If I were to teach business classes, the first bit of advice I would offer would be to never listen to what your customers say. They think they know what they want, but they have no idea -- it's up to you, the big business, to tell them. Also, I'd totally flunk Akai. They're new v2 firmware upgrade for the MPC5000 operating system is a direct concession to the loyal, whining masses of MPC-users.

The free Akai MPC500 v2.o firmware upgrade offers a number of production and performance-oriented features, not the least of which being the new Keygroup Programming function. Keygroups were featured on the MPC4000 and legacy s-series samplers; with the upgrade, MPC5000 users can now create chromatic key-mapped sample programs that take a sample and spread it across a range of notes of their choosing, automatically adjusting the pitch of the sample chromatically. These notes can then be played with the MPC5000's pads or an external MIDI keyboard or controller. Keygroup programming also allows the user to select between Keygropus via MIDI, and the ability to assign the root note of a sample assigned to each individual layer on a single pad, and each layer can be panned individually in Keygroup and drum programs. The upgrade includes a piano library to help get you familiarized with the Keygroup function's possibilities.

Added Keygroup supports also means support for legacy S1000, S3000, S5000/S6000, Z4/Z8, and MPC4000-format sample libraries including Keygroups -- from Akai Pro and third parties -- on the MPC5000 platform. Old school.

The many other, smaller upgrades include workflow improvements include MultiEdit (assign filter parameters to pad groups), more detailed GridEdit view, a Zoom option in ChopShop for finer sample slicing, continuous play when switching between the hard disk Audio Track Mixer and the Sequencer Track Mixer, full mixer and effects automation and much more.

Visit the target="_blank">Akai MPC5000 OS v2.0 Firmware upgrade page for the free download and more detailed information.