For YEARS there have been these legions of fanboys (not calling the OP that, so, no disrespect intended) that think that Dilla and other greats were just going straight out from the MPC to the final, retail disc.

They totally negate the mixing process, mixing engineers, mastering, mastering engineers, which are what really help to get that particular sound that so many of them are looking.

They hear these rumors about recording to tape and go out and buy an 8 track Tascam machine and think they're gonna get the same sound as a commercial release.

It's just not gonna happen.

What I'll say to the OP is, if you've been producing for some time and are still holding on to this fallacy of the MPC 3k imparting some kind of magic that can trump the mixing equipment in a major studio, you've been mislead for quite sometime. Like ChanEpic said, time to learn some compression, EQ and all the other little tricks that engineers use or at least start employing a mixing engineer, at the least.

We could sit here and pontificate about Dilla's gear ALL DAY, but you'll waste a lot of money and valuable time chasing that stuff and still not end up where you want to be.

Trust me, I was misguided by these SAME guys when I first started producing. Taumbout, "Madlib only uses the SP-303, so, if you can't make your stuff sound like heat rocks using that and ONLY that, you need to find another hobby."

Number one rule on the internet: Take everything as opinion and with MANY grains of salt.

Lastly, if you're not on software tip, at least for tracking out your stuff, you're just putting yourself far behind whatever competition you have. It's great to use hardware for the nostalgia and all that, but, don't needlessly handicap yourself.

Come to grips with the fact that most OKP's are of the Nut Hugger lineage, so, if you' re not part of the little cliques that exist 'round here, your posts will probably tank like Souljaboy's album sales.