Akai MPC2500 Sampling Production Workstation

Second from the top in the current MPC range from Akai is the MPC2500 and it is a seriously worthy succesor to the classic MPC2000 and 2000XL. It is absolutely packed with features and gives you an intuitive, hands on approach to music production from just one box so that you'll spend more time actually making music and less time sitting staring at a computer screen!

The MPC2500 is full of the latest Akai technology to help you speed up your workflow. This includes 'Chop Shop', an extremely useful utility that automatically slices your loop into individual samples and assigns them to the pads. No more laboriously slicing loops into 16ths manually! Other new features include, 'Patched Phrase' and 'Continuous Sample Track' which ensure that your loops will play back in time no matter what tempo or where in the loop you drop the beat from. As you would expect, all the classic MPC technologies like 'Note Repeat', 'Tap Tempo' 'Full Level' and the like are present, alongside a massive I/O section which houses 10 analogue outputs to send your sounds to seperate channels on your mixer plus 4 MIDI outs to control all your external hardware.  For those amongst you who want to get even more creative with your sound design the MPC2500 also has a four pole filter with resonance on every voice, two effects, one master effect and quick and easy resampling of the master output.  In addition, the resampling lets you quickly bounce down your track to a single stereo track which you can share easily thanks to the integrated compact flash drive, USB connectivity and optional CD drive.

All in all, the MPC2500 might well be the only bit of kit you need for music production or as a serious alternative to the laptop and controller setup for live performance. The MPC has been an industry standard in Hip-Hop and R&B production for years but the MPC2500 has a much broader appeal and we wouldn't hesitate to recommend it regardless of what genre you produce in.