"Frusciante extensively used his Clavia Nord Lead 2, a Casio SK-1, and the Akai MPC3000 on the album To Record Only Water for Ten Days. Other electronic instruments used during Frusciante's recent recording spree include a Chamberlain, a Moog Voyager, an Arp String Ensemble, a Korg MS10, and a late-1970s Synare analog drum synthesizer."

Per this March 2001 interview with Keyboards Magazine (FR), Daft Punk employed an MPC 3000 during the recording of Discovery.

In a Guitar Center interview conducted after Red Hot Chili Peppers' Californication tour, Flea is asked about what gear he uses for songwriting. He responds that along with a Mackie 16-channel mixer, Nord Lead synth, and Roland synth module, he uses the Akai MPC 3000 sampler.

Trent Reznor is confirmed to use the Akai MPC 3000 as part of the equipment list for recording "The Fragile," as documented in the Fragility Tour program. This information is sourced from nin.wiki.

Kanye West used the Akai MPC 3000 during the recording of "Bully," as confirmed by an Instagram post from user theykilledryn. The post, dated April 11, 2026, includes a caption noting the studio setup for "Bully" by Ye, featuring equipment spotted by RYN.

In an interview with Scratch magazine, Dr. Dre says "I love using the MPC3000. I like setting up like four or five different MPC3000's, so I don't have to keep changing disks. So I have them all lined up, and I have different drum sounds in each one, and then we use one for sequencing the keyboard." A copy of the publication can be seen here.

Metro Boomin is confirmed to use the Akai MPC 3000, as evidenced by a photograph he shared on his own Twitter account, showcasing the equipment.

Aparte de la guitarra, el instrumento clave de Cerati fue la MPC. Uso desde la 60 hasta la 4000. Para Bocanada ya contaba com la MPC3000, pero también utilizó la 2000 y la 2000xl. En esta foto podemos ver parte de su estudio "Casa Submarina", del lado izquierdo podemos ver la MPC3000.

J Dilla owned MPC 3000LE #499, which his mother Maureen Yancy donated to the National Museum of African American History & Culture in 2014. The Smithsonian Institution catalogs it under object number 2014.139.1 and dates it to the year 2000.

This MPC 3000LE previously appeared in a series of photographs taken in summer 2005—during the recording of The Shining, according to Stones Throw Records—by Raph Rashid for Behind the Beat: Hip-Hop Home Studios (the photos can be seen here, here, here, here, here, and here). Dilla himself mentioned it in his final interview, published in the May/June 2006 issue of Scratch.

Scratch: I’m assuming you got some equipment out in L.A. right?

J. Dilla: I got the basics. An MPC, a couple of turntables, and that’s really it.

Scratch: What equipment did you start with?

J. Dilla: I started with the SP-12 then moved to the SP-1200. Then shortly after thatt the MPC 60, then MPC60 mkII, then the MPC3000, and I’ve been on the MPC3000 ever since then. I’ve tried other samplers but the 3000 is the best for me for what I like do.

Scratch: What about it specifically?

J. Dilla: It’s just easier for me to program and I like the node offs and mono pads. I can just do more with it I guess ’cause I know it better.

Dan Charnas' Dilla Time: The Life and Afterlife of J Dilla, the Hip-Hop Producer Who Reinvented Rhythm (2022) provides further information. Information about J Dilla's hospital setup, which he used to finalize Donuts, is given on page 289, while the story of how Maureen donated the MPC 3000LE to the Smithsonian is recorded on page 333.

pg. 289

Maureen was concerned for her son’s mental well-being as much as his physical health. She asked Maurice to bring some more of James’s production equipment to use in the moments when he felt well enough. Maurice retrieved his MPC, his Moog keyboard, a turntable, a laptop computer, an audio interface, and a crate of records. He took the equipment and set it up at James’s direction on several brown snack trays that could be rolled to the bed or away from it. Sometimes James would fiddle with his music while lying in bed, and at others Maurice would help James into a wheelchair, lock the wheels, and set him before the equipment. Maureen massaged James’s stiff, aching fingers for hours so he could work for a few minutes. When James stabilized, Maurice would pack up the equipment and take it home; when James took a turn for the worse, usually within a week or two, they’d all ride back to Cedars-Sinai and set everything up again, the extra snack trays for James and cot for Maureen already rolled in by staff who were, by now, very familiar with James’s exceptional situation.

pg. 333

[Timothy Anne] Burnside, a curatorial specialist and the Smithsonian's first large-scale collector of hip-hop artifacts, had been cultivating a relationship with Maureen Yancy since 2010. The following year, when she first visited the Yancey family's old house on Wexford in Conant Gardens, into which Maureen had moved again, she found her living in a virtual museum: platinum plaques for Busta Rhymes, Common, and Roots albums; a framed, gentle portrait of James taken in a supply closet at A&M by Brian Cross; another of a grade-school James sitting in a wicker chair; and dozens of pieces of fan art given to Ma Dukes in her world travels: watercolors, oil paintings, collages, and graphic design depicting James in settings from the real to the surreal. Burnside mustered the nerve to ask whether Maureen might consider donating her son's most precious possession, the item depicted in many of the photos and paintings around her: his Akai MPC3000 drum machine. But Maureen wasn't ready to let go. It took Maureen several more years to make the decision to donate two pieces of equipment: the MPC and Dilla's cherished Minimoog. When Burnside returned to Detroit to pick them up, she had no idea what Maureen and Jonathan Taylor went through to get them: John Yancey had left the equipment in the home of an ex-girlfriend, who then put them in a storage facility in San Diego, and Frank was dispatched with a blank check to reimburse her and retrieve James' equipment.

In a studio session featured on Kreativsound, The Chemical Brothers' Tom Rowlands discusses their use of the Akai MPC 3000 to explore new sonic possibilities.

Quote from album "Oxygene 7-13" by Jean-Michel Jarre (1997 release):

"Jean Michel Jarre played the following Instruments: 2600 ARP Synthesizer, VCS3 synthesizer, AKS, Eminent, Mellotron, Theremin, CS80, Quasimidi Raven, Digisequencer, Logic Audio, Akai MPC3000, Nordlead, JV 90, K2000, RMI, Prophecy, TR808, DJ70."

"We had that sequencer by the, um, MPC60 at first. That's how I got into all my Akai machines... (...) Then we graduated, of course, to the 3000 and the 2000, the 2000XL..."