Consider Being Useful-er
I was watching a video by guitarist Rhett Shull. Pretty decent YouTuber if you’re into guitar. I am sometimes, I guess.
Anyway, he seems like a pretty reasonable guy. He was encouraging guitar players to investigate the MPC as their modeler, which was super interesting. I’d not thought about that, but it makes sense.
It also made me think that you can get an MPC Key 37, the Gen 1 version I guess we’ll call it, for $500 on Marketplace. In Austin there are currently two, and they’re both $500. I got mine for $500.
I’d sold my MPC One about a year ago and missed it. Realized it was a mistake. This was the cheap MPC on Marketplace that day.
Anyhoo: It’s been fantastic. Really bonded with it. I love it.
Of course, I would love a smaller form factor for when I don’t want to bring the whole thing, but that’s kind of what the SP-404 is for.
This all brings me to say: if you want gigs, and I made this comment on his channel, if you’re interested in gigs and want to play live, I’m a bassist. You may be a guitarist or whatever. If you learn the MPC and bring this with you, you couldn’t be more useful.
You can run tracks. You can trigger samples. You can run background noise. You can play keys. Anything from synths to electric piano.
He is very correct in saying that their plugins sound better than anybody else’s. I’ll argue that with anyone. They’re great-way past good enough. They are sell-your-synths good.
The drums sound great. The percussion sounds great. All of it.
Once you get over the learning curve, it’s it’s the fastest possible workflow. Very different than a linear DAW or ableton, you work in sections and then copy sections and use Song Mode. I’m not even into Arranger Mode yet, but it’s on the list.
There is so much you can do with these things, and it all sounds great.
You can do it all from the stage and only need caveman-level keyboard skills. One-finger key stuff. You can even play in key on the pads.
Anything standalone still works from the early teens, and it all runs the software, which tells me the software is pretty efficient.
A lot of the bugs have been worked out. MPC 3 doesn’t seem to freeze up and crash anymore, which is great.
I always bring a backup. That’s why I’m running the SP-404. Just in case. That’s how I do things.
But I don’t think there’s a DAW or instrument, even if you had a big Roland Fantom or Korg Nautilus, that could make you as useful as this thing.
You can buy the MPC Bible for $40 and go through it page by page. I’m doing that now to fill in the gaps.
I’m actually excited about coming down to my office and learning the rest of all of this stuff.
So if you’re a musician who plays other things, I think you should consider the MPC platform. Just to be more useful.
The more useful you are, the more gigs you will get.
It’s worked for me anyway.