Its been 5 years since I’ve touched music. I had an itch and have started to scratch it again. I’ve use Ableton in the past, and moved over to using an MPC2000 to make trip hop style beats. I no longer have Ableton, so I plan on piecing together a small studio of instruments to play around. I’ll be doing this for my sanity, possibly play out here and there. Really I just want to jam out on some beats and make bleeps and bloops. What I have so far is an MPC2000 as my sequencer, Akai S3200XL rack sampler, SP404FX to mangle samples with, just picked up a Behringer K-2 (I wanted a clone of the ms20, its my favorite noisy synth that I’ve never been able to afford. And no, I don’t care if it doesn’t sound like the original, it’ll still make noise.) I have 400 US dollars to spend. I have been looking at possibly picking up the Behringer Crave (mother 32 rip off) with a mixer for all of my equipment to run into Reaper as the DAW. maybe I’ll make tunes with all of this… maybe it just becomes something I turn on in the morning and jam out by myself while drinking coffee, I’d at least like to record the sessions to see what it all sounds like together. My question is. Do I spend the cash on a used mixer and the Crave for another synth, or purchase a drum machine to go along with everything? I’m wanting to try my hand at some dark industrial techno, Headless Horseman, SNTS etc… Again, I have no delusions that I’ll be the next best thing. This is strictly to blow some steam off and be creative. I wouldn’t mind it turning into something I take outside of the home and play at a club from time to time in a live situation, but its not my end goal… So there you have it, looking forward to gaining some knowledge and maybe hear some different views I haven’t thought of while trying to piece this altogether.
Do you need a drum machine if you have the MPC2000?
Do you need the Crave if you have a K-2 and three samplers?
It sounds like a mixer for your existing gear is all you need.
Was thinking a drum machine that would be easy to program…trying to go through tons of drum sounds on an mpc 2000 is exhausting… you have to wait for the sound to load, then audition it… if you don’t like it, you have to start all over. seeing videos of others using a 909 where you literally just push 4 buttons and done, you have your rolling kick. Maybe your right here… My time is limited, and wanted something a bit quicker than going through a catalog of samples…
Of course you’re right, but why not set up a 909 kit (or an 808 kit etc) once and use that?
(Just a suggestion.)
Yeah… I should probably do some google searches on sampled sounds from those drum machines and stop trying to just buy more gear lol…
TR-8s / TR-6s
Curate your drum samples to 20 max. One day of admin. Then go to it with only those options.
Was looking at the TR6s (cheaper version). The FX is what sells me on them.
Good idea… I bet I could find a sample pack for cheap online and run them through the sp into the s3200xl to snag later down the road…
The other thought I had for adding the Crave was being able to have two synths running at once instead of stopping to sample sounds. The idea of just turning stuff on and twisting knobs while bouncing around seemed more fun then actually making tracks lol
Cheap, or even better- free. Can’t go wrong with this offering from Reverb. Samples from most if not all the classic drum machines that you’ll ever want to use. 100% free of charge.
Going to get home and dl this. thank you!
Nice one! Thanks for putting up that link. Downloading now. Octafood. (Might even feed some them to the TR8-S) yum
EDIT: Id say about 50% of them are useful to me. And thats after Ive culled all the dross, Ableton drumracks and and such. Will take some time to curate this lot into something organised so I can transfer to my machines.
This is the approach I took recent after having some desire to buy a shiny new drum machine.
Made a few OT parts/kits that are ready to go, made for immediacy and easily adjustable (sample chains help!).
Now I don’t want that drum machine anymore 
Unfortunately the LICENSE is quite restrictive. As long as you aren’t making money I guess it’s good to go?
This is where most all my samples I’m currently using come from. There is so much in there to play with. Should keep you busy for awhile.
I think with all the current gear you have, a mixer would be a great option. Yeah, it’s not glamorous, but it’s necessary when your studio starts to grow.
Seriously? You really think they will come hunting you down because you used a few drum samples they put up for free download, then you made a tune, stuck it up on bandcamp and 3 people bought a copy of said tune?
they wont because:
The licensee MAY modify the sounds and MAY use the material for commercial purposes as part of a musical composition with other sounds. To clarify a musical composition may also include synchronised film and video scores , multimedia productions and music or sound design created for the gaming industry. The Licensee MAY use this product in the creation of so called Library Music.
Lock him up!!! 
Theres plenty of drum samples to be found.
Around christmas, samples from mars sells every sample they provide as a bundle for around 30$ (~150 oherwise). Enough great drum samoles to last you a lifetime.
You can also preview the samples on the mpc from the load screen
Massive drum libraries can cripple you even with fast machines. It sounds great to be able to download a fully sampled TR-808, but when you’re looking at a hundred kick drum samples and you’ve forgotten what the numbers in the filenames mean, it does you no good at all creatively.
As has been suggested already, I’d probably curate a small set of core samples and work on tweaking those with the MPC - your kick pattern example is slightly quicker on a TR style drum machine, but there’s a lot of stuff the MPC can do that a TR drum machine probably won’t be able to replicate at all (16 levels comes to mind).
But there is something to be said for having a drum machine to hand in this kind of setup - somewhere you can quickly tweak a sound (or whole beat) to your liking and then sample it in for further processing, which can be a lot more fun & productive than sifting through and tweaking samples.
Going down that route I’d probably consider a TR-6S - if you’re planning to sample the sounds then you don’t need the full features of the 8S, but you’d still be able to do interesting things like grab sounds that use the internal 6S effects and then pitch them down on the MPC. You also get decent performance options if you decide to use the drum machine as a device in its own right.
The TR-06 is another solid choice, I think - the sound goes beyond the 606 core, and you’d get some interesting CV interaction with your K2.
But just to add to the crushing pile of options, there’s a lot to be said for getting a mixer and adding an 8 output card to your MPC (if you haven’t already got one). Separating your MPC channels and processing them on a mixer can make a big difference. Get a mixer with an send/return setup and you could stick the 404 on there for interesting FX options.