Maschine Mikro vs MPC 500

[Ttone]

Just cop the mpc you won't regret it,if possible grab a used one with JJOS.

[JuliusR]

I don't know if i'm more informed or more confused now as to what sampler to buy -___-

[Ttone]

With the mp you can work without the computer.

[JuliusR]

I mean yeah with an MPC I can work without the daw but I would still have to be plugged into my computer so might as well go for price and convenience and it seems that the Mikro is cheaper cooler features and comes with a software that's easy + many sounds

[Ttone]

Go for the micro then.

[JuliusR]

I mean like from what I've seen it looks like the Mikro offers the most for its price and display

[evilpeezy]

Originally Posted by G. Kaye

Consider a used mpc 1000. Probably better unit than both, and goes for about the same price. I know you said you want portability, but the 1000 is just as lightweight/portable, you just need an outlet to plug it into. And if you think about it, where would you be going with it that there isn't electricity available?

I always find it funny when people say they need portability in a sampler when the debate between maschine and mpc's come up. Like who is producing in a cave or a jungle somewhere? My MV8800 and Mpc 2000 are both portable, I just unplug it, put it in my car and drive it to whatever location i am going, then plug it in using electricity. Just never understood that statement.

[JuliusR]

One more question for the MPC before I confirm anything, on the 500 or the 1000 what's the process of uploading the beats back to your DAW to edit them?

And also how many different sequences can you work on the MPC like how many sets of samples and drums can you have loaded so you can work on ?

[damien907]

if you want to upload your beats, your gonna have to track them out of the mpc to an audio inteface, or you can save each track in the sequence as a seperate audio file directly to your flash card, then drag and drop via usb into your daw.

to your next question about how many sounds can be loaded up, i dont know specifics right now, but way more than you'll ever need.

[JuliusR]

Originally Posted by damien907

if you want to upload your beats, your gonna have to track them out of the mpc to an audio inteface, or you can save each track in the sequence as a seperate audio file directly to your flash card, then drag and drop via usb into your daw.

to your next question about how many sounds can be loaded up, i dont know specifics right now, but way more than you'll ever need.

ok i understand the concept of saving each sequence as a separate audio file to the flash card ad then dropping via USB but I don't understand what you mean by "tracking them out of the mpc to an audio interface"

and for the next question, ok awesome lol, so i can have like 3 songs of samples loaded into different groups along with a lot of drum kits and then in essence make 3 different beats with the loaded samples and then save them into their respective sequence and upload them?

[Killah_Trakz]

Yo. If you want to do all the work get an mpc and deal with the technical shit.

If you want something that you boom boom tat sample press save and keep it moving then get the maschine.

3 pages of the same things ain't worth it. Your already dead lock to a computer do stick to it.

[evilpeezy]

I dont know about the mpc 1000, but I thought it has a usb port, that you can drag sounds onto it? Also, who will use more then 128 megs per sequence? there just samples. Also, tracking out is not tedious. If i have a 8 bars thats 9 seconds each track. WOW tedious. Not to mention I get the advance of having my audio ran through preamps and analog gear before hitting my converters. I have a mpc 2000xl maxed out and I never run out of sample ram. Not to mention my MV8800 has 30 gig hardrive. The 500 idk about as I think it is a toy (something i would buy my son). Maschine I cant comment on. You could wait for the MPC Fly, Ren all those MPC controllers coming out.

[JuliusR]

....alright i'm getting a mikro lol thanks everyone the post above me just confirmed it.

[damien907]

i have never ran out of RAM space on my mpc (i use he 128mb chip), i have never had that happen, and realistically no one ever really will.

by tracking out i mean that the mpc (1000) has 6 physical outputs, so you can assign your sample, kick, snare, hihat, open hihat, and bass to go out of each separate one and midi it to your daw, then push record on your daw, this will record all of the tracks on your mpc in real time to your daw so that you can mix and master in there.

if you have more than 6 tracks to export to your daw at once, make another pass, viola in about 6 minutes you can have all your tracks onto your daw separately ready to mix.

i figured 8 minutes by an average song length of 3 mins and multiplied that by 2 if you had more than 6 tracks to "track out". of course you would need an audio interface that could handle 6 line inputs.

i would really think twice about the maschine, or even wait until the newer mpc studio comes out before you go spending your money really fast.

i mean, it doesnt even have a stop/panic button.

that killled my workflow.

[Xasov]

Some of the best beats made were not even tracked out or mixed to a 'standard format'. It really depends on the sound that you are going for. Look at cats like illmind, dilla, jake one, jaisu, etc who mix inside their equipment. If you are looking for a newer sound, go with a software based sequencer like maschine.

[JuliusR]

Originally Posted by damien907

i have never ran out of RAM space on my mpc (i use he 128mb chip), i have never had that happen, and realistically no one ever really will.

by tracking out i mean that the mpc (1000) has 6 physical outputs, so you can assign your sample, kick, snare, hihat, open hihat, and bass to go out of each separate one and midi it to your daw, then push record on your daw, this will record all of the tracks on your mpc in real time to your daw so that you can mix and master in there.

if you have more than 6 tracks to export to your daw at once, make another pass, viola in about 6 minutes you can have all your tracks onto your daw separately ready to mix.

i figured 8 minutes by an average song length of 3 mins and multiplied that by 2 if you had more than 6 tracks to "track out". of course you would need an audio interface that could handle 6 line inputs.

i would really think twice about the maschine, or even wait until the newer mpc studio comes out before you go spending your money really fast.

i mean, it doesnt even have a stop/panic button.

that killled my workflow.

OMG, I love you for explaining that to me lol seriously people kept saying tracking out and i was like .... and i mean although it's convenient to track out it sounds like such a chore considering with the maschine it's literally instant and there is a plug-in for Logic so i can record midi directly to there and mix, even though i can't mix for my life.

But what do you mean by it doesn't even have a stop button...?

[Xasov]

Originally Posted by blastbeat

illmind has been using Maschine for quite some time now.

No he doesn't. Still on his Asr. Promotion of equipment online doesn't imply they use it irl.

[damien907]

Originally Posted by JuliusR

OMG, I love you for explaining that to me lol seriously people kept saying tracking out and i was like .... and i mean although it's convenient to track out it sounds like such a chore considering with the maschine it's literally instant and there is a plug-in for Logic so i can record midi directly to there and mix, even though i can't mix for my life.

But what do you mean by it doesn't even have a stop button...?

yeah tracking out is gonna be a process, but only if you plan on disconnecting your mpc alot. if you plan on leaving it in one spot all the time, you can keep the cords connected and it should be almost as simple as if it were software like the maschine. if you move around alot, it can be a pain if you have to plug and unplug stuff all the time though.

and by not having a stop button, i mean just that, the maschine doesnt have a panic/stop button. (its a request users have been asking for for along time at the NI forums).
if you have a long sample in maschine, (upwards of 3 or 5 seconds, its gonn play out until its over. end of story.

with the mpc, you can push the stop button to stop a long sample from playing after you pushed it.

there is workarounds for the maschine though, you can make it so the sample only plays as long as you hold the pad down, or you can set a mute group to the same group as the long samples, but like i said before, if you have more than 1 long sample, its gonna be a real workflow killer trying to find which group your sample is playing from to stop it.

with the mpc, you can tap the pad and it will play until the sample ends; with the maschine, you can tap the pad and it will play until the sample ends, but you cant stop it whenever you want.

there are a few main modes that are similar in the maschine and mpc, but the difference is that the mpc can stop a sample whenever you want it to.

1. you can tap the pad (like i said above)
2. you can hold the pad down and it will play the sample for as long as your holding the pad down (but this can get annoying if your trying to play a beat on your drum pads, because you have to hold the pad down like a keyboard to get it to work right.

for my workflow (and almost anyone else who posts a video on youtube about "beat making on a pad based sampler) you see people tapping pads very fast, it gets annoying and, for me practiaclly un usable if you have to hold down the pad for the whole duration of how long you want the sample to last.

i like to tap a pad and have it play through until the next pad i tap mutes it out or i push stop to kill all the notes.

maschine cant do this unless you assign a choke group to a certain pad in that group, only then you can use that pad as a psueudo type stop button. but be aware that you have to use a different pad for EACH group in maschine and there is groups a,b,c,d, all the way through h, where you could have long samples you need to stop.

this is a main reason i would get an mpc or wait until akai releases the mpc studio/rennasance. i will not buy maschine until they put a few things into it, the stop button included.

in my opinion there is a lot of basic features missing from maschine to justify paying that much for it.

[JuliusR]

Damn... yeah that's definitely a feature I use a lot, one shot samples set to polyphony 1.... how does the maschine not have that? Whatever to be honest there's no immediate need to buy one I'm still learning, a lot actually making about 1 beat or 2 a day just fine with my laptop, logic, and my akai mpk mini. I seriously love that product the only thing i don't know how to assign samples / drums to the pads but whatever -____-

I will probably wait for Akai to release the MPC Studio that's what I've been looking at out of their new releases the most. I can definitely wait, a sampler hardware is a want more than a need but then again that's why everyone is here right

[damien907]

i realize you can stop the samples that way, but that is buried in a submenu isnt it? there is no physical knob that you can switch the sample type to is there? if so, i'd love to see a youtube video of something like that.

regarding the sync issues, i have never had a problem like you described, in all actuality you dont even need to send mtc to your mp from your interface, you just need to give your daw a little bit of pre roll time, its easily done in logic by starting to record a bar or 2 before the 1 hits, because that will give the midi being sent time to catch up to your daw. ive done this many many times with an mpc with no issues.
if people are having sync issues tracking out, its usually a user error, not the other way around. i used to track all of my beats out of my mpc 500 without mtc with no problems like the ones you described.

im not trying to knock maschine at all, there is just some features on it that i would like to see implemented before i would consider purchasing one (again) or recommending it to someone.

@ julius if you want to assign samples to your pads using logic, open up your mpk editor program and see which notes are assigned to which pads, then when you open up logic, load a software instrument and put an exs24 on it (this is logic's software sampler)

now go to the edit tab in the top right corner, click on it and it will change from your main exs page to a grid edit type screen; from here click on the zone drop down menu and select, load multiple samples (assuming that you already have some .wav file chops or drums to use). now just find your chops and add them to the correct midi note and your mpk should be able to play them just fine like that.

read about saving in the exs in your "logic pro instruments and effects" book. i would recommend printing this chapter out and learning all about the sampler if your going to be using it alot.

[JuliusR]

Originally Posted by damien907

i realize you can stop the samples that way, but that is buried in a submenu isnt it? there is no physical knob that you can switch the sample type to is there? if so, i'd love to see a youtube video of something like that.

regarding the sync issues, i have never had a problem like you described, in all actuality you dont even need to send mtc to your mp from your interface, you just need to give your daw a little bit of pre roll time, its easily done in logic by starting to record a bar or 2 before the 1 hits, because that will give the midi being sent time to catch up to your daw. ive done this many many times with an mpc with no issues.
if people are having sync issues tracking out, its usually a user error, not the other way around. i used to track all of my beats out of my mpc 500 without mtc with no problems like the ones you described.

im not trying to knock maschine at all, there is just some features on it that i would like to see implemented before i would consider purchasing one (again) or recommending it to someone.

@ julius if you want to assign samples to your pads using logic, open up your mpk editor program and see which notes are assigned to which pads, then when you open up logic, load a software instrument and put an exs24 on it (this is logic's software sampler)

now go to the edit tab in the top right corner, click on it and it will change from your main exs page to a grid edit type screen; from here click on the zone drop down menu and select, load multiple samples (assuming that you already have some .wav file chops or drums to use). now just find your chops and add them to the correct midi note and your mpk should be able to play them just fine like that.

read about saving in the exs in your "logic pro instruments and effects" book. i would recommend printing this chapter out and learning all about the sampler if your going to be using it alot.

Thanks but i know how to do that, like that's what I do i make my chops and drag them into the exs24 but they just play on the keys starting on c1 which is fine but I want to be able to assign them to the pads, as well as drum kits, like they have some samples on the pads but not all of them and they are random...

[damien907]

Originally Posted by JuliusR

Thanks but i know how to do that, like that's what I do i make my chops and drag them into the exs24 but they just play on the keys starting on c1 which is fine but I want to be able to assign them to the pads, as well as drum kits, like they have some samples on the pads but not all of them and they are random...

yeah you have to go into the mpk editor program (the one that came on the disc with your mpk) and change the midi notes to the corresponding ones you want them to play on in the exs.

[ipodchicken]

This is very interesting to me. What is the direct comparison really. Pro and cons of both. I'm really enjoy relaxing old school hip hop with a modern twist. A few song come to mind but an example would be most of Watch the throne. I'm late to the party but I loooove portishead. I also enjoy David Banner other beat makers. I'm basically looking for a device that can fulfill those two needs but more so the former.

Thanks for your help. Also, my first post! lol

[Hobbs_Won]

Maschine is cool.... I love the way you can take a sample and just load it across all the pads and then dial in your chops with the knobs...The fastest way I've seen to get from A to B when chopping a sample by far..

Unfortunately, that feature alone cannot justify me throwing down $599 for it.

[ipodchicken]

Originally Posted by blastbeat

You can find it for half that price or less if you look around.

Usually with stuff like this I go to ebay but I'm afraid I'm going to get it in the mail and the software is going to be activated already. Although, if your carful I'm sure you can find a fully featured one.

[Hobbs_Won]

Originally Posted by blastbeat

You can find it for half that price or less if you look around.

Even for $300 I would rather get another piece of hardware...my MPD and Battery is doing well enough.