Akai MPC3000
Akai's second-generation sampling workstation kept the 4x4 pad grid and threw out almost everything underneath it.
Overview
Akai built the MPC3000 for people who had already worn out an MPC60. The company's own operator's manual says so almost directly. One section is titled "If You Already Know the MPC60," and it walks through the differences as a list of upgrades rather than a fresh introduction. The MPC3000 is a revision, and a substantial one, of a design that had already found its audience.
The biggest change is in the sampling engine. The earlier machine recorded at 12-bit non-linear resolution and a 40 kHz rate. The MPC3000 moved to 16-bit linear sampling at 44.1 kHz, and it supports stereo sampling for the first time in the line. Akai's manual also notes a dedicated digital sampling input for recording directly from digital sources. With 16-bit, 44.1, stereo and digital in, it stops being a drum machine that samples and becomes a sampler with pads on it.
Memory is the other story. The unit ships with 2 megabytes of sound memory, which Akai's own documentation translates into 21.9 seconds of mono sampling or 10.9 seconds of stereo. That is not a lot, and the company knew it. The manual devotes a full section to expansion, laying out a matrix of options. Two SIMM sockets sit empty from the factory, and the standard 2 MB Akai memory board can be swapped for an 8 MB board, the EXM3008. Fill both SIMM sockets with a matched pair of 1 MB modules and you get 4 MB total. Drop in a pair of 4 MB SIMMs alongside the stock board and you reach 10 MB. Combine the EXM3008 with those same 4 MB SIMMs and the ceiling is 16 MB, which Akai translates as 188.3 seconds mono or 94.1 seconds stereo. The SIMMs need to be 150 nanoseconds or faster, and both sockets must be filled with identical modules. Users who bought early and expanded later ended up with a machine that could hold entire arrangements in RAM rather than juggling floppies.
The floppy drive is built in - a 1.44 megabyte unit for sequence and sound data - and there is a SCSI port alongside it for external hard disks. Akai's manual is unusually candid about SCSI. The port is a 25-pin D-type connector compatible with Macintosh drives, and the manual gives a short list of what had been tested at time of printing: Syquest removable drives in 44, 88, 105, 200, and 270 megabyte capacities. It advises calling your Akai distributor if you are unsure whether a given drive will work. That is a polite way of saying the compatibility list was short and the rest was a gamble.
Under the hood sits a 16 MHz V53 16-bit microprocessor, which Akai describes as equivalent to an 80286, chosen for accurate timing in complex sequences and fast MIDI response. The front panel carries a 320-character LCD - eight lines by forty characters, with graphics - plus four soft keys for one-button execution of many functions. The manual makes a point of the Interactive Help function, which provides a full screen of explanation for every data field of every function screen. Owners report that the help system is one of the few things that makes the MPC3000 approachable without the manual open on your lap.
The sound architecture is where the numbers get interesting. There are thirty-two simultaneous playback voices, up from sixteen on the MPC60. Each voice gets its own dynamic lowpass filter with an envelope generator and resonance. That is a per-voice resonant filter, not a global one, which matters when you are stacking drum sounds. There is a built-in effects generator for delay effects. Outputs number ten: a stereo mix pair plus eight individual outs. The sample editing suite allows any portion of a sound to be copied or removed and inserted into another sound at any location, or silenced, or reversed.
The program system replaced the older SET-file approach. The MPC3000 holds 24 programs, each with 64 unique sound assignments drawn from a common bank of 128 sounds, and each assignment carries its own modifying parameters. Switching programs instantly changes every sound assignment and parameter, with no reloading of a SET file and no interruption. Saving a program to disk writes only the assignment and parameter information, with the sounds stored as individual files. Multiple programs can therefore share one disk without duplicating audio data.
Sounds are assigned to MIDI note numbers rather than pad names, which Akai notes makes the MPC3000 simpler to use as a MIDI sound module, with no translation layer between incoming note numbers and pad labels. There is a new Mono Mode parameter that causes a voice to restart, terminating earlier plays, and any sound can be set to terminate any two other sounds. Sample files from Akai S1000 and S3000 floppy disks can be loaded directly. The Echo Mixer from the MPC60 is gone, replaced by an Individual Outputs/Effects Mixer that lets any sound be routed to any individual output or to the internal effects, with a volume level adjustable independently of the stereo mix.
Akai offered at least one factory option: the I-0055 SMPTE option, which gives the MPC3000 the ability to play in sync to externally received SMPTE signals in 24, 25, 29.97 drop, or 30 frame formats. The option is not needed to generate SMPTE code, only to chase it. Installation involves opening the operation panel, detaching the CPU jack daughter board, and seating the I-0055 chip in the IC26 socket on the CPU main board. Akai's manual states plainly that options should be installed only by an authorized dealer or service center.
Power requirements vary by region: 120V at 60Hz for the US and Canada, 220-230/240V at 50Hz for Europe, and 240V at 50Hz for Australia. The manual carries the usual warnings: earth the chassis, keep it ventilated, away from direct sunlight and heat sources, and never clean it with denatured alcohol or thinner. It also notes that the unit is designed for a standard household environment, which is worth remembering when you see one racked in a studio that runs hot.
Period coverage of the MPC line in the mid-1990s was frequent but often incidental. Sound on Sound (March 1997, p.14), writing about the MPC2000's arrival, noted that the MPC series of sampling, sequencing, drum-pad workstations continued to be popular with many musicians and producers. It listed the features retained across the range: 32-voice polyphony, 16-bit sampling, a dynamic low-pass filter and envelope for each voice, and storage of up to 24 drum sets in memory, each containing 64 sound assignments. Those are the MPC3000's specifications carried forward into the next model. EQ Magazine (November 1998, p.180) ran a classified advertisement aimed squarely at MPC60 owners, offering an upgrade to MPC3000 software and listing stereo sampling, long sampling to 26 seconds, MIDI files, voice restart, and the ability to load MPC3000 sounds and sound compression as the selling points. The 26-second figure in that advertisement does not match the manual's 21.9 seconds mono at stock memory, so treat it as advertising copy for an expanded configuration rather than a stock specification.
That classified ad also points to something the manual does not say outright: the MPC3000 was, at least in the late 1990s, a machine people upgraded into rather than out of. The upgrade path from an MPC60 was real, it was marketed, and it involved actual software differences - stereo sampling, voice restart, MIDI file support - that the earlier machine could not match.
For anyone considering one today, the practical questions are memory and storage. A stock 2 MB machine is cramped. The SCSI port is the other variable, and Akai's own tested-drive list is short enough that buyers should verify what a specific unit has been running before assuming any external drive will mount. The SMPTE option, if fitted, is worth confirming. It is a chip in a socket, and not every unit left the factory with one.
The MPC3000 sits between the MPC60 that started the legend and the MPC2000 that made it affordable. By Akai's own account it is a considerably more capable instrument than the one it replaced: 16-bit stereo sampling, 32 voices, per-voice resonant filtering, ten outputs, and a program system that does not make you reload files to change your kit. It still comes with 2 megabytes and a short list of compatible hard drives.
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