Question for MPC-1000/500 owners [regaurds fixing errors]

[BlackGnosis]

I searched around for an answer but I feel I need to ask it.

How difficult is it to correct a recorded mistake on the MPC-500/1000?

could I edit the MIDI parts and adjust when they play and at what note or take things out entirely like in my KORG EMX-1 or would I need to clear it then re-record everything like on my old MC-808?

I've never really looked into getting a AKAI with any serious interest before today and literally it looks like something I've been wanting a while, a Sequencer with 16 channel midi control and its own internal sequencer... seems like a winner but the deal breaker is in how I can correct errors during live play. or if I can program it without a keybaord connected... Thank you for your time.

[dither]

I can speak specifically about JJ OS on an MPC 1000, but I'm reasonably sure that the behaviour is the same with the official Akai OS.

When you're in record mode, you can remove a wrong note from the pattern by holding down the "erase" button and hitting that same pad at the time of the wrong note. This is all while in record mode with playback looping. You can play the pads like normal to add notes to the pattern, and use "erase" in conjunction with the pads to remove notes from the pattern. I think this is a fairly common feature on drum machines.

If you want to do more specific note editing, like say changing note duration or velocity, you can do that in "Step Edit" mode, but not during playback. You can access "Step Edit" in read-only mode during playback, but you can only actually make and save edits while playback is stopped.

As for programming without a keyboard connected, you can use the pads for programming. If you set a MIDI channel for the track then playing pads can be used to trigger an external MIDI device, but I'm not sure of the mapping between pads and MIDI note numbers. The pads are perhaps more suited to the task of programming rhythm patterns than chromatic parts like keyboard melodies or bass lines, but it certainly is possible. You'll probably prefer a keyboard control surface for playing keyboard parts though.

You could also play melodic parts without external MIDI devices by loading a program of pitched samples (eg. synth samples) and just using the pads to play those. That will also give you more control over assigning pads to specific note pitches. If, for example, you just want a simple three note arpeggio you can take three synth samples at the required pitches and assign them to pads however you like (left-to-right, up-and-down). You can forget about MIDI note numbers altogether this way.