Exactly, most music we love has been done on so many different machines, MPC 3000, Sp 1200, Battery, Maschine, FL studio, other drum maschines, samplers, synth drum sounds. Pro tools, garageband, logic, It doesn't matter, its about the music. I remember Pharrell once saying many early neptunes hit tracks used the stock HIp Hop drum kit from the Korg Triton. He said they picked hip hop because the preset said hip hop, while most people were sleeping on the korg or hatin, like thats hip hop light. but later on they changed there equipment. ITs still neptunes, Dj premier does a beat on any machine, its premier...
I never really try to make whole tracks on the KO...usually sample birds, noises and voicemails of my girlfriend cursing me out lol. Love the mic on this thing!
Any video that ends: "what did we learn? Nothing matters" gets a thumbs up. Just discovered your channel and totally love your vibe. You get me excited to create!!
I enjoy referencing these A / B tests on my phone speaker as well. B had the edge on depth and clarity. I am surprised by how fildelity can translate even to these trash speakers. It's also valuable in the same way referencing on a car stereo can be. Great stuff Ricky!
In a live setting, I'm not sure an audience would 1) notice, 2) care THAT much. If the PO sounds fairly close to a freakin MPC.. traveling light might be a better solution for some. This side-by-side comparison is dope af.
Legend has it if you plug in 5 mpc's in the same room and spin in a circle 4 times Ricky Tinez will give your fourth spin an extra boost of spin and a ghost pad hit
I don't really know how to say this but there's something magical about your videos - you know, it's like there's a certain vibe or warmth or whatever that makes you feel like (yeah, I know this sounds cheesy and all but I'll say it anyway) you're hanging out with an old friend who knows a bunch of stuff about music production. Keep up the great work!
I love straight up love how you point out different vs bad or good. So much of the skill with these instruments is knowing where to find the differences. Nice work!
Ricky, there is a certain tone to your videos that I can put it on background and not be distracted by either your talking or your demos, which is kindof cool actually as it combines an ASMR vibe as well as music playlist vibe without being predictive at all while knowing that it is all improv removes the need to get anal with selections and mood building etc, you have hit a nice style in RU-vid videos that make it ambient music and educational or expository all at the same time, which I think sets you apart from everyone else doing music demos or gear reviews. Peace.
I can just put these kind of vids, of yours, on endless repeat. I really love how you are creating beats and 'discussing them'. Keep up the cool work. :)
Huge fan of the KO myself. No, it won't replace my MPCs but for something under $100 that fits in your pocket, it's damn good little beat maker. I use it all the time.
I see you, @Ricky Tinez ! Now I have to get those sound packs! Well played, sir! Also, a quick thought on voice stealing spurred by the KO's voice limits: it's a pain, but voice stealing can be REALLY useful in creating variation. I have a Juno 106 with a voice that's been going out intermittently. The cool thing is when I sequence and track bigger chords (7ths and 9ths with lots of notes), the missing note ends up "round robin" dropping through the sequence, creating variation when I track it out. This really helps me in avoiding the repetitive loop problem in my music, because it's never quite the same as it repeats...
Same here - I had one voice that totally went so i replaced it with the Analogue Renaissance chip, but I've still got one voice that is on its way out and has a very subtle distortion to is, so yeah, every chord sounds different!
If we look at $ to $ the KO is doing really well... but it brings me to something that bugs me about the pocket operators and other super stripped down or build your own synths (Korg NTS-1) ... I feel they cheapen the programming of the microprocessors in these things by shrinking the size of the device and giving the user really shitty knobs and buttons that don't have a good feel to them. We're in an era where we can't tell the difference between analog and digital synths or analog and digital processing, but we -can- tell the difference between an exposed circuit board with miniature knobs (KO) and a nice box with beautiful buttons and an interface that creates muscle memory from years of use (MPC 3000). I feel that if you took the KO, put it in a nice box with a real power supply, real MIDI 5 pins, nice rubber pads, maybe put 5 or 10% more effort into the code or analog circuitry to get that noise out, and you would be able to make it sound better than the MPC-3000. At least it would compete... This feels frustrating to me, and it feels like the industry has cheapened the code development and is giving it away at a low price point like it's a software product. But it's supposed to be a musical instrument. You have to interact with it, and the physical interaction is massive in music. A quality physical product is also what makes these vintage instruments not E-waste. If the MPC 3000 was released like the Pocket Operators we wouldn't have any left!!
oh i hear you 1000000% percent. I literally have DREAMED of a big version of the KO. all i want is a bit more resolution to the knobs and just bigger buttons. maybe some mutes? and im guessing this could all be achieved with a $200 Pricetag and i'd buy that all day long haha. But have you SEEN THIS?! - ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-EwAL8b7giOk.html&ab_channel=DJTechTools We're getting close haha
PO 33 would not be a 'pocket' operator after all that packaging shenanigans. The very point you made is exactly its saveing grace. Building an MPC 3000 even with schematics is going to be a BIG affair for anyone to make. PO 33 quite possibly will outlast many of todays gear as well, because of its simplicity and bare bones design. The rubber parts are minimal and thus wont wear with time. Velocity sensitivity is missing in the PO as with so many other instruments including the host of iOS apps that do not provide the velocity sensitivity for their feature full apps. Compared to what 99 percent of folks carry in their pockets of a phone size item, PO 33 is hard to beat as a dedicated sampler as with the bass operator and the speak synth. They all shine where they need to and they do not engage in being too expensive and precious to mangle with. I think that use case is really hard to beat these days with phone and cheap apps and all. Even my Switch can produce music now with Gadget but it ain't even half a sampler as the PO 33, and certainly not with the live FX and glitch AND hardware feel that the PO offers. Its a tradeoff and it is worth it. The landfill problem is a global issue with phones and desktops takeing first place, not the PO 33. Musicians do not create landfill, its the laypeople who consume relentlessly and corporations that sell phones that do. Music hardware is the only market for musicians where old is literally gold so lets keep it that way, we know how much we love our gear more than we love our phones which keep changing every 4 months.
Sometimes, if I want to keep my grime but define it a bit, I’ll sweep the mids flat and put a little high airy EQ on the top to give it juuuust a bit of definition.
The 3k sounds way more clean, the highs are so sharp, and god de lows are wow, but if you remove the dirtyness of the ko, I kinda like its warmth in the mid frequency, like everything sounds like glued together, organic in a way..
i'm starting to be convinced that you don't really need expensive equipment to make good music etc. it's how you use what you have that makes it effective or not.
One was designed to be cheap, pocket-sized, and quirky; and the other is based on two decades of experience making musical instruments for professional producers and performers. There's bound to be a few subtle differences as a result.
I love that with my po33 i can sample vinyl so easily like it's literally just 1 aux and I can make a beat in the po or pass it to logic no more shenanigans truly one of the best samplers
Honestly, the big thing about the 3000 is how tight the timing is. Other than the 60 obviously, if I was going to describe an MPC as having character it would be the 2000/2000xl because of the filter bug (setting the resonance to 0 doesn't actually turn the resonance all the way down like it was supposed to, so everything you play on it always has a bit of a bump on the highs). But the internal timing in the 2000 is loose enough that if you stack copies of the same sample and trigger them from a single pad you'll end up getting some phase issues. On the 3000 that was a common way to boost kicks and snares but it doesn't work on any later MPC (at least up through the 5000, maybe it works again on the newer versions) because the timing isn't sample accurate; I've had a few friends at Akai over the years and apparently it was a common issue for tech support when producers were switching from the 3000 to the 2000 in the early '00s and tried stacking samples like they were used to. I used a 2000xl as the center of my setup for 8 years and I definitely noticed it. But like the video says, you can make good music on just about anything. I regret not buying the $450 MPC3000 I was looking at a few years back but I'd never pay anywhere near what they sell for today, even if I could afford it.
I wasn't sure which was which honestly except that B had more midrange push which is a characteristic that the older akais have (imo) A sounded glued together well but with less separation. The KO hits above it's weight on somethings and you are right the 3000 is way too much these days.
Sound in the KO is affected by the input entry. If you sample with the mic is much more clean than if u sample with a cable. I think that the hiss sound that is easier to hear in low end samples has to be with the entry and something else. Not sure what is, but if you go back to the manufacturer settings, sometimes you can sample again without too much hiss sound. When my KO was mint new it didnt have this hiss so loud, no it has it. Am i crazy? =)
yeah, for real, I can get clean drum sounds when sampled hot enough and filtered. It's awesome like you said, with a tiny bit of resonance on kicks, sometimes. I do that a lot for secondary kicks.
Does the KO do stereo? Could really hear the song collapse on the KO but on it's own (without doing the comparison) the KO still sounds great. I would also have to pick the 3K.
Nah it's all mono. That's actually a lot of what I used it for, sampling things into summed mono because my 2000XL can't do summed mono and I didn't want just the left or the right. Plus the KO makes things sound thicc and dirty.
What changes a lot during the A/B blind test is the PAN - A sounds really "mono" to my ears and B is more stereo-spread (especially to the left on the pad)
Ricky, you could have copy all your drum sounds in one drum slot because they're short and don't play at the same time. So you would have 3 voices left for bass, chord and smth else. I usually use kick and snare on same slot and hats on second one. Drum slots are very versatile, you can copy there a lot of melodic sounds too and change pitch using automation. Also I usually load 16 chromatic sounds into drum slot because melodic section is limited to diatonic with harmonic note.
With the video's idea i can say...... the difference is not 90 to 3800, in sound or in the workflow. I don't have to say to you, the owner of the gear, the difference between the devices is huge but in this particular video i see how great the PO 33 is even in front of a "hard to beat" situation. Great video as aleays!!!!
The element you're missing is the timing. The 3000 has a good vibe on the timing. That's what I like about this track it feels good coming from the 3K.
A pocket operator is not going to compare with a 2k unit, that being said, it’s close enough for my taste! I don’t do your kind of music, but I get inspiration from the PO’S. And if I like it that much, I can recreate it either with the MPC 2 IOS mixed with the PO’S and my deepmind 12 and toss in the craftsynth! I’ve got a Korg Kronos, a Roland Integra 7, multipad 12 and a high end PSR and spend more time on the cheap stuff mainly because of the weight factor! The truth is I CAN do anything I want! My effects are the best and many too! The PO’S are cheap, fun and zen! And this is the point of your video, even if you didn’t get it, they are fine to write on and in many cases record on! IMO! My point is, everybody’s rig is different and you are correct, use what you have! I don’t know 4/5 ths of what my rig is capable of, so I watch people like you for ideas and entertainment. My channel will be up soon and the snags I’m running into are unreal, but you are aware of that! Little stuff like camera mounts and software, I got it now though like I said I do a different kind of thing. Loved the Video! Rex
Yeah, I also guessed B. Even though the samples clean sound almost the same I can still tell, but only from hearing both, back to back. The MPC has more bass and punchiness? I'm surprised spell check says that's a word, lol. Side note, I just found the PO-133 street fighter sampler used for $60!!!! I am so stoked, I hope there's nothing wrong with it.
I would love it if you did MPC 3000 vs MPC Live 1/2 or even MPC one in terms of sound quality. There’s really nothing out there showcasing the sound quality of the new MPCs.
The ko is like a baby novation circuit rhythm . I think its a great little sampler especially for boombap house and dnb its not to great for anything else .
So, right off the bat, with the kick sample, that says a lot. And I think that's part of the difference between modern "lo-fi" and old school "lo-fi" that was just limitations of the equipment. To me, the 3000 sounds WAY cleaner and somehow more... organic? I get the feeling that despite its limitations it's still replicating the sound a lot better than the KO. The KO sounds rather noisy. I get the impression that it's not that the KO is noisy, but rather its implementation of lower bit rates just sounds noisier. I swear this is a thing I've noticed specifically in PC audio cards over the years, where newer stuff capable of higher bit rates plays stuff at lower bit rates worse than older cards did. (Note: I'm not referring to audio interfaces or anything super high-end, but your typical Sound Blaster variants starting with the Sound Blaster 16 that I originally owned.) I'm literally just leaving this comment right after hearing the first two examples. So this is what I'm expecting going forward, but I'm happy to see whether or not my opinion changes. They definitely sound drastically different.
Further listening: yeah, I agree with you, the noisier samples sound almost identical. But man, anything with low-end in it definitely sounds noisier. I really would love a nice original lo-fi sampler. You really do get that little extra grit without any added noise. It's something special.
Ya know..I'll give you a take I don't see very often. I have very minimal interest in the minor variances in sound between two sampler/sequencers. It's all going to be some variation of quality in/quality out or garbage in / garbage out. The only thing I care about is how tight the sequencer is. For these dance/techno type grooves that you usually do, I feel like a bit of drift/jitter/timing errors will not ruin Christmas. However for the more boom bap type folks out there like me - after so much research and working with some MPC hardware and DAWs...I feel like the reason the classic MPCs and SP, ASR etc are still so valued is because they have a better codebase, translating to a sequencer with better timing. I feel like once Linn left Akai, the code quality went down, and the sequencers just weren't as tight. So...I don't really trust any of the new MPCs. I watch videos and hear that the sequencers are just DRIFTY. The only one that seems like maybe it has that rock solid thing (and is affordable) is the Isla 2400. I have the same gripes about Logic as well, but since I feel like sloppy sequencers are just unavoidable, I'll go through all kinds of adjustments on Logic and at least have the benefits of all my plugins and ability to record live instruments, etc. If someone just made a super groovy tight sequencer...gah. I'd almost rather use an 8 track looper pedal and just play all my beats live and live loop them.
At the time of the third stimulus check I was so close to just going for a 3k but decided not to - asking prices have gone up a grand since then. Doesn't look like they're selling for $3800+ but yeeeeesh. I could get a 2500 and a real Culture Vulture and some other pedals for that.
Yea its crazy expensive, like less than my one month salary to be honest (not flexing at all, just trying to make a point, there are folks with billions lying around, I aint one of them :)), I could nick it next week, but I am thinking I already have gear that merits my style of music and I have a backlog of projects to complete as well as future ones to complete. Having one more gear is not going to add value beyond the same feature set in a new machine with a sonic signature that can be approximated with other equipment as well. In addition to buying a new flight case for it, transportation costs and future maintenance etc, I could buy it as a money insurance if I need to re sell it at even higher, but honestly speaking, its mostly nostalgia. There is also a danger of porting all my existing projects from one platform to the next just cos I fall in love with another new gear at the wrong time etc...I am sure it will add a value in future or even now, its just that even if I can easily afford it, it is not the right time for me to get this, I will be doing disservice to my existing workflow as well as the investments already made. You cannot buy musicianship for sure, so playing a proper acoustic instrument or an amplified one as well as deep music theory and academic study is the first priority for me as that dont come without the daily rigour, no MPC gonna give me that.
yo ricky! i saw the drum x sample pack comes with a good number of kicks and snares, are those round robins of the same sound or different sounds altogether?
Well, i like the sound of the po-33 more for sure, but the workflow compared to the 3000 is just so much worse. I prefer the Deluge anyway, but great test!
