Customer Reviews

Akai MPC 500 MIDI Production System Sampler

5 star:		(3)
4 star:		(3)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

This is my first mpc purchase. I've had my mpc 500 for a little over a month now and i am loving it. Truth be told, don't be fooled by its small design. It is a monster with a lot of potential IF you take the time to really read the manual and get to know it. Once you do, trimming and adding effects is a piece of cake.

First the pros: It's got a solid design and is very sturdy. It has the same sampling rate (44.1 kHz) as other mpc's in the lineup. By far the biggest advantage is that its portable. You pop in the batteries and boom. Finally, its compatible with other mpc's so moving your work from one to another is not hard at all.

The cons: the mpc 500's portable design is also its biggest weakness. If you are a beginner looking to get your first mpc, I would not recommend getting this. I got it because it was the cheapest mpc in the lineup but its small design limits its RAM. The mpc 500 only comes with 16MB of RAM (which can be upgraded to 128MB) so your sampling time is severely limited when compared to other mpc's. Second, you only get a much smaller lcd screen so when it comes to chopping samples you have to do so by numbers (and by ear) rather than seeing an actual waveform on your screen like other mpc's. My personal complaint with the mpc is that AKAI reduced the amp section to make it sleek and small but as a result you get 12dB less output in your recordings. This isn't a major problem but I find myself constantly normalizing AND applying a compressor to most my samples.

Finally, to address the issues raised by the other reviewers, the pads are a little stiff when its right out the box but there are two things to be said. 1) If you've never had an mpc before, the pads are velocity sensitive so if you tap them soft the sound comes out soft, if you strike it hard, the sound comes out louder in order to mimick a real instrument. BUT if you dont like this idea, all you have to do is press the "FULL LEVEL" button and your samples are triggered with a mere tap of the pad.

Bottom line: If you are a traveling musician who is on the road alot or if you have other mpc's and/or have extra money to burn, I would recommend getting the mpc 500. If you're looking for an mpc for your home studio the mpc 500 is not a bad deal at all but I would recommend saving up for the mpc 1000 or 2000(XL).

This is a great product especialy for those wanting to make some hip hop or techno or whatever. Everything came in the box; mpc, ac adapter, manual, quick start, cf card, and latest version (1.31). The manual is great I have learned much in just a couple of days, though im still learning but its great. great price for what it is capable of.

First and foremost: this is a very capable machine, so don't be fooled by its diminutive size. It's actually possible to make close to full productions on this thing alone (although you'd likely record its output in a DAW and take it from there). Its interface is very arcane though; there's only a tiny LCD screen with two lines of information. While a lot of people might find this restricting, I actually love how it forces you to use your ears to make music. Yes, I love to put limitations on my workflow, since I often find myself most creative when I try to push the boundaries of my equipment.

I like how the screen is actually better viewable from an angle than straight from above. The pads are rather stiff though, and you'll find yourself banging them real hard when you're just starting out on this thing. A good piece of advice is to put more memory in this unit. As another reviewer pointed out, it's best to use ordinary laptop memory for this, since the AKAI memory is basically a rip-off. I did, and I couldn't be happier.

So all in all, this is not a bad buy, especially since they come rather cheap these days.

i bought tha mpc500 with no prior knowledge on mpc's & now not even a month later, im pumpin out beatz like whoa! haha aight i still def got pleanty 2learn but im getting better everyday. if ur new2mpc's, u just gotta keep@it and soon enuff ull b makin beatz naturally.im totally loving this machine. its def a powerfull peice of professional equipment yet still easy enuff2learn as long as ur driven. i do already have a long background of creating musik(i can play bass, drums, and guitar) so that working knowledge of how songs are made &how different instruments interact with eachother definately helps. it might b more challenging4sumone who is new to mpc's and has no other experience with creating musik... also, i will say that tha owners manual can b difficult 2stay focused on reading... its stictly informational¬ written to captivate, but why wud they? haha. still i fell asleep a few times trying2read it. & U NEED THA RAM MEMORY UPGRADE!!! tha 16mb of ram it ships with is not enuff 4anything! within tha 1st week ull realize u cant load all tha samples u want("insufficient memory!") DONT BUY THA MANUFACTURERS MEMORY. its a rip off. buy the laptop memory instead. same thing just $100 less.

if my mpc500 got destroyed sumhow, id buy another in a second. great product.

My grandfather bought me the MPC500 christmas of 2009 as an add-on to my studio, so I've had for a little over a year now. As an up and coming producer, I find that this little thing to be quite impressive. What I personally like about it are the natural drum sounds, for some reason, the drums recorded in any mpc just sounds better. One of the biggest problems is having a 16mb memory before getting an EXM or Whatever memory card you so desire, which is nothing to record into. However, if u have a DAW system, like Pro Tools, it poses as no problem. It's great for the buy, but you have to take the time to use it to your advantage.

The Akai did not work, it looked like a pin was twisted. Rob told me that my son had damaged the pins by inserting his card the wrong way, my son who is 16 and technically very good with everything claims that the pin was twisted from the start.Rob is sending us a new one.This was a bad experience, next year I will shop from a store because this was his main present for Christmas and he was sad not to be able to use it. Thank you for your interest. Happy new=year. Best regards. Natacha Leighton

I bought this item for $550 and i was so suprised to to recieve it here n iraq within a week and come to find out that it wasnt an MPC 500 but it was an MPC 5000 lol... so basicaly i got a $1000- $1500 discout bc of somones mess up or maybe they did it on purpose lol i duno but im pretty happy with it :)

maybe i didnt know how to work this thing, or i got a faulty machine but i had to return it because i didnt like it. the pads were not responsive, unless i hit it extra hard buy reason 4.0 instead