"GUITAR CENTER INTRODUCES HI-TECH CUSTOM SHOP FEATURING UNIQUE ELECTRONIC MUSIC ITEMS ESPECIALLY DESIGNED FOR TODAY’S ARTISTS
Limited Edition Akai MPC 4000—Exclusively Designed By Master Customizer Bruce Forat—Is Premiere Offering
Westlake Village, CA: Guitar Center, the nation's leading musical instrument retailer, announced today the introduction of its exclusive Hi-Tech Custom Shop. A new model for the retail chain, the Hi-Tech Custom Shop gives musicians unique access to rare and specialized items designed to break the homogeny of mass-market gear. The planned inventory for the Shop includes limited custom editions, exclusive product and artist-endorsed items. These will be conceived and designed by industry experts to celebrate the legacy of genre-defying pieces as well as appeal to musicians with a desire to own a piece of history.
These exclusive collaborations will be on display at select locations but can be special ordered at any Guitar Center nationwide.
To launch the Hi-Tech Custom Shop, Guitar Center purchased the last eleven Akai MPC 4000s ever made and partnered with Bruce Forat, who has been at the forefront of music electronics for the last 25 years. Forat, who has personally customized drum machines and keyboards for top musicians including Prince, Dr. Dre, Jermaine Dupree and Madonna, customized the eleven to create one-of-a-kind MPC 4000s, of which only six remain for sale exclusively through the Guitar Center Hi-Tech Custom Shop. The Akai MPC series, used by influential musicians and producers such as Kanye West, Just Blaze, and Pete Rock, has been instrumental in the development of hip-hop music and is widely regarded as the industry’s gold standard. Additional information can be found at
www.guitarcenter.com/forat.
“For the launch of Guitar Center’s Hi-Tech Custom Shop, we wanted to offer something incredibly special,” said Tony Baraz, assistant buyer for Guitar Center. “The Akai MPC is iconic in and of itself, but when customized by a monster talent like Bruce Forat it is a work of art.”
“To make each of the remaining Akai MPC 4000s truly unique we headed to the Caribbean for inspiration,” says Forat. “There’s something about the atmosphere and cool breeze that gets the creative juices going—I count these Hi-Tech Custom Shop MPCs among my best work.”
About Guitar Center
Guitar Center is the leading United States retailer of guitars, amplifiers, percussion instruments, keyboards and pro-audio and recording equipment. Our retail store subsidiary presently operates 214 Guitar Center stores across the U.S. In addition, our Music & Arts division operates more than 100 stores specializing in band instruments for sale and rental, serving teachers, band directors, college professors and students. We are also the largest direct response retailer of musical instruments in the United States through our wholly owned subsidiary, Musician's Friend, Inc., and its catalog and Web site,
www.musiciansfriend.com. More information on Guitar Center can be found by visiting the Company's Web site at
www.guitarcenter.com.
The Guitar Center logo is a registered trademark of Guitar Center, Inc. Other brand or product names may be trademarks of the respective companies with which they are associated."
BTW, the first person to comment with the correct number of remaining MPC 4000s, and WITH a registered account gets a $100 GC gift certificate courtesy of GC. : ) Sorry anons, but there is no way to confirm who you are for this one.
More images
here.
"If you are a music professional then you most likely know about this Drum Machine and Sequencer. 
"Linn 9000 brought to Forat 9000 specs by Forat himself! Not only has it been brought up to the most recent iOS 7.09, it has been Routinely serviced by Forat over the years. It just got back from servicing by the man himself. Comes with both 9000 and Forat 9000 manuals. The last Forat 9000 sold for $3,500. This is below market price!"
"The LinnDrum, a classic drum machine synonymous with the iconic sounds of the 1980s, has been meticulously upgraded with the Forat's specialty modifications for the Linn Drum. This enhancement retains the vintage analog charm of the original LinnDrum while introducing a range of modern features that cater to contemporary music production needs.
"GUITAR CENTER INTRODUCES HI-TECH CUSTOM SHOP FEATURING UNIQUE ELECTRONIC MUSIC ITEMS ESPECIALLY DESIGNED FOR TODAY’S ARTISTS
"The last Forat 9000 up for sale built by Bruce Forat in October 2019. Has all the Forat expansions plus extras, everything is listed in the receipt. Totally refurbished machine with:
"With BRUCE FORAT MODIFICATIONS and UPGRADES:
"Forat 9000 / Linn 9000 with many upgrades - Sampling on all 18 pads - Last Forat OS v7.09 - SMPTE card - trigger inputs card - Sampling input card - Refurbished PSU - CF card with complete Sound library from Forat. (Unit still have original floppy drive) - Sequencer memory expanded to the max. - Big display for F9000 programing and small to access CF card libraries. - filter mods on Toms and Percussion cards. - comes witb USB stick with user and service manuals. As all Forat machines... this one sometimes have 'standard F9000' issue ... need Ram card to be re-sited. But beside that ... no issues."
images via this auction
Title link takes you to shots pulled via this auction.
"Sequential Circuit Prophet 5 Rev 3 Just Serviced 4 months ago by Bruce Forat (FORAT ELECTRONICS) but it never has chance to gig. All the following repaired performed for the prophet 5 serial# 1709 was written on paper by Mr. Bruce Forat himself on pictures.
"Clean, excellent-condition and fully-restored Linn LinnDrum, just back from Bruce Forat. I had him add some tasteful (and in my opinion crucial) mods and his MIDI kit, which is the best there is. Here is the rundown on what has been done:
via this auction
- installing a new 240 V. power unit
On screen editing features such as Event and Global edit (note, velocity, duration, tuning, hi hat decay and erase), two types of punch (manual or programmable), recording all controllers such as MIDI volume etc., event chase, MIDI drum note assignment, copy individual tracks or drums, merge and replace, Time shift of notes and drum events, re-timing correction of individual drums or tracks after recording, 156 steps of drum tuning recordable during the sequence, MIDI System Exclusive recording for keyboard sounds, sample editing (truncate, reverse and fade), drum solo and mute, better and faster erase and many more.
Besides all these incredible features, the Linn9000 has an installed sampleboard (A/D converter) to load and record samples into the Linn9000. In this way you can load the recorded samples you want to use for your music project. Also 2 extra trigger input cards are installed!! So there are 12 trigger inputs you can use
images via this auction. via Must!
There is a mystery upgrade all the way to left - the unmarked 1/4" input. I called Bruce to see what it is, and he says it is an unmarked SMPTE upgrade."
"This one is packed with lot's of amazing features. It has the FORAT 6.62 OS which allows this machine to load samples into memory and FIXES ALL THE BUGS normally associated with the Linn 9000. It's been furnished with brand new batteries and all of the pads work completely. They are quick to trigger and feel incredible. This is what an MPC should feel like. This unit has the trigger inputs and also the SMPTE card but it does NOT have the sampling A/D card HOWEVER you can load samples via floppy or burn EEPROMS. Contact bruce Forat and he can make you a custom Linn LM 1 set.
"YAMAHA DX7 CLASSIC SYNTHESIZER/KEYBOARD AND ULTRA-RARE, EXTREMELY PRACTICAL FORAT MSM 2000 (MODULAR SYSTEM MEMORY, $350 VALUE WITH INCLUDED ADAPTOR)
You already may know what a legendary keyboard DX7 is, with its own individual sound (with some harmonics in it that are not reproduced by a modern computer workstations imitations). Also included is a fantastic Modular System Memory by Forat. In our opinion, this is best standalone sound memory cartridge ever created. Unlike some expansion boards by other companies, the Forat combines a standard DX7 card behavior and convenience with its innovative on-board computer approach and there are no additional electrical changes required for DX7 or its firmware to use it. It permanently stores 64 standard DX7 sound banks (64*32=2048 sounds total!) and allows you to freely switch/rotate between them with additional ease-thanks to a big internal display. Best of all, it comes already preloaded with a wide variety of sounds for you to get started instantly. If you will ever want to load your own DX7 banks, simply select bank number to erase/format, then press write button (its lamp will light up) and perform a standard DX bank store-to-card operation. The lamp will go dim and your soundbank will be found under the same number (with this mega-card you can freely disconnect it as you would any standard Yamaha card and for example, connect it to another DX7 if desired)."
