Reviews and questions about the entry-level MPC500
User avatar
By inflict3 Fri Feb 24, 2017 8:52 pm
So its just a ground you had to add to the midi?? Crazy!!
By still_awake Fri Feb 24, 2017 10:58 pm
Yup, just that and then the midi out outputs 3.3v to your equipment if it needs to. You find the little midi board on your mpc, flip it, find pin 2 of the out plug which is the middle one and patch directly to the ground on the other side of the board with a cable. Nice mod to get the quicco working. Its really nice to have the ipad synced up to the mpc wirelessely, indeed a portable setup.

Btw anyone using fat pads care to share an opinion ? Im right now using stocks with 6 layers of tape under them :P
Also any opinion on rechargables ? Its really easy to get 12v out of a power bank so im thinking maybe this way is best, and diss the aa´s completely . :P

edit: friend sorry for hijacking your thread so hard. :oops:
User avatar
By inflict3 Sun Feb 26, 2017 7:32 am
I got 1000 fat pads and I cut the last row off so I don't have the Mpc stuff logo on it. They work good..I run rechargeable aas I got from Walmart, they last a long time.. I love using my 500 and iPad together. Beatmaker2 and mpc500 are a match made in heaven.
User avatar
By motosega Wed Mar 15, 2017 9:23 pm
still_awake wrote:I did study this a bit,sorry this might be a bit excessive and poorly written.

yep, thats about as far as i got when i looked into it. i can confirm just about everything you said from my research.

its totally doable, but that debug card is standing in the way.
the debug card would let you do funky things like dumping and changing stuff in memory of a running mpc500.
there was somebody in the car hacking world who seemed to have figured out the debug protocol for the sh3 and had a little arduino based solution that you could plug into your cars engine management system and reprogram it as you drove around.

its totally possible, but we just need to wait for the right person to turn up. somebody with a shed load of skills and time and an mpc500.
one day a messiah will come!

folks are getting better at hacking the operating systems of old digital gear, i don't think the mpc500 is one of the low hanging fruits though, that honour goes to the alesisHR16 which has been totally pwned at this point. (i have made tr808 and tr909 sound roms for mine, using the software tools available online, )
By still_awake Fri Mar 17, 2017 11:23 pm
motosega wrote:
still_awake wrote:I did study this a bit,sorry this might be a bit excessive and poorly written.

its totally doable, but that debug card is standing in the way.
the debug card would let you do funky things like dumping and changing stuff in memory of a running mpc500.
there was somebody in the car hacking world who seemed to have figured out the debug protocol for the sh3 and had a little arduino based solution that you could plug into your cars engine management system and reprogram it as you drove around.



Changing things in memory while running without halts is not as easy as it sounds, I actually did manage to connect via jtag to the debug port (not the e4m) and dump everything but this is it because I cannot connect via the renesas debugger. If you could find this arduino jtag please pm me it would be really informative :).

I wish I knew what this e4m port was intended for
User avatar
By Ill-Green Wed Mar 29, 2017 3:15 am
still_awake wrote:
I wish I knew what this e4m port was intended for

What would it normally be used for mainly?
By still_awake Wed Mar 29, 2017 12:16 pm
Ill-Green wrote:
still_awake wrote:
I wish I knew what this e4m port was intended for

What would it normally be used for mainly?


Well that's my question too :P
Although there are not many possibilities, It could be a debugging interface or even a direct serial connection to the cpu (as the schematics on the service manual hint). Another possible choice would be an expansions slot (some people claim an ide port or an scsi would be my guess). So it could also be a hard drive a expansion or even an audio expansion card. Although I'm really leaning into it being a debugging port, only thing putting me off is why they didn't hide it which would be rather easy and more than logical.

Wild guesses, don't take me into account ;)
By Jamon Wed Apr 05, 2017 6:20 pm
inflict3 wrote:Whatever happened to that page jamon created with all the signatures for open sourcing the mpc500 os? Anyone remember that?


I don't even remember. I might have the signatures somewhere, but I think I took it down because nothing was happening with it. We tried, but there weren't that many people interested, and we didn't have contact with anyone at Akai.

Plus it was obvious to everyone that nobody would be using the MPC anymore now that the Beat Thang was upon us.
User avatar
By tapedeck Wed Apr 05, 2017 6:37 pm
motosega wrote:folks are getting better at hacking the operating systems of old digital gear, i don't think the mpc500 is one of the low hanging fruits though, that honour goes to the alesisHR16 which has been totally pwned at this point. (i have made tr808 and tr909 sound roms for mine, using the software tools available online, )

this is really cool that you have done this, but it should be understood that this mod for the hr16 is hardly 'hacking the operating system'... it is simply replacing the raw sound memory with new raw sound memory.

nothing changes about the way the os acts, it just changes the raw data a very specific part of the os pulls from. very different and infinitely more possible than 'hacking the os'.

in most cases, 'hacking the os' would be about the same as trying to unbake a cake. imagine what it would take to deconstruct a vanilla cake into separate ingredients, replace the vanilla for chocolate, then recook it and end up with a chocolate cake.

not trying to discourage, i love seeing hacks, but if this is going to go anywhere the fundamentals need to be understood. :mrgreen:
By still_awake Wed Apr 05, 2017 8:13 pm
tapedeck wrote:in most cases, 'hacking the os' would be about the same as trying to unbake a cake. imagine what it would take to deconstruct a vanilla cake into separate ingredients, replace the vanilla for chocolate, then recook it and end up with a chocolate cake.


That's a beautiful and really into the point analogy :)