be making slight changes to my old 1986 designs for the original MPC, basically rearranging the deck chairs on the Titanic." Features Instead of the switches and small hard buttons of earlier devices, the MPC has a 4x4 grid of large pressure-sensitive rubber pads which can be played similarly to a keyboard. The interface was simpler than those of competing instruments; it can be used without a studio and connected to a normal sound system. According to Vox, "most importantly, it wasn't an enormous, stationary mixing panel with as many buttons as an airplane cockpit". Whereas artists had previously sampled long pieces of music, the MPC allowed them to sample smaller portions, assign them to separate pads, and trigger them independently, similarly to playing a traditional instrument such as a keyboard or drum kit. Rhythms can be built not just from percussion samples but any recorded sound, such as horns or synthesizers. The MPC60 only allows sample lengths of up to 13 seconds, as sampling memory was expensive at the time and Linn expected users to sample short sounds to create rhythms; he did not anticipate that they would sample long loops. Functions are selected and samples are edited with two knobs. Red “record” and “overdub” buttons are used to save or loop beats. The MPC60 has an LCD screen and came with floppy disks with sounds and instruments. The MPC had a major influence on the development of electronic and hip hop music. It led to new sampling techniques, with users pushing its technical limits to creative effect. It had a democratizing effect on music production, allowing artists to create elaborate tracks without traditional instruments or recording studios. Its pad interface was adopted by numerous manufacturers and became standard in DJ technology. Legacy Linn anticipated that users would sample short sounds, such as individual notes or drum hits, to use as building blocks for compositions. However, users began sampling longer passages of music. In the words of Greg Milner, the author of Perfecting Sound Forever, musicians "didn't just want the sound of John Bonham's kick drum, they wanted to loop and repeat the whole of 'When the Levee Breaks'." Linn said: "It was a very pleasant surprise. After 60 years of recording, there are so many prerecorded examples to sample from. Why reinvent the wheel?" The MPC's ability to create percussion from any sound turned sampling into a new