Share your knowledge on these two classic MPCs
Bye.maynard Tue Apr 15, 2003 6:45 pm
Hey everybody! This is a great site and a great forum. I just picked up an MPC 60II, with the original OS and RAM. I'd really like to build my beats from scratch. I own a small home studio and I've got a lot of drum sounds on my multi-track I'd like to sample. The sounds reside on a Radar II in 24 bit 48 hz. I can transfer them into Bias Peak on my Mac. Is there a way to write my edited samples onto a floppy in the .snd format? Or is it better to just play the hits out of the Mac & come into the MPC's analog ins?Another thing I noticed was that the LCD is a bit dim. Where is the best place to pick up a backlight? Also, who has the best price on Ram upgrades for the MPC 60's? Thanks a lot........

By KoolSha178 Tue Apr 15, 2003 7:50 pm
Cool, ok...

1. You might want to invest in a cheap pc, to run sound forge and wav-->snd convertor to transfer your files, i've had nothing but **** headaches swapping disks between my mac and my mpc3000/60, if you have a nice sound card i dont see why you cant just sample everything hot, that would work.

2. LCD...i dont know did you adjust the contrast, if its still dim check sonicstate.com they have a link to a company in the uk that provides akai back lights.

3. You probably want to check out rogerlinndesign.com and get the ram upgrade/os upgrade asap!!! If not your mpc will cause more headaches than the sound it puts out is worth, if you got the extra scrill get the scsi upgrade as will, comes in handy big time.

good luck!

By elmacaco Tue Apr 15, 2003 8:05 pm
Koolsha is right,

get the linn upgrade and the scsi.

http://www.backlights.co.uk

has the backlights. I replaced mine with their instructions.

By UNSYSTEMATIC Sat Apr 19, 2003 6:15 am
When I bought my MPC 60 II the menu was pretty dim. I ordered one from backlight uk and it was delivered in about a week or so. When I installed it, the light source and the dimness was the same as before. I could see it clear as day when the lcd was out of the case. When I put it back in the MPC case, it looked like the original lcd that was in there when I bought the 60. I adjusted the fader, but it only got 10% better. I then reversed the lcd (front to back).
There was a major difference. The menu and text was visible in a shadow or dimmly lit room. The text did not jump out from the screen (the contrast of the text and screen wasn't like night and day). I could, however, see the text with less effort then the old way. So I left it in the reversed position.

By elmacaco Sat Apr 19, 2003 6:39 am
It sounds like it isn't hooked up right, or you have bigger issues.

get it fixed, it may crap out further down the line, or worse, damage something else.

or maybe they sent the wrong backlight. the 60 & 60 II need different backlights.

did you get it from here:

http://www.backlights.co.uk

and did you get the right one?
By roxstar Sat Apr 19, 2003 1:43 pm
To anyone:

Do me a favor.. record your beat with any mpc, and then with the mpc-60, and if that sequencer in the 60 can magically make the same track sound better, I'll cop one. Just seems like folks have 1001 reasons why they need to buy another machine, another module, or whatever without fully using the gear they have to it's fullest potential. So lets put this myth to rest.. I challenge anyone who has access to these machines to record the same track twice to prove to the rest of this mpc community that the magical swing myth is true.. cuz I know it's bulls#it. A wack track is a wack track, and no swing is gonna make it better. Any MPC is a good MPC!

P.S (and also remember that the people buying your music are consumers, and not producers, so chances are, they won't know, or care, or notice any difference in a track made with a 60/2000/XL/3000, so if you already have ANY mpc, and your not making any real money off your beats, why would you want to buy another one?? Does self satisfaction have to cost so much?)

Roxstar

By UNSYSTEMATIC Sun Apr 20, 2003 8:22 am
I may have ordered the wrong lcd. It fit where the old one was, but wasn't the exact width. Is the 60 lcd skinnier? I am positive that I ordered the correct one because when I bought it, I knew that it was an MKII. I don't think there was anything wrong with the original lcd after I saw a picture of some other pps mpc 60. That was after I installed the new one. I was expecting it to be a bright lcd like my ASR-X Pro but it wasn't. I don't want to spend any more money for the same lcd.

By elmacaco Sun Apr 20, 2003 6:51 pm
Nah, it's not super bright, but in the dark you should be able to see it very clearly.

By mpc3000 Fri Apr 25, 2003 2:39 am
The MPC60/3000 LCD's are pretty dim compared to other LCD's. Going from MPC2000 to MPC60/3000 freaks out most of the new owners thinking something is wrong.

The MPC2000 is a lot brighter and the MPC2000XL is even brighter still with a little more blue and less grey. Both are dark-on-light.

The `dim` backlights on the early MPC's frustrate me. I would have never kept the 3000 if it wasn't for the VGA out and monitor. I do not understand how 60 owners manage.

By elmacaco Fri Apr 25, 2003 4:10 am
we squint ;)