The MPC 5000 arrives

[Tweak]

Akai MPC5000 Music Production Center


Legendary MPC feel and workflow with a greatly expanded feature set. The MPC series set the standard for beat production. What would it take to make the ultimate MPC Dozens of engineers, 20 years of experience and a new synth and drum sampling engine unlike any MPC ever. Introducing the MPC5000; the new standard for music production.

http://www.zzounds.com/a--3745/item--AK ... 0/sid--mpc



Tweak: Core New Features:

1. 8 track streaming hard disk recording, 80GB hard drive
2. has a 3 oscillator analog style synth with 300 presets (20 voice)
3. 240 x 128 hinged backlit LCD (MPC 2500 display was 240x64)
4. Over 40 all new effects available within a modular 4-bus effects processor
5. XLR Combo jacks
6. Phono input pair
7. ADAT lightpipe out
8. Piano Roll editing
9. 64MB Ram standard (previous was 16MB)



Link to MPC comparison chart

Link to MPC 5000 manual

[master-ceo]

mpc 2500 with jjos2, will run circles around an mpc3500

[thizz4ever]

THE ROLAND MV 8800 WILL [deleted] ON THE MPC SERIES ANY TIME !!!

[oneday2one]

look, ...people who already own a mpc 2500, appearantly 'already' have a way to 'record' multiple tracks, thus have no real 'immediate' reason to upgrade.

people who own a 4000, should always be skeptical and not quick to jump on the next newest thing, just like someone who buys a toyota corolla '08, doesn't need to sell it to get the '09 model, unless time proves the '09 model to be inherently a necessarily upgrade.

as with the MV 8000/8800, ....they also already have 99% of such features, and also have no reason to be 'quick' to make a change, ....

...alas, all these people are the people who care the 'most' about sampling drum machines because they already own the 'best' sampling drum machines, and are therefore the 'first' to speak up about them on the internet. ....and unfortunately, as i have already stated, ....none of them have a real reason to be the first to 'buy' a new bigger better whatever.

i think it is in the best interest for people to quietly observe, ....much like mr. Tweak does with the bringing up of this topic in the fashion that he has, ....but ultimately, there will be no choice but for us to wait for those few brave souls who reach into the darkness and grasp the 5000 for themselves, ....once they get them, ...and then learn them, and then fall in love with them or hate and destroy them, ....only then will we find the 'true' posts of what this 'new' machine can do to stand up behind its own words.

as a matter of fact, ...i believe i plan on getting one myself, as i just got back from afghanistan, and seem to have lost my USB key for Steinberg's Cubase 4. ...unfotunately, i will either have to buy Cubase all over again, ...or forge forward in a new direction, ....i think i like the word 'new', and i will always like the idea of 'challenging'.

[The Translucent Mind]

looks crazy. i wonter how it stacks up to the 8800.....

[_controlfreak]

Obviously it's 3800 better.

[Elliot808]

Now that just Blaze ripped it a new one it's death is close at hand.

Blaze wrote probably the most influential and destructive review I've come across in a long time.

This the review from his blog:

I thought I would have time to get into what I started to talk about last week, but I really don’t

But really, Akai, you have 100% let me down for the first time with the MPC-5000.

I really didn’t even expect much, once I realized that it was based on the 2500/1000 architecture and not the 4000 series.

I looked at it more like hey, I need something for the house, it’s got a smaller footprint than the 4 (which I have no room for), and it’s got a synth in it. I guess it can’t be all that bad.

Now I know, whenever you are an early adopter, you are the beta tester, and the rest of the folks will go out and wait for version 2 or something.. I can deal with that. I’m a beta tester by nature. I love playing with things before they become commercially available.

My problem here is: THIS THING IS COMMERCIALLY AVAILABLE AND SHOULD NOT BE!

Some of the bugs in this thing are ATROCIOUS.

This is coming from someone who was one of the SOLE CHAMPIONS of the 4000 when everyone ran out and bought them and started returning them because they just didn’t understand the machine. It was an all new deisgn and they wouldn’t be able to pick it up and run like they did when they might have gone from the 60 to the 3000 to the 2000 and 2000xl. It was a new beast entirely and it had a bit of a learning curve, but once you got past that, there was almost nothing you couldn’t make it do. It had one or two bugs in it, but they were fairly quickly rectified, and once they were addressed, you really couldn’t find much fault with the machine. If you couldn’t use it, it was because you really didn’t want to, not because the machine was at fault.

The 5000 is NOT the successor to the 4000, and it should not be named as such.

A 3500? Yes.

(When it is actually fit to use)

By naming this machine the 5000, you are inadvertently disrespecting YOURSELVES and what you created with the 4000.

I was going to save the rest for later, (I’m a little tied up with this T.I. record right now) but screw it. I’ll get into some of my issues and experience now.

short story:

YOU CANNOT TUNE AN ENTIRE PROGRAM AT ONCE?!?!

REALLY?

IN 2008??

Look. I don’t care what you say there is no excuse for this.

You really want me to go sit there and go pad by pad by pad and tune each sample individually?

What if… you had a loop that you choppd up across 3 pad banks, and you only had to tune each one down by say +00.20.

You want me to to go and redundantly repeat this process across 48 pads?

(Via a scroll wheel that sometimes needs to be turned 3 “notches” before it realizes you are moving it, and then sometimes forgets it’s being turned. )

Really?

“Song Cry” by Jay-Z and myself consisted of 96 sample chops spread across….. 96 pads.

If I were to make a record like that now on this machine.. and I needed to slightly tune the entire sample set up just a few notches.. You want me to go and repeat that process 96 times? By the time I’m done with that.. * I’d probably not feel like making a beat anymore.. * (remember this asterisk)

You are taking AWAY from the creative process by putting the user through that. These machines are supposed to make things easier. And I don’t understand why a feature like that (that was in the 4k) is not in its “successor”

SYNTH/PROGRAM IMPLEMENTATION

Hey.. so we have an MPC with a built in synthesizer? That’s great.

I can’t tell you how many times I have considered having a custom machine built with a Fantom/XV series jammed in there somehow just to make it one less machine to deal with.

So the beauty of having a setup like this should go a little something like this:

You have a nice skeleton you’ve put together, samples, drums, percussion, etc. And now it’s time for some overdubs.

You go to your synth section and scroll through sounds setting them aside as you come across the ones that fit the mood or feel of what you have going so far.

After you’ve got a few set aside you just get to work and go..right?

NO

The 5k treats the synth tracks the same as it does program (sample playback) tracks. Not necessarily a bad thing and kinda makes sense until you realize..

YOU CAN ONLY HAVE 128 PROGRAMS IN THE MPC AT ONCE..

Now on one hand that isn’t an issue.

But here’s where the problem lies.

Akai has gone and given us hundreds upon hundreds of synth patches, which is great.

However since they are treated the same as samples, you cant access all of these sounds at once to find the ones that fit your track.

They need to be loaded from the hard drive.. one…by…one..

Get this: You can’t even PREVIEW them before you load them

So now.. you have to go to the “Basses” folder for example, then sit there, load a bass, play it, decide whether or not you like it, then if you don’tlike it, go to the program window.. then open ANOTHER window from within that window, and delete it.

Wash, rinse, and repeat, until you find a bass that you like.

Oh wait.. but sometimes you have to delete a synth program 4 times before it actually gets erased from your RAM. And some will not go away, AT ALL, no matter how many times you delete them.

So I said okay, I’m going to just sit here, deal with this and load a bunch of synths and pick ones that I like and make an autoload out of them. Actually let me hook the machine up to my computer and Ill move them all to the hard drive so I can make separate autoload folders since you can’t write to the internal flash memory that the synths are stored on.

Survey says??

BUZZZZZZZZZZZ

Connecting the unit to a computer via USB only allows you to access the Compact Flash Card and the Hard Drive, not the internal flash memory.

So I really just have to sit there… sift through hundreds of sounds, load them, bang a few keys, decide then and there if like it and keep it.. and then after I have a few, save them to another folder on the hard drive so I can move all of these folders to an autoload folder eventually, without having more than say 100 of them, because remember you can’t have more than 128 programs at once.

Meanwhile I’m sitting there looking at my Fantom XR saying to myself, or I could just connect one midi cable, scroll though THOUSANDS of sounds, preview them on the fly, and be all set up and ready with a set of sounds…. in less than 5 minutes.

I could go on with this part, I won’t

Hey here’s one.. Producers, beatmakers, and users… You know how sometimes you’ll sample a ton of stuff and then want to spread it out across pads afterwards?

Well on the 4000 you could do this and as you went from pad to pad, the mpc would remember what sample you placed on the previous pad and when you went to the next pad it would place whatever sample came next in alphabetical order on that next pad. So if you had Sample 001 Sample 002 and Sample 003, and you place Sample 001 on Pad #1, and you went to Pad #2 and turned the scroll wheel, Sample 002 would assign to Pad #2, and so on.

Not on the “successor”…

Every time you go to assign a sample to a pad, it starts at whatever is the first sample in RAM.

But hey… if you have a few hundred samples in your ram already, that means that for every pad you go to assign a sample to, you are scrolling though a few hundred sounds just to get to the one you just sampled… and if you have say, 32 samples to spread across some pads.. Well hey.. you see where this is going.. see the asterisks above. It’s not tragic, just another thing that could be easily remedied with a little forward thinking and better programming.

So you know.. all that sampling I was just talking about doing?

I was doing all this on the 5k for one reason

IMPORTING FROM PREVIOUS MPCs IS BROKEN

BROKEN

BROKEN

BADLY.

Dude.. are you serious?

In 2008?

Apple computers are running Windows and OSX simultaneously through products like VMWare and Parallels..

Logic is opening Pro Tools Sessions via OMF and Digi Translator..

Mac Drive lets you use HFS formatted drives on Windows Computers..

I have Super Nintendo games on my iPhone.

Hell, there is Palm OS emulation on Windows Mobile.

Yet I can’t get my piece of Akai gear to import programs made from previous versions of Akai gear.. from the same product line?

Let me clarify:

I was able to import AKP’s made on the 4000, but as soon as I attempted to edit anything I imported (i.e. maybe just tune a 808 a bit to match something I’m working on) the pad would stop playing the sample, and would sporadically come back if i went into the sample edit page and exited it. This was the only fix I could come up with.

If I attempted to add a sound to this imported AKP program, welll… see above.

Next move was to try import a .PGM program.

Dead.. nothing.. nada.. zip

It did nothing.

Next step: Import a .PGM created in the 3rd party MPC Program Maker software

Even deader-er

I went online and did some research and came across a forum (which I can’t find now) where a user called Akai support in reference to this and after some back and forth, he was told that the software would have to be rewritten and was indeed broken.

That’s all well and good, but DON’T ADVERTISE AND INCLUDE IN YOUR DOCUMENTATION THAT IT DOES SOMETHING IT DOES NOT ACTUALLY DO!

Tell us it’s been thought about, in the process of preparation, plotted, pending, planned, post-release in a soon to be released pivotal upgrade, which we should have been previously privy to before the pondered purchase was completed…

(Carlin-ites holla at me)

And I would have been fine with that.

And oh yeah.. for some reason, this folder that I copied over a bunch of 4k programs and samples to…

Whenever I try to access this folder, I literally have to wait like 3 minutes while the unit freezes and gets itself together to prepare itself to let you scroll through files (with the weirdo wheel, see above) that it can’t properly process anyway.

I don’t know if this is a drive format issue, a drive content issue, or bad OS programming that makes your unit sh*t itself, wipe, get a diaper, and pop 2 Immodium AD’s and then say “Okay I’ll give it a shot”

Oh mind you.. this all occurred while I was trying to come up with something for.. well an album that hasn’t been announced yet, but it’s pretty major. Folks who know my writing patterns know what that means.

There were a few other major issues I had, but It’s now 9:40 am and I need to get to mastering.

But oh yeah… when it was all said and done and I actually made beat I thought was halfway decent, and wanted to save the NEW programs I made from scratch after I gave up on importing and starting fresh. I went to the hard drive.. made a new folder, selected “Save Entire Memory”

My screen said:

“Cannot Find Device… Ok??”

With an Okay button at the bottom.. that never responded when I pressed the corresponding soft key.

To the less than technically inclined…

IT FORGOT WHERE MY HARD DRIVE WAS AND NO MATTER WHAT I DID IT WAS FROZEN.

IT FREEZES WHEN YOU TRY TO SAVE ENTIRE MEMORY??

WHAT IN THE …

WHATS THE POINT OF SAVING THEN???

I said ok.. maybe it needs to pop a few more Immodiums.. So i left it on overnight.

Came in the next day.. Said screen was still in the same state I left it.

Akai FTL

FAIL.

I paid money for this thing..

I know people are probably like, “You don’t get these things for free??”

Te be honest, someone representing Akai recently did reach out in regards to doing some kind of deal in reference to the 5k, and I was considering doing it, but just hadn’t gotten around to entertaining it yet. I got the urge to mess with something new and went out and made an impulse buy of the 5000 and an MPK 49 controller because the synth thing got me a little excited.

I may have generated a few million dollars in my career, and the cash spent does not hurt me financially, but that doesn’t mean I have money to burn at the expense of bad engineering and a tad of false advertising.

I feel just as burnt as the dude who busts his back at a 9-5 just to save up enough money to go out and buy a piece of gear to pursue his dream, only to not have it work as it should.

There are some good things about this machine, and I will get into them at some point, but I really have to get to work.

And with all that said.. The MPK 49 is definitely the best standalone MIDI controller i have EVER used. I recommend it to anyone and everyone on the market for a controller. Hell, even if you aren’t on the market for one, buy one anyway. But in all honesty I also recommend that you don’t buy the MPC 5000 until they release the next operating system, IF IT address some of these issues, along with others I have read about.

There are other inconsistencies and issues I have, but I don’t want to get more worked up thinking about them again.. and I think anyone reading gets my point

Please don’t do this again Akai. As a fan, avid user, supporter, and friend. Don’t let the decline in hardware sales (or whatever is contributing to this) allow this to continue.. Quantity over Quality, Numbers over Blunders, Sales over Sincerity and Profits over Professionalism, it makes for Bad Business, Disgruntled Devotees, and Cold Hearted Customers who will Cease, Desist and Discontinue their Dilligent support of a Diluted brand. (Carlinites Unite!)

I don’t know man.. I know I sound crazy, but this really bothers me.

I wasn’t looking to have my socks blown off, just basic functionality.

I wonder who actually beta tests these things?

People in lab coats?

Do they seed them to a secret coaltion of producers?

This makes me angry.. and sad at the same time.

It’s now 10:30. I’m missing mastering.

I have to go.

Wait.. here’s a quote from their ads or propaganda or whatever..

“MPC5000’s virtual analog synth eliminates the need for users to deal with connecting external analog synth modules or working with buggy software synthesizers.”

A gun in your face and that’s the best you could come up with?

Buggy software synthesizers??

I don’t even want to do the comparison between working on something like this and say a Logic.

Because in all honesty I “feel better” working on an MP than a DAW.

But you can’t really sit there and try to go feature for feature ad throw cheap shots like that and expect people to not see through it. They do. Read the Forums.

If you can’t beat them.. join them. Make a virtual MP..

Oh wait.. someone already did.

Make your own.

I’ll help you design it.

Really.

Hell I’ll help you make the 5001 or something. Put on a white lab coat and everything.

I can’t tell you how to run your business, and in all honesty I know nothing about it.

But as an end user, I know what you are doing wrong in our eyes. And ultimately, if we are not happy…

ok I’m ranting for no reason now.

I really would though.

Bye

[unstable]

I voted no. My vote is primarily based on my current investment in a computer-based recording solution. As far as I know, I can do everything the MPC5000 does and more...when you do a cost comparison however; you will find that setting up a computer-based recording solution will probably cost you more than an MPC5000. Each approach has its' own pros and cons.

A computer-based solution is infinitely more expandable than an MPC. If you need additional analog, midi or digital I/O you can purchase additional interfaces or sometimes upgrade your existing ones. Most professional sequencers allow for unlimited audio and midi tracks...the cap is based on the resources available in your computer (hard disk, memory and processor). If you need additional instruments, invest in software-samplers or virtual instruments...the sky is really the limit with a DAW.

The biggest drawbacks to a DAW are going to be price and the confusion of what to purchase, how to make it all work and what to do when it's not working. There are alot of moving pieces on a DAW and in my humble opinion I think a fair amount of the software is FAR from perfect. I'd be surprised if there is anyone who deals with DAWS on a daily basis who hasn't experienced some type of crash at least once a week...I do. It's usually pretty minor, my sequencer might choke when I put in a soft-synth or if I route my midi incorrectly...

The MPC-5000 on the other hand, is a purpose-built piece of hardware. You probably won't encounter any serious pain-points unless you've got a defective device. It's going to be easy to transport and setup. The biggest downside is the lack of expandability. Yes you can upgrade it to 192MB of RAM...but what if you need 193mb? What if you need more than 8 tracks?

At the end of the day it's all about what you are comfortable using and what facilitates your creativity. You could have the most elaborate recording studio ever known to man...but it's not going to make you a superstar.

[oneday2one]

i just got mine. ...and here's the problem, ...it shouldn't be called an MPC'5000', because it should not be compared to the '4000'.

but for $2500, ....it is definitely better than the 2500. ...the synth in it, ...i thought it would be complete isht, ...but its an alesis synth, ..probably transplanted from the ion/micron/fusion, ....and i'm really going to have to learn that synth, ...but it has truly amazing potential. ....i just got a minimoog little phatty stage 2, ...but i could definitely have gotten by on just the synth in the 5000 for now.

...also, ...the reason people are very mad i think, is because the '5000' is obviously not the kind of sampler designed to be a 'full fledged' sampler, ...like the s5000/s6000 or mpc4000, ....its design is made specifically for drum sounds, and one shot or 'samples' from records and movied, ...but now multi-sampled instruments mapped out. ...it would be horrible for that, ....as for a drum sampler made for drum sounds and (non multi-sampled and mapped instrument recreation samples) ...it is probably the best you could ever get. ...i got OS vs 1.02, ...and have found absolutely no bugs on the thing.

the drums sound good too, ....i recently had cubase 4.0, but my USB key got stolen, so i lost it forever, ....but with the same exact headphones, ...i could listen to battery and make drums and play them through a firebox, ...or i could take those same sounds i used in battery, ...and dump them in the MPC, through usb, ...which is just an extension of my computer as far as how it looks on my computer screen, ....and manipulate the sounds minimally, ...and i can't really explain the difference, ....it is so huge, and SO much easier to make the drum sounds SO much better than Battery 3.
....MPC5000 totally in every single way "DESTROYS" battery 3.

i'm totally serious. ....i have only had this thing for a few days now and need to really dig deeper into it. ...but my setup right now is basically all new, ...with a MPC5000 and a moog little phatty stage two hooked up together both ways midi style.

.....and i got the cd drive with it. ....and its got the compact flash drive, ....and i'm trying to figure out what people might see as 'bad' about it, ...so i can figure out if its really a 'bad thing' or not.

...and as far as what "Just Blaze" wrote, ...i seriously doubt that akai or Just Blaze Inc. is truly prepared for the undertaking that would be involved if he designed an MPC. ...but whatever, ....
....the main thing is what i hope Just Blaze did, ..since his post is on many forums, ...was get a beta version, ...and spill out some "serious" black tar, ....all in hopes of motivating akai/numark/alesis, ...to incorporate those changes, ...many of them very simple programming changes, ...in the first OS updates.
....people always complain, ...there were thousands of posts about the '52 bugs' which was done away with very quickly with version 1.01, ...and now with 1.02 i'm not sure if there are any bugs left, ...as far as save system, ...and access internal flash and all of these things, ......i'm sure akai/numark/alesis will address these,....and hopefully since numark and alesis are running the show now, ...that maybe the newer versions will come faster.

...as far as this machine, ...i plan on having it at least another 5 or 6 years, ...so as long as they keep the updates coming, ...i'm already happy.

i don't need to incorporate this into a multi-million dollar setup studio like the 10 to 15 people in the world really want, .....i'm with the other 50,000 people who just have a bed room and are addicted to making the best music they can afford to make, ...and since my cubase got stolen,...
....and i can't afford to upgrade my old-ass computer which i really need to and buy another cubase, ....and all that, ...instead i decided to get the mpc 5000
....i also got a p-solo with it, ...and let me tell you, ...that think is the 'truth' as well.

...anyway, .....-peace.
-oneday2one.

[Tweak]

A great post. And an interesting observation

but for $2500, ....it is definitely better than the 2500. ...the synth in it, ...i thought it would be complete isht, ...but its an alesis synth, ..probably transplanted from the ion/micron/fusion, ....and i'm really going to have to learn that synth, ...but it has truly amazing potential. ....i just got a minimoog little phatty stage 2, ...but i could definitely have gotten by on just the synth in the 5000 for now.

[Elliot808]

people always complain, ...there were thousands of posts about the '52 bugs' which was done away with very quickly with version 1.01, ...and now with 1.02 i'm not sure if there are any bugs left, ...as far as save system, ...

It's actually still littered with bugs and more are being discovered daily. Not read for retail IMO. Maybe these will be addressed at NAMM 09



Take a look at this thread in addition to the building complaints of freezing
1.02 bug thread
http://www.mpc-forums.com/viewtopic.php?f=29&t=100159

This a summary of the thread compiled in another forum.


* "The sequencer will still up when holding down the Repeat button off and on."


* Missing VCOs in the synth

* Hitting " overdub " or " overdub + play " often make a little jump that desynchronise the midi when the MPC is in External Sync mode.

* SysEx events can't be recorded.

* Grid Edit:
After chopping a sample and making a program..I still have problems with playing that program in Grid Edit Mode. I get no sound when playing the pads.

Additionally, once this happens, it is no longer possible to step record or real time record while in Grid Edit.

* Changes Start and end points of your chops

* Playback glitches when programs in grid mode

* Pad latency while in Program Edit Mode

* some of the feedback based EFX (Reverb, Delay) tend to create a really annoying digital feedback with certain settings

* Jog Wheel increments still not picked up 100% in screens like program sample assign and mixer screen.

* loading programs while playing a sequence cause sync speed problems

* While in Grid Edit Mode- Select one of the recorded events without leaving Grid Edit Mode and press Window-Button...FREEZE

* "effects engine failure" message on start up

* ROM Folders may appear to be empty when loading synths

* Trim->Time Stretch - can't stretch from 60 to 180, snaps always to twice the speed.

* Song stuttering and delays when using effect events

* "event editing in step mode is absolutely buggy. Moving the Effect event was only possible in forward direction."

* If you delete a track while in solo mode every tracks remain in solo mode, no way to unsolo them.

* Holding play during preview produces stuck notes.

* Changes the duration of notes in loaded patterns

* " put the Arp to 1/16 & record something

Go to song mode, add the sequence 1 to the song , press play

You ll notice the Arp go to 1/8 instead of 1/16"

* missing VCO 3 in synth

* Hanging Envelopes

* Using Copy and Replace... the replace works fine if you only do 1 copy but any extra copies are merged not replaced

* " Using the Pad transpose function doesn't do anything - but if you go back into the menu and leave the 'destination' pad (on the right) the same (it remembers the last entry from the first attempt) and change the 'source' pad (on the left) it now works - but as soon as you change the 'destination' pad it doesn't work - you have to do the process twice and let it remember the value on the right... "


* When you copy a track the midi channel isn't copied with it.

* When you delete a track the midi channel stays there.

* When you use the track move feature, all the midi channel settings don't move at all.

* When you go to TRIM mode from PROGRAM mode it goes to the currently selected sample as expected. If you then change sample (scroll with the data wheel) and select the LOOP (f2) page, when you select TRIM (f1) again it goes back to the original sample you started with, not the current sample you are editing.

[AJNandi]

Generically,

In a computer based recording studio, is there any reason to have an MPC instead of an MPD?

Ive seen a few pics and threads on the forum with a computer and a MPC
Dont they basically accomplish the same thing, storing and creating audio tracks

[Tweak]

Dont they basically accomplish the same thing, storing and creating audio tracks

Most of the MPCs store samples--short audio files. The MPC5000 can do audio tracks, which we can define as longer audio files. There is no way an MPC--any MPC--can match a well outfitted DAW with an MPC in terms of power, performance, memory, storage--any spec you want.

Where it can compete is in feel, groove, workflow, and as a natural extension of a pattern based method of working (which hip hop, rap, and some forms of electronica often use). In short, its an artist's preference. Hey, if you can write a hit songs on an MPC but just can't deal with computers, plugins, sequencer, drivers, what should you choose? The tools that work for a person are worth more than their price.