For those who upgraded their 3000...

After 10years with my 3000, I have finally decided to give it a bit of an upgrade. I’ve been on version 3.11 OS and using an external Iomega 250mb Zip drive (along with my Zip disks) all this time. Now I’ve finally consider upgrading my OS to 3.50, having an internal CF card reader, new Kanamit LED display and do an output boost mod installed all done from yours truly, the man himself, Bruce Forat.

My question is, for those who have upgraded their 3000 from old to new, did you like it?

As much as Zip disk gets hated, I never minded it. Maybe 1 or 2 corrupt sound in those 10yrs, but I am kinda excited to try out these CompactFlash cards and be Zip free.

Here is what I got done to mine

-Replace all capacitor (power, main, A/D D/A, 8out PCB)
- Replace New LCD (LED backllight type)
- Replace Pad sensor
- Replace All tact switches
- Install CF drive
- Paint Job

I'd highly suggest getting the capacitors replaced, and any of the button's tact switches replaced if they give u any issues. Before I got this done my 3k was a bit of a mess, but now its like a new machine.

How do you like your new LED display versus the old one?

How’s the CF drive and CF cards compared to what you were using before? Are you getting any errors etc?

@huh@ - If you're going to pick a scsi card reader, buy the scsi2sd. It's new, it still has active development and community and it emulates 5 scsi ids simultaneously, so that means 5 times the storage offered than a normal scsi cf card reader. They cost about $70 online and take micro sd cards which is very convenient. Spend another 25 on top of that to get the 3.5" bracket if you want to install it in your 3000.

LCD screen replacement is a no brainer. It's clearer than the old one that requires a backlight inverter, the new lcd doesn't require an inverter at all which can eliminate some noise that some will find are picked up in the main outs and ins as well.

Vailixi is an excellent upgrade as well to have. You can also get it customized to have your production name and 3000 serial number embedded in to the boot screen. Most people online that sell/bootleg it have that sh*t blanked out with a bunch of lines, it looks lame.

rokuez wrote:Here is what I got done to mine
I'd highly suggest getting the capacitors replaced, and any of the button's tact switches replaced if they give u any issues. Before I got this done my 3k was a bit of a mess, but now its like a new machine.

Replacing caps on the power supply is a smart thing to do. I don't know if I would bother replacing all the caps on the analog outs though.

richie wrote:@huh@ - If you're going to pick a scsi card reader, buy the scsi2sd. It's new, it still has active development and community and it emulates 5 scsi ids simultaneously, so that means 5 times the storage offered than a normal scsi cf card reader. They cost about $70 online and take micro sd cards which is very convenient. Spend another 25 on top of that to get the 3.5" bracket if you want to install it in your 3000.

LCD screen replacement is a no brainer. It's clearer than the old one that requires a backlight inverter, the new lcd doesn't require an inverter at all which can eliminate some noise that some will find are picked up in the main outs and ins as well.

Vailixi is an excellent upgrade as well to have. You can also get it customized to have your production name and 3000 serial number embedded in to the boot screen. Most people online that sell/bootleg it have that sh*t blanked out with a bunch of lines, it looks lame.

Thank you for the recommendation. Me and Bruce had a long conversation the other night and we both agreed that the 2 slot microtech CF drive will be perfect for my 3000. It’s the best CF drive you can buy he said, he’s even got it installed on his own 3000. And to think I was going to have him install me an internal Zip 100 MB drive (those days seem to be over) but he sold me on the CF drive.

I’ve heard nothing but good things about the LED display. Pictures and videos don’t do justice, until you see it physically in front of your eyes I hear.

I will admit that Vailixi 3.50 OS turned me away for the longest time because not only was I stuck on 3.11 but the stories I heard about the guy sold them. Then all of a sudden they started floating around on eBay and it became a game of what’s real and not. I’m excited for the new features implemented such as being able to be in the chop edit screen WHILE your sequencer is running.

Going out in a limb I will miss my Zip drive and Zip disk. It’s just something so raw and even hip hop about it.

huh? wrote:Thank you for the recommendation. Me and Bruce had a long conversation the other night and we both agreed that the 2 slot microtech CF drive will be perfect for my 3000. It’s the best CF drive you can buy he said, he’s even got it installed on his own 3000. And to think I was going to have him install me an internal Zip 100 MB drive (those days seem to be over) but he sold me on the CF drive.

I'm not knocking Bruce and his work but of course he is going to recommend what he has in stock over what would be a cheaper, BETTER and more viable option to use. Using a CF card reader when you have something much better, newer and configurable makes more sense. Plus it has a usb port on it, where you can drag and drop samples in real time. You should really consider doing more research on this before paying out of the nose.

Whatever option you choose, if you're going to run 3.50 then make sure SCSI multi-sector-transfers are disabled to avoid hassles.

huh? wrote:
I will admit that Vailixi 3.50 OS turned me away for the longest time because not only was I stuck on 3.11 but the stories I heard about the guy sold them. Then all of a sudden they started floating around on eBay and it became a game of what’s real and not. I’m excited for the new features implemented such as being able to be in the chop edit screen WHILE your sequencer is running.

The data contained on the "real" and "alternative" versions of 3.50 are still primarily the same. The EPROM dumps are 1:1 and does not affect the use of banging out beats at the end of the day man.

good luck

huh? wrote:Going out in a limb I will miss my Zip drive and Zip disk. It’s just something so raw and even hip hop about it.

You could still use your zip drive to transfer over all your beats to whatever card reader solution you choose.

richie wrote:

huh? wrote:Thank you for the recommendation. Me and Bruce had a long conversation the other night and we both agreed that the 2 slot microtech CF drive will be perfect for my 3000. It’s the best CF drive you can buy he said, he’s even got it installed on his own 3000. And to think I was going to have him install me an internal Zip 100 MB drive (those days seem to be over) but he sold me on the CF drive.

I'm not knocking Bruce and his work but of course he is going to recommend what he has in stock over what would be a cheaper, BETTER and more viable option to use. Using a CF card reader when you have something much better, newer and configurable makes more sense. Plus it has a usb port on it, where you can drag and drop samples in real time. You should really consider doing more research on this before paying out of the nose.

Whatever option you choose, if you're going to run 3.50 then make sure SCSI multi-sector-transfers are disabled to avoid hassles.

huh? wrote:
I will admit that Vailixi 3.50 OS turned me away for the longest time because not only was I stuck on 3.11 but the stories I heard about the guy sold them. Then all of a sudden they started floating around on eBay and it became a game of what’s real and not. I’m excited for the new features implemented such as being able to be in the chop edit screen WHILE your sequencer is running.

The data contained on the "real" and "alternative" versions of 3.50 are still primarily the same. The EPROM dumps are 1:1 and does not affect the use of banging out beats at the end of the day man.

good luck

True and thank you. It’s the end results that matters.

With your new upgrade on your 3000 that you made, have you had any problems or errors?

Eh? Are you talking about the scsi2sd?

richie wrote:Eh? Are you talking about the scsi2sd?

Yeah. Do you ever experience noise problems inside the 3000? Has Vailixi 3.50 ever been a problem? Glitch etc.