Akai MPC-2000XL

Pretty easy to use, and heaps more cool stuff to find, the deeper you
delve... The manual was a bit of cow, but I foundit unecessary most
of the time.

32 polyphony good. pressure sensitive pads good. The extra FX add ons
sound REALLY good, its a pity there aint any knobs to twiddle them
real - time. The resampling doesnt happen thru the FX either so you cant
alter your samples down multiple generations: another let down since there's
only 2 multi FX buses and 2 reverbs. I found this really frustrating
because the FX sound soo good... I dont have any other midi gear so
I guess i dont even use half its capabilities.

It helps if you use good samples. You can set the velocity to alter
the filter, attack, and pitch of the sound which helps make your
loops sound more dynamic. This box seems really well designed for
hip hop, not so good for live squelching psy-trance style.

I've had it shit itself a couple of times, generally during excessive
button bashing/snare rushes etc. I think it would be great for gigging
, it sure lugging computers around.

Full marks here. The Australian support guy went above and beyond,
saved me from eternity lost in the manual.

If this baby was stolen I'd but the latest update. Its pretty bloody
expensive, but its all quality. Its quite intuitive and doesnt
impede creativity. I wish it had some knobs to twiddle, cause the
standard filter on the slider aint so hot. I was looking for an
everything in one type box, and I very nearly got it here.

It gets no easier.. if you cant lock this box down in two weeks
you should re-evaluate you IQ test scores..

I dont think anything dilivers so many useable functions in such a
small very portable package, it samples quick, and edits sequences,
and songs in record time. Not to mention the fact that NO other
sampling drum mach has more ways of locking up to track mach's.

If you sample from a clean sorce its going to sound clean so it dosnt
matter what style of music your doing. what matters is if you know
what your doing...

No problems yet, though if i take it out of my studio
it goes in a hard case. Ive heard of peoples mp's messing up but i
wonder how much of it is caused by just not taking care of it properly.

online support seems good.
never had to call in person, but i did cheak out the web site for updates, and aditional sounds.

price was a little more but i needed the output expanded and memory,
also got the smte chip and the new graphic edition so it looks really
cool..

Can take some getting used to as far as function buttons and layers of window menu's. But you have to learn in anything you use.

Sick - Akai converters are the bomb!!! I use it mostly for drums and drum loops and they sound great out of this box. You can assign different filter, tuning, attack, and release to each sample in real time... cool.

Great unit for programming beats and playing live. Sequencer is ultra tight and the swing is better than computer based sequencers ( and quick to use). You can duplicate the swing on a computer but you have to download templates, load into sequencer.,...arrgh. MPC is also great live!!!

I wish I had bought A KORG TRITON instead