$1000 music sequencer can play Pong

by Kevin Kelly { Dec 28th 2006 at 10:25AM }

Of course, to get Pong, you have to add a $30 upgrade, but hey ... retro gaming action on your $1k machine! It may seem a bit like overkill, but at least when you play Pong it does trigger different sequences and effects. No word yet on if you can get the original 'dit dit' sounds of Pong or not, but you can trigger a nice little drum riff and scratch if you want. Think Moby has one of these?

Next up: $250k Ferrari can play Duck Hunt.

[Thanks, Tom]

Tags: arcade, music, pong, retro, sequencer, synthesizer

Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)

lothar @ Dec 28th 2006 10:52AM

You can play Pong on a Kurzweil K2500 keyboard, which is only $3500.

The Kid @ Dec 28th 2006 10:42AM

LOL, That's dope!!!!!

It's cool that things like this can be done in this day and age.
The bigger story here though is the hacking he's done to the Mpc 1000 OS and the hero he has become to the Mpc user community.

The Mpc 3000 OS and the Mpc 60 has had few additions/upgrades throughout the years by unpaid contributers and gave the people what they were asking for in the first place in terms of upgrades/new features.

When katts start taking matters into their own hands like this; it tells you that the R&D they hire know nothing about the market they are trying to compete in. Or do they? The days of a new box with the same software with all the features the last owners asked for are becoming a thing of the past!

Great Post!

ill trooper @ Dec 28th 2006 11:15AM

I gotta agree with The Kid, it's cool that someone is 'embellishing' the MPC OS, as Akai will usually wait for the next gen of hardware to implement new concepts.

Sadly, I don't use my MPC3000 as much as Reason these days...

The Kid @ Dec 28th 2006 11:32AM

No doubt; Reason has been a winner from day 1 and the ending of alot of famous hardware brands (Korg,Emu,Akai etc....)
Hardware really can't compete; there are exceptions like the Access Virus B,C and the new T series but they have been faithfully reproduced with software and proprietary hardware (Digidesign had the old virus TDM plug-in) and The T1 shows up as a VST instrument as part of it's package.

The MPD 24 hooked up to Reason, Battery or Kontakt is scary.

There is still a nostalgia about banging out a track on an mpc (pick one, any one from the 60, the 3000, 2000, 4000, 1000, 2500, 500) Sampling a sound or bar of an old school song into the unit and truncating to make it just right or leaving some air at the end of the sample to get a certain sound when drumming are part of the science. It's good schooling to start out on an Mpc before you get into the gargantuan world of the DAW and the abundance of effect and software plugins available to totally stump your musical process when you start worrying about things an engineer should worry about instead of creating and composing!

Peace

Dave M

JodyAnthony @ Dec 28th 2006 11:57AM

...I just play bass guitar.

Cochese @ Dec 28th 2006 12:03PM

If you guys think that is outrageous. Here's something to marinate on.... The roughly $650,000 - $1,000,000 (depending on installed features) SSL 9000J Recording/Mixing Console comes with Pong embedded into it's OS. The interesting thing is that the two players use any two monitor faders as the up/down control for the "paddles." It's pretty damn fun actually. Hey, sometimes you just need to take a break from a long tracking or mix session and duke it out Pong style. The funny thing is that I've actually seen it used as a way to resolve a conflict in the studio. Producers and Engineers don't always agree, but they can always agree on a Pong deathmatch. Classic.

James S

The Kid @ Dec 28th 2006 12:54PM

James! That's classic!!!! I should have played a pong deathmatch to settle my last dispute in the studio instead of wasting time arguing.

Ur definitley right; sometimes you need to take a break and have some fun (play pool or chill out in the lounge with all the perks at these facilities)