So I used to have A4, OT, AR (dark trinty) Sold A4 and OT for a bit of money. And have been left with Analog rytm Mk1, Waldorf Blofeld and Reaper. AR is great but it’s in a bit of an off place since I have to sync AR to reaper and sequence AR by itself and the Blofeld through Reaper.
I mean Rytm is is a great machine, but in my minimal setup is kind of akward. I had a hard time selling the Rytm, I offered a few trade options, mostly aiming for something that would offer easy and fast song compositions (for personal use, not labels or anythinhg) I was aiming for Maschine, electribe, some Ableton versions… Nothing. The only person who replied right now offers an MPC 5000. I quickly looked at the specs and it looks fun, it’s pretty much a hardware version of Maschine. It can seqence my Blofeld and supports samples and has a pretty straightforward design.
So as I have said, I am looking for something only for myself, play around, make tracks for my stereo etc, not a professional producer… With that said, what do you think of this as a trade? Is MPC5000 too old? Is it too “low tech”? I don’t know I am throwing al kinds of questions, maybe I should just hear what others say.
To be honest I am not familiar with MPC at all, so I do not know where it stands, what type of product it is and what others think about it. I am reading about it for the first time ever as I am finishing up this post, so feel free to say anything you want.
Why don’t you sample the Blofeld and transfer samples to the Rytm ?
Could be really great, depending on the kind of music you like creating…
If I were you, I would add a Digitakt, though…
I am really fond of mine, it offers the MIDI control you need with ace sound !
Sorry I am not adding any new gear at the moment due to financial reasons. Otherwise I would not have sold them. Unless anyone wanted to trade…
Yes I can sample Blofeld, it’s just another option.
However a Rytm is still a drum synth with only support for samples. A unit like Maschine would offer me a bit mor ein term sof sound and it can interact witm my Blofeld in a more direct way… So I thought an MPC 5000 is more of a all-in-one unit and it can sequence Blofeld directly.
Thanks. MPC Live looks great but the MPC 5000 is not that bad either, sure it doesn’t have the big bright screen but I have owned Octatrack before so screen size/lack of color is a non issue to me.
I am not sure what you mean by up-to-date besides the visual aesthetics and modern connectivity options like wireless MIDI. MPC500o seems very similar to Octatrack, it’s standalone, can sequence external gear, record and edit samples. Asll without a computer or DAW and provided that my only DAW option doesn’t provide me with any instrument plug in, it’s a big help. Also it seems MPC5000 has it’s own synth engine as well.
Yup, feel free to tell me what they are, since I made this topic to learn about the MPC 5000. Did you have it and think that it’s not a worthy trade (possibly money involved for balance in my favor)?
Ha ha, good question. Uhm Octatrack was supposed to be “the one to keep”. However since money was the ultimate goal I put up all three units for sale and decided to sell whatever sells and deal with what didn’t sell after. Basically I couldn’t afford to pick and choose and put everything out there. I knew that Octrack is th e most sought after device but I just had to do it.
I appreciate your advice and I will consider it as trading something of more value for something of less value. I will keep everything you said in mind.
rytm - prices are coming down.
mpc5000 - entirely depends on the memory , outputs and any other upgrades.
but i guess it can sample and sequence external gear … it’ll sequence the blofeld and make that side easier to deal with.
and how much real time sound mangling you need to do.
do you really need to alter speciic parameters of a snare sound (tyrm) or a few variants of samples (MPC)
a quick look on ebay shows that mpc5000 are for sale for more than rytm , i dont know if they actually sell for those prices though.
Yup. They’re just very different devices so it’s gonna be a personal choice at the end of the day. Any reason for the 5k specifically? If you got an MPC1000 you’d have the benefit of JJOS, which is much more powerful and easier to use than MPC OS, and you’d have change left over for a couple of fx pedals as the onboard fx aren’t that great. It’s definitely a more flexible all in one box than the ryrm if you need sequencing, but if you have another way of sequencing the Blofeld and enjoy the rytms interface then I’d strongly consider keeping it. You can play a full set on the rytm alone - check out Glo Phase (pretty sure he’s on here).
1k is the bomb but since being spoiled by maschine mk3 I struggle to go back to using my maxed 1k. those load times suck and the typing and sample transfer speed is a musical cockblock. If you’re gonna go old school remember you can plug a keyboard into the 4K and the effects and sound quality are significantly superior. Honestly though just get the new one, it’s pretty much the same price, a million miles faster and more feature dense if lacking a few bits and pieces to be released at some point. It has actual computer integration and it’s still pretty far from end of the road at the moment.
Regardless I can’t let go of my 1k for sentimental reasons but to someone jumping in I’d only recommend it if you’re aware that you’re going for a bit of a retro workflow. It’s a great box to work with but most people are probably better off with the new thing. Old mpcs are something special if you click with them though
I meant MPC live/MPC X. MPC 5000 is dependant on upgrades as people have said above. I’m not a 5k user so I can’t give you a thorough run down of it but I know it’s the only MPC with a built in synth, pretty sure FX will be in a similar league to the 4K but it’s inferior spec wise overall I think. Looked into it all pretty thoroughly when I went through a phase of wanting the perfect MPC.
If you wanted you could probably trade it, flip it and buy an MPC live new. Could be quick but might be a waiting game. Elektron mk1s still seem to be dropping and MPC5000 probably won’t appreciate in value but it’s anyones guess what’s gonna randomly become the next cool piece of old gear. I reckon if you’re gonna go this route the best bet is to flip your rytm (and if necessary add a little extra) to buy an MPC live. At least with your rytm youre sure of the condition it’s in. And you’re safer buying a used live in good condition than a good condition 5k for sure
The mpc 5k should be good for what you describe you are looking to do in your first post. As others have said, 5k value is dependent on what upgrades the machine has.
Additionally, make sure the 5k has firmware 2.0. It had some terrible bugs before being upgraded to 2.0
Can someone tell me what are the 3 types of memory on an MPC 5000 are used for? It has a Hard Drive, Compact Flash card, RAM.
If I judge by Elektron gear: RAM is memory dedicated to one project. Compact Flash holds samples Hard Drive is to save songs/projects (their recorded versions I assume)?
RAM stands for random access memory. its where stuff that is loaded into the machine is stored and is generally wiped between power cycles, CF is a type of memory card you put in the machine and hard drive is basically a large memory card you can put inside the machine and upgrade on certain boxes. A HDD hard drive stands for hard disk drive which is a type of memory that runs off a spinning disk like a tiny CD with a huge memory, they are more fragile and generally have a shorter life span than SSDs. SSD stands for solid state drive. They’re more expensive but last significantly longer, think of it like a big memory card inside the machine with no little parts to break
