By Dan Jose
Wed Aug 15, 2018 11:43 am
Hi Everyone,
There is not a lot of first hand accounts on here so I thought i would share what I have learned so far. Maybe if the hxc / gotek guys share how they use the usbs it will clear up a lot of confusion. I mean the mpc 2000 is a 21 year old computer so it is always going to be super limited, but I feel like the USB is actually a great feature. I just wanted to help clear things up for people and hopefully learn how other people use the usb emulator for themselves.
I recently bought my first mpc last week (A 2000 with 32ram, 8 outs, and the gotek emulator) I think it's the gotek emulator at least. It has the digital LCD screen that displays scrolling text and the two buttons for scrolling between disks. I'm new to all this but, right now i'm learning how to save and load. I didn't have to format the usb myself. The previous owner has been super helpful and he included the usb already ready to rock.
How I use it on mac osx:
THE USB and naming files
My usb is formatted in the old MAC32 format for floppy disks. It has the os boot file on it which has to be selected on the actual emulator to boot up properly. The usb it came with disk images in .hfe format that act as folders. On my usb they were named DSK0001 DSK0002 etc. etc. These are essentially 1.44mb floppy partitions. From what I understand, the OS on the mpc 2000 can't read more than that, which is why you can't save more than 1.44mb per disk image. You can copy and paste the DSK .hfe files in finder and rename them. So for example DSK_beats1 DSK_beats2 or however you want. You don't even need to keep the DSK i think.
Saving and Loading
I plugged in my usb, booted the mpc up, then selected one of the DSK .hfe files and formated it so it was empty.You can just take the usb out while the mpc is running so I did and then i copy and pasted the that formatted .hfe. onto the usb and named it sequentially for a project i was working on. DSK1_bayslap_sample DSK2_bayslap_sample DSK3_bayslap_project. If you try to save all your samples The names scroll across the front of the emulator and you can name them as long as you want which makes navigating and loading super easy if you are organized. It's not the mpc reading which is limited to 8 characters i believe.
A lot of my projects are quite big so i save the samples individually into the individual .hfe folders labelled as samples on my usb. When i fill up one .hfe holder, i just select the next folder with the buttons on the emulator and continue saving. I then save the sequences and songs into the hfe. folder named project. I keep a notebook with my mpc with a sort of guide to what samples are where and that helps keep things organized.
I have loaded one project into the mpc and it seemed to work fine but i will try to load in a song I made last night and see how it all goes to double check the process. I guess I would load in all the samples and then the song and sequence last so I can pickup where I left off?
Anyways that's how I use it right now. I will update more later but I hope that sheds some light on it.
Best D
There is not a lot of first hand accounts on here so I thought i would share what I have learned so far. Maybe if the hxc / gotek guys share how they use the usbs it will clear up a lot of confusion. I mean the mpc 2000 is a 21 year old computer so it is always going to be super limited, but I feel like the USB is actually a great feature. I just wanted to help clear things up for people and hopefully learn how other people use the usb emulator for themselves.
I recently bought my first mpc last week (A 2000 with 32ram, 8 outs, and the gotek emulator) I think it's the gotek emulator at least. It has the digital LCD screen that displays scrolling text and the two buttons for scrolling between disks. I'm new to all this but, right now i'm learning how to save and load. I didn't have to format the usb myself. The previous owner has been super helpful and he included the usb already ready to rock.
How I use it on mac osx:
THE USB and naming files
My usb is formatted in the old MAC32 format for floppy disks. It has the os boot file on it which has to be selected on the actual emulator to boot up properly. The usb it came with disk images in .hfe format that act as folders. On my usb they were named DSK0001 DSK0002 etc. etc. These are essentially 1.44mb floppy partitions. From what I understand, the OS on the mpc 2000 can't read more than that, which is why you can't save more than 1.44mb per disk image. You can copy and paste the DSK .hfe files in finder and rename them. So for example DSK_beats1 DSK_beats2 or however you want. You don't even need to keep the DSK i think.
Saving and Loading
I plugged in my usb, booted the mpc up, then selected one of the DSK .hfe files and formated it so it was empty.You can just take the usb out while the mpc is running so I did and then i copy and pasted the that formatted .hfe. onto the usb and named it sequentially for a project i was working on. DSK1_bayslap_sample DSK2_bayslap_sample DSK3_bayslap_project. If you try to save all your samples The names scroll across the front of the emulator and you can name them as long as you want which makes navigating and loading super easy if you are organized. It's not the mpc reading which is limited to 8 characters i believe.
A lot of my projects are quite big so i save the samples individually into the individual .hfe folders labelled as samples on my usb. When i fill up one .hfe holder, i just select the next folder with the buttons on the emulator and continue saving. I then save the sequences and songs into the hfe. folder named project. I keep a notebook with my mpc with a sort of guide to what samples are where and that helps keep things organized.
I have loaded one project into the mpc and it seemed to work fine but i will try to load in a song I made last night and see how it all goes to double check the process. I guess I would load in all the samples and then the song and sequence last so I can pickup where I left off?
Anyways that's how I use it right now. I will update more later but I hope that sheds some light on it.
Best D