Akai MPC-500

Software version 1.13

The preset demo song are really, really bad. But a few of the samples included are usable. But this IS a sampler, you're supposed to actually use it as one.

The manual covers almost everything, but is relatively "dry". Although reading it two or three times gets you up to speed very fast since the MPC-500 is very well organized considering the small display.

The pads are a tad too un-responsive, but that's probably more what I think, than what everyone will think.
The sequencer is very easy to work with, and so is everything else. It really makes you work fast, and listen, not look (like when you use a software sequencer)! Even sample editing benefits from you actually listening instead of working with waveforms on the screen. It brings new ideas, by just using and listening all the time.

I expanded the memory (to full 128Mb) with a standard dimm from a laptop I didn't use anymore. Cheap and works great! CF-cards are cheap and perfect for storing your stuff. And the USB brings all my samples from my computer to the MPC in a very simple manner.

It sounds way better than I thought. It's portable, but I really wouldn't have a problem using it in my studio.
The effects could have been better, but for it's size, I'm amazed that it can do almost all things that the bigger MPC's does, and sounds a good.

I haven't run in to any crashes yet, so yes, I can rely on my MPC-500. Although I don't gig, just for home/studio use.

na

I'd by it back in a second if it was stolen! Fun, portable, great sounding. But if you don't need portability I'd probably look at the MPC-1000 or 2500.

As a sketch pad in my sofa or making fast beats in the hotel, It's perfect! I can't think of a better portable sequencer/MPC/beatmachine.

ease of use : awful !! it would make more sense .. for a 1st time user .. if the manual was written better. a few of the subjects were shown in a little more depth. the logic is incompatible with mine.

im planning to use it with a home base sequencer to replace a drum machine .. & also have the ability to use my samples .. rather than load up the pc.

presets. well some of the samples supplied are ok.
Patch editor?? where is it ??

editing.just the basics are enough on my brain. it detracts from making beats.
i think i commented on the ---- manual.

its a std model .. 16mb. cant figure out where the samples are being loaded. unlike a memory card where u can arrange things in order .. this machine is a bit mysterious.
midi: as an outboard module it works ok. cant seem to get any pan / fX happening via a sequencer .. a backward step.

ive no editor .. so there,s TONS of button pushing to get anything sorted. once a folder is established then loading is ok .. but why does it load somewhere other than direct to the pads .. when i need to load up some sounds .. quick .. why the hell do i have to re-asign the samples one by one to the pads !! surely it would make more sense to load them in ABC order or wotever regardless of your intervention direct to the pads .. until such time u re-arrange them.
how time consuming this button pushing is.

this philosophy stinks.

the sounds are ok. the machine has potential. the pads seem to be independent .. although in the 5days ive owned it .. all ive managed to do is try to fathom out the loading/saving process. its very confusing.

most of the things ive had to find out myself. some aspects are not fully explained .. as if u are meant to know how its done. i did find that the slider fx control appears to work only with one pad .. at any time. a bit limited. also i did break away from the organizing tasks for a minute to find when using a fx .. it seems the level applied is fixed!
.... !! this is a real can of worms.

no comment

no comment

ive very mixed feelings. purchasing i flipped a coin. i was only after a sampler .. mainly for drums .. didnt need a sequencer. at this price there wasnt many choices. i went for this mpc500 as the brochure hyped it up .. & im still going to percivere .. as it does what i want once its set up.
maybee in time .. huh .. i will be able to skip thru the menus at warp speed .. but ive never found anything ( other than a pc ) quite this complicated. all the button pushing is worrying. how long before those buttons pack up?
i would love to rate it a nine .. or even 8 .. but sorry .. 6 .. only because i may grasp the logic behind this later.
more later than sooner.

if you know mpc's then it is basic. if not RTFM and log on to mpc-forums dot com. some sub menus but THIS IS NOT AN MPC REPLACMENT. if you think this YOU WILL BE DISAPPOINTED!

does the same as my mpc 60 back in the daY

this is what the is fun about. i can give it a 9 cos i have good drum samples and understand the principles of "knockin'" drums. however the output is quieter than all other mpcs so the the SIG. to NOISE is higher but if you have any love for old school samplers and 12bit sound then there is nothing what a noise gate won't fix!

so far so good. dont use it for a pillow or foot rest!

not needed. but from experience with other mpc'S find an alternative to akai!

i make beats anywhere now. the fastest pad for ideas and sample to be captured WITHOUT A F$%&ING MOUSE!!!

timing is...
sound are...

all classic MPC

BTW unless you intend to keep it buy one second hand! the price is more realistic!

N/A, unless I compare it to a computer with Ableton Live and then it fails miserably...

NO PATTERN PLAY MODE. Every beat box in existence now has pattern play - a pattern is a sequence, and one should be able to trigger them in real time by simply hitting the pads.

Who needs sample editing? I can do this far more effectively on a computer - and can create MIDI loops in Fruity Loops, Live, whatever, and import them to the flash card....

But NO PATTERN PLAY? Do the Akai BeatBox makers even talk to the MPC guys?

(Hey, I'd even settle for a drum machine with a couple of user slots for our own percussive samples. Hey, Zoom, are you listening?

N/A

I sent mine back unopened once I found out there was no pattern play mode - that was a real dealbreaker for me....

Back to my laptop and FL, Live, or Sonar.......

Well I found this MPC-500 Very hard to use I was trying not to throw it out. lol But the man at the music store was making out like he did not have a clue how to use it but he did know how to use it he was just lazy because I did not even know how to load a sample on this MPC-500 The manual is total trash. But that's not the bad news after 3 weeks of working this thing out I later on find that 16 Meg to me will not even be anuff to build a drumloop and now I love to be way creative an use Percussion So all I can say is I better get the 128 Meg ram and I already paid $1500 and need to spend another $250 for the Ram card I hope it's worth it.

I can't look at this Mpc-500 and know that I can't even make a drumloop with it's limited Ram. I will find out more about Features when I get the Ram upgrade.

The sounds are very cool and back in the day my Producer used to have a MPC-1000 and I learnt everything about that machine that's what made me love MPC'S I never wunted to pay $1800 on an MPC-1000 that to me is too much but I have almost paid that after I get the 128 Meg Ram.

I can depend on it looks tough and I like the look of it.

I found alot of trouble in this area drove me crazy but one time somebody was helpfull and told me an internet website and a Akai support guy I then emailed 2 questions and 5 days later he answered don't know if that's fast or slow.

Overall I can c my Brother and I making really crazy Rap and Crunk beats on this but untill I get the 128 meg ram I will never know what I could do with this machine in my hands but can't wait to learn more about it and find out how cool it is. I Started making beats using Reason 3 and now I have Reason 4 and Alberton Live 7 plus Fruity Loops 5 Producer edition and FXPansion Guru and I use Cool Edit Pro 2 for over fx and Producing. I hate Fruity Loop and really think people should buy FXpansion Guru as It is like having a Mpc with a full colour computer screen and goes off your Hard Drive Gigs, It only has 16 Bars for making beats but it is a top software and I give it 10/10

surprisingly for a small 2 line calculator lcd display this thing is actually easy to use . It took about 2 days to fully get to grips with it and after that its pretty straight forward . manual is ok but I haven't really had a need for it . most features are pretty intuitive.

for what it is a fully expanded mpc500 with 128mb of ram and 2gb CF card is a pretty impressive thing and could easily be your workhorse drum machine/sampler .

the sequencer is the famous mpc sequencer and is the reason why you would get any mpc including the 500. quick , easy to use with incredible results . its by far the best drum sequencer ever

i have taken it out on batteries and it worked very well

polyphony can be eaten up

its a sampler so it depends on what you load in . the mpc engine excells in bright punchy sounds , perfect for drums and percussion . The resonant filter is ok but with no modulation/envelope options its a bit limited . efx are ok

no issues so far . has not crashed or done anything fully .

seems very very solid and well built

no idea . the akai website is good . downloaded the pdf manual and latest o/s with no issues

the mpc has really changed the way I work , especially in terms of drum/beat creation . nothing else compares once you get used to it . I am considering adding a mpc1000 for more power and flexibility but I will keep the 500 for some extra polyphony and to trigger live on the fly.

or i might just stay with the 500 . once you get passed the screen it does everything you really need an mpc to do.

The Mpc 500 is the little brother in the akaipro mpc chain.
no preset sound except for the demo samples that you can easely write over.

The operation Manual gives you all the information needed.
it might be good to have the manual close whenever you trying to do something you haven't done earlier. Like advanced configuring.
But otherwise its written in solid industrial english.

It has 32 polyphony capacity(like the other mpc's)

Its possible to expand it up to 128 mb. With the memory expansion

It has Midi in/out. stereo in/out + headphone output & USB.

The pads are pressure sensetive and you can set the sounds so the sample plays as long as you hold the pad or just press the pad once and it plays the complete sample you've assigned to the pad.

It has the FAMOUS mpc sequencer and gives you 48 midi tracks devided in 4 banks.

Only thing that coul be difficult is the tiny LCD screen( not bigger then a calculator screen) But it gives you all the information you need. Except make any waveform editing, its all done by ear.
But thanx to the USB connection you can easy transfer it to your pp/mac and do the editing there

velocity is adjustable and You can enter circa 16 values to set the pressure sensetivity to the 12 pads.

Since it's a sampler it doesen't have any built in sounds.
But it ships with a few samples to get you started.

The Mpc 500 is best suited for electronic music

The onboard effects are good

The Sequencer is just like any other mpc sampler and it gives you that special swing(whenever YOU whant it to)
Or you can program the notes in a static fashion with/or with out full volume on the notes in step edit mode

It's realiable and I wouldn't hesitate to bring it along on a gig.
The compact size makes it very portable and it runs on batteries.
The latest operative system now is Version 1.11 and I haven't Experienced any system freeze or simular.

They might be difficult to get in contact with but once you have the help you out answer your Question

If it were stolen you've would get one new on the insurance.

Im a proud owner of a mpc 2000xl since 2001

I dont like the tiny screen but it gets the job done.
The same thing goes to the pads the have a different feel then the other mpc. The pads on the mpc 500 are thicker. But they are adjustable.

It really helps me to makes music since its portable I can bring it along with me.

This machine can be a cumbersome for a newbie but i navigated well thru it after a day playing with it.The manual is not very clear on some things but it's ok i guess.

The pads on this thing is not very initutive and requires making some settings on the pads and using the full levels key to get a good feel of the sound,very poor pads.

Ok sounds for out of the box but nothing to brag about.

I will not buy this machine again due to the fact that the unit comes on and reboot itself, but i should of known just out of the factory with the os. version 1.00 i was askinking for it.

Have not dealth with them i am on my way to guitar center for a refund or an exchange!

Because the unit didn't work for me after hearing how great and portable it was i am not a happy guy so i rate this one low,sorry akai i know you have good products but this device needs to be redefined!

mpc 500

BEWARE WHEN IT COMES TO SAVING AND LOADING DATA ON THE MPC.TO LOOSE A GOOD SONG IS NOT IMPOSSIBLE ON THIS PIECE

IF YOU DIDNT PAY FULL PRICE ITS A GOOD DEAL .IF YOU DID YOUR PROBALLY WISHING YOU BOUGHT THE MPC 2500 BUT THIS WILL DO THE JOB .

MPC 500 DEFINATELY HAS A LEARNING CURVE YOU'LL SPEND MORE TIME TRYING NOT TO LOOSE YOUR PROJECT THAN MAKING BEATS! :(

Customer support is great.I wouldnt have made it without it(laughs)

on a scale of 1-10 i give a 6 1/2

I got the device working right out of the box but it does require reading the manual which most people don't do.

Within two days i have figured out almost all the functions i need to make music but even knowing all that, it can be a little perplexing to navigate this device

The menus are consistent but everything doesn't always happen like you would think it should. But even still its very simply laid out and once you figure out what you're doing it all works smoothly.

This device is only limited by your imagination. It may not be as feature filled as its bigger brothers but it still packs a lot of punch for its price. I think its value is more important here. For $650 you can't buy a sampler with the same punch as this little guy. Roland/Boss, korg, yamaha all fall behind when it comes to sequence programing and drum machines.

The little guy is really only limited to the sounds you put into it. Other than that it does almost anything you'd need and has a lot of features that help your creativity.

You can edit sounds right on the device, you can put effects on your samples, you can record whole songs...And the features that it lacks from its bigger brothers are easily made up in the fact that its the first portable mpc ever.

The sounds that it comes with are pretty stock, nothing special there. With most music devices, you'll want to stay away from stock sounds as everyone defaults to them. But as far as getting this thing going out of the box, they're fine.

As far as playing the device, its very intuitive to use the pads. They do require a confirming tap to get them to respond lively, but there area ways to adjust sensitivity as well as modes that allow you to run the pads at full velocity.

So far in my beat creation, they all tend to sound similar, very hip hoppy but thats all me, and not the device. I think the biggest thing to overcome with a device like this is to not fall prey to stereotype beats and sounds.

The onboard affects are ok, nothing amazing but they work fine for what they are. They're the same effects on their top of the line units so no expense was cut there, but that said, good outboard effects would probably sound better.

this device is solidly built and has both plastic and metal in the frame. It does have a lot of openings which causes concern for dust and debris. The battery compartment also houses the ram so when you take the panel off the back its very open back there. And the compact flash slot also is very open, you can see right into the machine, just things to be aware of.

Haven't dealt with akai directly.

Bought it from nova musik who was very responsive and helpful, also has the best prices on the unit.

if this device were stolen or broken i would definitely go for another. Is it worth what i paid? thats real up to yourself personally. I think its worth what i paid, but i would have been a lot more hesitant if i paid full price.

Its pricy, but its a portable mpc! these babies are classic! Roland, yamaha, korg dont have the history with these type of devices that Akai does. This is a breakthrough in the inexpensive audio production market.