Wait, if you have a CF card reader and a Zip drive...

...can't you load up samples & stuff off the CF card, do your work, and save down to the Zip drive? Or is there something that happens in the memory when switching between devices? And I assume if you don't have a hot-swappable CF reader, then you can't load from Zip disc and then save over to your CF card...

It's just that, and maybe I haven't paid enough attention on the forums, I don't think I've seen this mentioned or used.

I'd like to have only 1 or two CF cards with my main sounds, then once those are loaded, any other samples/sequences/programs I add will all go onto Zip discs so I can more or less save one song/project per disc and not worry about storage space.

I scored a package of 25 CF cards for $20...which would be great if I had a hot-swappable reader, then I'd just load up from my main sample card and put in another one to save to. Except I don't have hot-swap. And I looked at switching over to the ATAPI 741, which I guess reads multiple cards and is hot-swappable...but I already have a bunch of Zip discs laying around for another sampler I use and I found a Zip drive for only $25, so that seems like the cheaper and easier route unless there's something I'm missing.

I'm willing to switch over to something hot-swappable so I can use all those cards, readers just seem expensive, and that ATAPI 741 requires some crafting...

depending on the exact capabilities of each card readers / zips / etc, this can be done.
for example, i have a multi-card reader and i use both sd and cf.
the 2gb SD card that has nothing but samples ...basic library stuff. this stays in the card reader at all times, because when a CF card is in there, it sort of 'overrides' the sd card.

so if i want to go to my library, i simply eject the cf card and then browse around and load sounds from the sd.

once i've created a program, i re-insert the cf card and save to that.

Which multi-card reader do you have? Yours must be hot-swappable if you can put your CF cards back in...or I'm guessing that because multi-card readers read multiple cards, you can switch back and forth between the cards you save to as long as you always keep at least one sort of card in the machine so that the MPC will continually recognize the reader?

I don't know why I brought up hot-swappability in the first place, when that has to do with whether or not the card is in the reader and I suppose if your card is already in, then you can switch back and forth between the CF reader and zip drive no problem once the MPC is on. I have sample discs with hundreds of samples on them and I've never gone over 100 MB on one, so I might just get that zip drive I found and save my main library to that and everything else after onto my CF cards; probably better to have one zip and a bunch of CF cards instead of one CF card and a bunch of old ass zip discs (even though I have about 2 dozen of both lol).

the card reader i have is indeed a hot swap, multi-card reader, but i have no idea what it is...there is almost no information on it. back before the word got out, they were selling them for like $30 and i got in early.

you keep saying the 'z' word and honestly man, the sooner you can switch away from zips (tomorrow if possible) do it. it'll give you a chance to kind of re-organise your collection and when those things start dying you'll be glad you ditched them. cf cards are cheap - buy two and stash one away as a timecapsule

Yeah, I've accrued all these zip discs over the years because of a sampler I have...and I even bought another sampler with an internal 100 gig hard drive to replace it with exactly because of that stupid, outdated zip shit...but for some reason I've held onto that sampler. I really just need to save myself the trouble and sell it already...

But my CF card situation is on lock-down: I've got 27 of them already and can go back for more, so looks like I'm gonna have to do some browsing and figure out which multi-card/hot-swappable reader to go change over to. Typically I just delete all my songs n' shit after I've recorded them down to audio somewhere so I can make space, but with how little I paid for the cards I have and how many more I can get, I can essentially load my core kit up to the MPC off my main card and switch over to another one just for the sake of holding a few completed projects that can get tossed into a drawer somewhere once I'm done with them.