If you want all the sound-colouration from the sampler, you need to sample it and play it back. Otherwise you are just monitoring the input, not necessarily any digital conversion. Furthermore, a big part of the 'sound' of these old devices is actually in the whole package, and how it all works toge...

They are great keyboards and the sound selection is so unique.

Get the HXC and bring that thing back to life. I have lots of disk images in HXC format I would gladly share with you.

Any card-based sampler should do fine.

roland sp303
sp404
sp505

elektron octatrack ($)

akai is supposed to release this mpx8 which might be good but i don't think its out yet.
It is mono-only so that could be a deal breaker.
edit: looks like sweetwater has them for $99

Come to think of it - shouldn't this be in the software section?

The software is the real hold up here. From what I've read it can hardly be used without looking at the computer, and there are ridiculous bugs / features in the strangest places. My favorite example is 'non-destructive' chop...they call it non destructive because for every 'chop' you make, it copie...

Planet CCRMA (http://ccrma.stanford.edu/planetccrma/software/) is of course a very good fast-track to installing a lot of this music stuff into Fedora or CentOS. It can help you install a low-latency kernel, and comes with a huge variety of music making software, neatly organised. Nando is also very...

On some synths its just a knob - turn up the 'amount' of FM (Yamaha AN1-X). Must be a ratio-locked osc depth control, or combo of ratio + depth. On the Casio CZ-101, the FM amount is equated almost 1:1 with subtractive synthesis and opening a filter. The manual almost reads like, 'Ok so this FM dial...

Plug them midi cables from your mpc into your computer and record the midi. you can then this recorded midi to your synths.

Personally coming from a mpc 60 you might be pretty disappointed with software. I still prefer to work on an mpc for sequencing.

He also claims that he made his entire first ep on a DX-7.

So take it as you would an RDJ interview (props to both these guys).

You only need to record a note for as long as the tone 'loops'. The best thing you could do would be to record the raw oscillators with no filters, no envelopes - just record a few octaves (or maybe even a C then a G for 2 notes / octave). You then take the tiniest portion of this that you can and l...

If you got the EPS for free - it might be worth 'paying the piper' so to speak and installing an HXC emulator.

Amazing machine combo.

an mpc 1000 or 2500 with the jjosxl is your best bet.

any mpc will do (amazing midi seqs), but the jjos is the only one i know with built in arpeggios.

the above is correct but you could also switch the program type from DRUM to MIDI - which is handy if you are not triggering internal sounds with the same program. the default pad numbering system will kill you though - its all over the place. i have a blank program with the correct midi note number...

if its your first mpc, id say go 2500. the 3000 is a great machine but the time spent getting up to speed with it, bringing it up to modern standards might kill the experience for you. get the 2.5k with the best jjos you can buy and it will make it into one of the most feature-rich hardware samplers...

classic mpc all the way - this is what they were designed for and they excel at it