're probably worried about space so stick with the rack...but Im not too sure about the hard drive...But some allow memory cards so you can save your work, just depends on which one.
 
Ok thanks

ReamOO said:
As far as Racks & hard drives, Im too sure...I think the Korg Triton Rack can do that but as far as I know, Im not sure...But like I said u can do that with a keyboard workstation. But you're probably worried about space so stick with the rack...but Im not too sure about the hard drive...But some allow memory cards so you can save your work, just depends on which one.
Click to expand...
 
I think the S1000 is limited to a SCSI hard drive with a max size of 512...megabytes. Good luck finding one of those. Going back to a now-ancient hardware sampler, you need to re-evaluate your use of samples, simply because it's much more constrained than the care-free usage of what you can get away with computers. But maybe the sound is worth it :)
 
if you wana use synths and use hardware, id look at buying some keyboards so you can use the hardware controllers on it better perhpas than midi keyboard which aint allways mapped that well the synth u could be using in the comp.

i got an mpc2000xl and a synth, midi keyboard, i still mix down all my mpc tracks in cubase anyways even tho they made on the hardware mpc.

mpc are good but i think only if your heavily sample influenced in ur music would i recomend one myself, other wise one the akai pad controllers could be better.

my mpc has a card reader with a 4gb card in it and i only have drums on that ive collected and built myself, the rest the sounds i use come from records
 
I see one of these in pawn shops all the time now.



What's wrong with it? I almost bought one for the hell of it one day. $300.
 
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Nothing wrong with hardware samplers, but almost everything besides the rough sound provided by those early d/a converters can be done much easier on a software setup. Hence you can get yesterday's flagship hardware samplers dirt cheap these days.
 
re

though the prices of the good ones have already gone up. You dont use a bunch of old samplers for ease of use. you use them for their sound. Its certaiinly not easy dealing with limited space and floppys and all but worth it for some. Ive been killing the asrx recently myself (flashback to my old days). I still use lots of samplers but it can be less than simple nowdays.
 
In terms of storage some rack samplers can be connected to a computer and you can transfer samples via SCSI, this is what the old version of ReCycle was used for, Akai samplers like the S2000 and S3000 had a free program called MESA that was the envy of MPC users, not only does it allow you to transfer samples back and forth but you can edit all the parameters of the sampler on screen.
 
I used fl studio with mpd24 for ages!
Then got an mpc1000 and started diggin, best thing i ever did!
No more mouse, latency lagging, sore eyes and brain staring at the monitor all night.

Mpc, monitors, vinyl! Lots more fun!
 
I had the same thought in mind when I bought my Akai MPC-500. The MPC-500 will not allow you to play samples at all different pitches on a keyboard mapping. I regard it as basically a drum computer. It sounds nice.

But I prefer my computer, and I'll tell you why. If you think of a computer as I/O for sound, you will realize that there is more you can do with it as far as digital processing. And I can only achieve my desired sound with Renoise software. (not Reason, Renoise, the tracker.)

I am getting the Mackie Onyx for I/O into and out of my computer. I currently have a system with an M-Audio breakout box. This makes the audio sound just as good, provided that you use something like Renoise to record with. Renoise is not a perfect DAW, but it is the only one with the filters aligned so that I can play with the frequencies and pitch of everything to make a muted and backdubbed synth noise.

I overdub everything from my speakers with a little MP3 recorder, and I use a rack CD recorder to dub my sessions and mixes. I love the way computers help with audio processing. I wouldn't have it any other way.

To make this a complete picture of what I'm trying to get across to you, I'll have to divulge that for years I was a slave to my Emu ESi-2000 sampler. It was just the pinacle of artistic freedom, with Cubase 5.0. But when I started experimenting, I went with Renoise, since it makes a computer more powerful than a mere MPC-500. You have to do the shuffle by hand, but in my opinion, hand-made swing just sounds a ton sweeter than the prefab kind on the Roland TR-909 (which I was robbed of at knife-point. literally too popular for some people to own.)

I think that if you use a computer and buy an extremely nice audio in and out box with lots of sends and returns (at least four, NEVER buy less, you end up compromising creativity.) That's my opinion. Just do what is best for your method. Every musician needs a method, even if that method is prefab sounds and a drum machine to crossfade into a DJ mixed set. I hope this was helpful. I want to buy a nice machine like the Motif, actually, just because it can do it all.
 
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You wanna know why the average "hardware-produced" beat sounds better than the average "software-produced" beat?

You really wanna know?

It's simple:

Anyone can download a cracked copy of FL Studio (most copies are cracked, easy to tell), put together a mediocre beat, and upload it to YouTube.
No money is spent, and very little time is invested.
A high proportion of software users have no idea how to use the tools they stole -- it's a situation where amateurs scroll through presets on plugins they don't understand.

On the other hand, it takes dedication, time, and money to buy hardware, learn how to use it, learn how to work within its limits, and put together a great beat.
Hardware users are often experienced producers who understand how to tweak and sculpt sounds from the ground-up -- at the very least, they've put a lot of money into their craft, which provides incentive for putting a lot of time into it as well.

To sum it up: Hardware doesn't sound better (on average) because of the hardware itself -- it sounds better because of the type of people who use it.

-Ki
Salem Beats
 
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