If you miss the classic MPC – or never owned one and want to experience it for yourself – this is the nearest thing to having the hardware in front of you, for free.

Hey, lots of people are posting vintage photos of themselves and turning back the clock in other ways, so why not take a break from staring at Zoom conference calls and stare at a surprisingly authentic MPC2000XL instead?

Let’s party like it’s 1999. No, literally.

It’s all there – the old workflow, the buttons. There are even some of the sonic characteristics emulated, more or less. (The author is quick to point out that you don’t get the same signal path, but “an approximation” of the digital filter and file compatibility seems okay.) It’s beautiful. It’s beige.

There is potentially a practical purpose here. You can load a lot of the files the actual hardware could – APS, ALL, PGM, SND, MID, WAV.

But mostly, it’s the fun of seeing the hardware and using the old workflow, without needing, you know, the actual hardware. Or money.

You can bounce to WAV, you’ve got some MIDI in and out, and it runs as a plug-in (VST2,VST3, AU). There are builds for every OS. So there’s nothing stopping you from making music with this thing. And why not?

Mac, Windows (32-/64-bit), Linux:

vMPC2000XL – An MPC2000XL emulator

http://www.izmar.nl/index.php/downloads

Via beat.de [German]

No, this is not authorized by Akai.

Addendum:

A very much less useful implementation of this ran VR-style in Unity3D game engine, but that seems to be abandonware and I couldn’t locate a working download. If that sounds like a terrible idea, don’t worry – it is. It’s kind of spectacular to behold, though, like some kind of cross between Lawnmower Man and NAMM.

http://www.izmar.nl/index.php/vrmpc