The build of my unit was good, very heavy and solid- the pads have a very responsive feel to them, it takes a bit of practice to hit them perfectly every time but you get used to it. The pads are not unresponsive and the wheels and sliders feel fine to me, contrary to what others on the have been saying. It's probably that people haven't figured out the difference between the 16 levels button and the Full vel on/off switch.

The only time my unit experiences drop-out in playback is when I feed it alot of extraneous midi data but I have found a way to make this not happen (I filter out the extraneous data- duh). As a master clock this has never happened- not once. The timing resolution is exactly what you'd expect from 96parts per quarter note. Compare it to the MPC4000 which has 960ppq!

There are no other glitches or bugs that I experienced, no lag, mistiming or delays. Maybe it's the people who are using cheaper, second party RAM chips who are the ones experiencing problems.

The MPC1000 sequencer is better suited as a sampling beatbox for banging out basic riddims and beats, whereas the MPC4000 was designed to be a complete sampling workstation with the AKAI rubber pads instead of piano keys.

If you want to do pitch mapping, crossfades, sample manipulation via EG's etc in order to build up a library of original playable, pitched instrument sounds you'd be better off getting the 4000. If you want it to automatically slice and dice- it won't do that either, nor will it *ever* do pitch shifting or formant correction. Get over it people!

The MPC1000 excels at making and sequencing one-shot samples, hits and loops- not making pitched, sample accurate instrument sounds. It's an old school beatbox rather than a workstation, however with the right set of samples an entire production could easily be created on it.

first off there is no zoning feature like on other mpcs (for chopping up samples quickly). AND THERE IS NO EASY WAY TO MOVE SINGLE EVENTS IN STEP EDIT!!!

example: say you want to move a snare hit forward or backward a little bit. you cannot just select that snare hit and move it. you have to copy it, paste it in the new time you think you want, and then delete the old snare hit. if you did not put it in the right spot you have to start the whole copy/paste scenario all over again.

it is extremely retarded and time consuming to have to edit sequences like this. until they address little things like this i suggest everyone thinking about getting a 1000 to hold off. knowing akai they might wait awhile and just drop another machine (1000xl possibly??) screwing everyone who bought the 1000. or there might not be any plans for this, and they are just gonna leave 1000 users dissapointed and scammed out of their money.

dont get me wrong, in many ways this machine is good, but its seems like they might have crippled this machine for either unveiling a new machine in the future or just not caring about their customers.

ohh, almost forgot. sometimes samples randomly drop out when a sequence is playing. there are many other issues with it as well. just look around on the internet.

the 1000 has its good side, but everyone only talks about that. i just want to let anyone thinking about purchasing it to know the many BAD sides to it. research alot before you buy it!!!!!

oh and i also had to exchange mine 2 or 3 times because half of the pads were extremly unresponsive and i had to punch them as hard as i could to get them to play anything, while the other half were easy to play. if you DO buy one make sure to test out the actuall unit you are going to buy in the store. some 1000's feel ok and some feel horrible.

and BTW, i'm not some crazy oldschool mpc loyalist trying to crap on the 1000 for no reason. i'm just trying to look out for people thinking about buying this.

i wish someone had told me all this before i sunk all the money i had into it. peace.....

Don't get me wrong, i love the MPC series, and really wanted this product to succeed cuz its small and has usb, but this one just doesnt live up to the standard set by the rest of the family.