Thanks for answering my questions fellas. I swear, iLLmuzik is the only forum you can get questions answered.
The reason why I keep getting back to this is because of my experiences or lack there off with hardware vs software.
I had some basic drum machines and samplers when I first started but then I discovered Reason. And then I was like "fuck hardware". But then I saw some videos of people getting busy with their mpc's and I thought, maybe because you don't visually edit things on a screen like you do with software, you have an advantage with an MPC because you use your ears more then anything else.
I saw a clip where someone sampled something and then sliced it eight times and auto assigned them to their pads and they made a sick ass beat in like 2 minutes because they already had their personal drum pads assigned. AND THEN INSTEAD OF ASSIGNING A TEMPO, THEY PLAYED IT DIRECTLY INTO THE MPC and the mpc learned the tempo and they were off and running. So it seems like if you have a FEEL for the music, the MPC is the way to go.
When I bought the 500, it didn't have that auto slice and automap feature. SO I took it back.
Right now, I can sample something, cut it up in Recycle and take it right into the Dr Rex and I wonder, is this really any different from an MPC? I have an Axiom and a PadKontrol so I got the pads to bang on. I am thinking, this is pretty much an MPC.
That's where the time stretch thing comes in. On the Heatmakerz page, Arab says he time stretches in his MPC and that's why he wont use anything else. So I wonder, does he think speeding up a sample is time stretching? Cuz he, and Kanye and a bunch of other people do that.
The Time Stretching I am talking about is taking a 4 bar loop and changing it from a 3 second loop and turning it into a 6 second loop without a change in pitch. In Reaon, the NN-19 or all the samplers in the program for that matter change pitch but none of them time stretch.
Logic has an awesome time stretch function. Instead of explain it, I guess I will show it to you guys in a video clip.
Longer story shorter... I am trying not to be a gear whore and turn into one of these I got an MPC and a COMPUTER cats but I can't help but feel like I am missing out on some sort of advantage with the MPC.