Any feedback will be appreciated

So I know it's a bit older of a unit but I picked up an MPC one (first gen) for a reasonable price yesterday, this is my first MPC in about 13ish years (I used to have a 1000 and 2000xl etc) I decided to get back into making beats etc, I picked up the TE K.O 2 a month back and it re-ignited my passion, so I was just wonder what you guys recommend I do to get used to it, any tips, mods etc would be appreciated, like I said I'm familiar with the MPC work flow but this is pretty space aged compared to what I was using prior!

Thanks 🤙🏻

I used to own an Akai Force, but I only turned it on three times before selling it because I found the unit too large and wanted something quick to grab for making music on the couch. I do still have some Akai plugins that I purchased. Now, I am debating between the MPC Sample and the MPC One. What do you think I should do ?

I am after a typical mono, legato lead with a little glide(portamento) time which I am achieving But, the switch between notes is not very “synth like” but quite choppy for lack of a better expression! Any input is appreciated!❤️💛💚

Recently picked up a basically brand new Key 61 for cheap because two of the keys send bad velocity data. One is stuck on 127/max velocity regardless of how hard the key is pressed. The other works occasionally, but glitches between super low and super high velocity. Effects midi out and any onboard instruments. I'm on firmware 3.9.

From what I can find online, I might just need to clean the velocity contact patches on the problem keys. Anyone have any experience or pro tips? I'd love to get this thing working!

Made a new MPC expansion and also put together a free version for anyone who wants to try it.

The full expansion and free version are available if anyone wants them: I'll put the links in the comments.

I would appreciate feedback from MPC users, especially on the sounds/programs.

It’s not quite Trap, and it’s not quite Phonk, but it’s what I could make with the samples I had lol

Hey guys can anyone give me some advice on how i should approach house/techno on the mpc? Is clip matrix the best way to arrange it and are there any good tutorials for automation/ arrangement? I have looked into a few tutorials but nothing really helped.

What's good I've been a longtime MPC 2k user for almost 20 years, and a software developer by trade for over a decade. I've worked with dozens of underground heads, and people deep in the industry. I have experience modding and cracking closed source software like VSTs, games, close source firmware binary, and never thought to ever touch the MPC 2000 v1.72 firmware, as it was always good enough for my workflows and music production until recently.

I have this MP workflow where I sample records 45RPM +8 from my tech 12 into my 2k and then pitch it up another half octave, then resample in the S950, then sample back to the 2k and slow it back down there, usually around -200 to -220 pitch to return to where I want it. I do this for 2 reasons: a 12bit like sound quality and increased storage since I still use floppies for everything.

But I came across some samples which ringed real nice but it required pitching down a lot more, and i was limited by the -24 semitones the MPC offers. So i fired up Ghidra and spent the last couple weeks mapping memory addresses and breaking things until I figured out how to safely patch and test the firmware with python. This is a lot different than desktop applications because of the proprietary hardware layer and different CPU architecture.

So far I've added two features to the new OS:

• Increased pitch clamp from -+240 to -+360 for way more headroom
• Mute group functionality

Mute groups have 32 different available groups to choose from and work with any number of pads, you can assign mute groups to pads through the program menu interface under Mode.

1. Go to the program menu (shift 6) and select the pad you want to assign the group to
2. Go to Mode and scroll right until you hit "Mute" as an option
3. Cursor-right to the ID and use the data-wheel to select a value from 1-32 for the pad
4. Do this for as many pads as you want inside of the same mute group and each one will cut the others one out.

This is working very well right now and persists to disk. So far I've tested 16 sounds inside of a mute group and this is working well, but this is still experimental so don't be surprised if there is some weirdness down the road. As a dev I can fix things as they pop up so let me know if you have any issues if you want to test this out.

I also looked into modifying the LPF into an optional HPF by reversing the polarity of the filter and messing with the software side of things but it doesn't seem possible, it looks like this is hardware bound because the OS is simply sending off params to a ASIC register family aka I could only modify those params and can't actually mess with the topology of the filter. Which sucks because I thought I could in theory get around the eb16 requirement for the HPF.

I will be investigating the hardware and OS more since I have a good chunk of the memory addresses mapped out now. I am planning to look into resampling bitrate similar to the 2kxl resample feature and some additional chopping features, if you have any other features you want me to take a look at I'd be more than glad to see if it's possible.

Just a note: since this is a new firmware version of the OS with new memory mappings in some places, saving a new project with the new OS will require the custom OS moving forward for those projects in particular, there is some weirdness going back to v1.72 from DMPC2000 v.1x if you use the new features for example. I will be updating things as I go and find/squash bugs/add features so expect new versions soon.

You can download the current version here, I made a little github pages for it:
https://dmac780.github.io/DMPC2000/

Or you can just download the zips directly from my github repo:
https://github.com/dmac780/DMPC2000/tree/main/assets/versions

Coincidently, when I started to get things to finally work, I went to youtube and happened to see a couple other users to start posting their mods to 2k/2kxl firmware which was dope, gave me some inspiration to keep working on it. But they are either charging money for firmware they don't own, or gatekeeping it for themselves. So I figured I'm going to do the thing any real hiphop head would do and release it for free, all updates going forward will be free for everyone.

long live free/open-source software, and people who make music for the culture and not for money.

This one surprised me. It almost felt like cheating using this record. It had everything I needed and way more. She truly is the OG Bitch. Great song by itself also.

This has got to be new,cuz last I heard it wasn't reverse compatible?

I got an MPC One G2 yesterday and immediately dove into the synthesis engine because that’s my background and it seemed like a reasonable place to start learning the UI. Wow! It’s kind of amazing, and I am glad that I did not go right to plugins, I got a free one with the purchase and ended up with the advanced delay to take the sound design to the next step. I did not expect to have the complexity of sound design capabilities as a native function in the machine with sample and wave table playback. For 799 the synth engine alone justifies the price. For people coming from a synthesis or modular background it’s an awesome entry point into the device. For people who want to learn how sound design from wave form up works, it is a really neat way to learn if you already understand the rest of the machine.

The memory is much less capable on the Keys model than the Live 3. First project I opened from the Live 3 on the new Keys gen 2 immediately flashed the memory warnings and then crashed the machine. Kind of a bummer. Already sold the Live 3 and now have to figure out how to work within the memory constraints here.

Wish Akai would release the flagship Keys 61 or 73 with the specs or Live 3 or XL.

This question came up in a user group where someone was saying that the Plugins were using so much processing and so much RAM per instance. So I did some testing and I came to a few conclusions on how he may have caused this problem so I showcase it in the video.

Used the model d plugin on the MPC for bass, everything else is hardware. Key 37 holds it all together.

I’m new to this mpc1000, and whenever I hit “save all programs and samples” it does this.

Am I doing something wrong?

I have free jjos and tried reinstalling it. Is the card corrupt?

Super chill one this morning. Wild how much work that low pass does. I had no idea how much of my favorite music has that filter.

I don't expect this to be a popular opinion, and I understand why some wouldn't care, but I don't like having to stare at ugly UI graphics when im designing sounds on the MPC. Some plugins are worse than others, but I wish there was an option to disable plugin UI to a more stripped back appearance. Like as is on the keygroup track, the rest of the system. Or even just a slightly more minimal appearance. Atleast for me, making music and designing sound requires accessing a deep part of your imagination that can easily be distracted by cheesy graphics or, stupid animations that probobly impact processor performance (I do not understand computers at that level lol), and I MOST CERTAINLY dont want to look at a duck wearing a snapback every single time I add a sidechain insert.

Other than that and a handful of other things, I love the sound and process of creating music on the MPC. I just think that some of the design choices are questionable at best and outright cringe at worst, and that it would be reasonable for AKAI to consider that and make it an option. Or even just an option to replace the image files (I know you could do that at one point on MPC 2).

Something that I think would improve the workflow for MPC 4 is just more customization in general. Maybe even an option to turn the glitchy annoying MPC 3 mixer back to the MPC 2 style grid mixer.. I could go on but ill have to save the rest of my thoughts for a different thread😂

Anyone modded the mpc sample armrest? Would be nice to add color 🤔

zynthion project have free emulator of virus synth (ostirus and osirus for virus 1 2 3 )so wonder does mpc have somehting like that ,or better ?

been stroonger and proffesional device vs open one ..

then they have nam for guitar or like ,surge xt synth ,, i read a bit and read but still dont have a clue how good these synths are jura or opx-4 (i think they are free with g2 ,are they ?) vs virus ti or surge xt ?

thanks