emu vs MPC
2001-10-10 by Alex Udell
Hi The only difference between the 2 emu units is the sounds libraries on the rom's...otherwise they work exactly the same... I think that people like the MPC as a MIDI sequncer because it has tight timing...other than that I can't really see using it for live performance...NOT ENOUGH KNOBS AND BUTTONS...the reason it seems to have caught on in the dance and hip hop communtities is because AKAI picked up were emu left off with the SP-12 & 1200...people wanted an easy to use table top sampler with ROLL, Multiptich, Filter, etc....That's why the MPC caught on...it filled that niche....now it is just the defacto standard sampler for dance and hip hop...Sure emu went on to build more great and powerful samplers....but the architecture gets much more complex and a lot of people didn't want to deal with that level of complexity...and the emu samplers didn't have sequencers in them...people in hip hop have a tendency to want to have an all in one easy to use BOX... A cautionary note...remember the MPC has no internal sounds, it's a SAMPLER only...I had one and I found the FX to be limited and the envelopes and filters to also be limited as well....but then I guess I had outgrown the SP mindset where I started....I went with an ASR-X Pro...lot's of power...but a pretty horrid sequencer... These EMU command stations appear to be geared for live performance as well as production....lot's of knobs and buttons with dedicated performance functions and good synth architectures..BUT NO SAMPLING...again...emu seems to resist trying to put it all in one box...probably ruled by it's marketing...or maybe it's techincal...it would COST SO MUCH to build that they'd never be able to sell any...or a CPU do all that stuff effectively would be too expensive... Bottom line is...If you're looking at the Command stations...you'll be good as the timing seems tight to me and the sounds & FX are GREAT...and this box seems aplicable to both Live work and studio production...However you'll probably need to supplement it with some sort of sampler so you can add your own loops and things. You might find the MPC is a good choice...but I thought the architecture was WEAK....and it's no good for CONTROLLING Live performance stuff... Hope this helps... Alex