Exchange tips and tricks for the Akai MPC4000
By renegadebliss Tue Dec 23, 2008 7:40 pm
mr_debauch wrote:
just writing a kernel for that machine would take months with a small team of people.


exactly, so cost wise it isn't justifiable for anyone to do it. Anyone with the Skill level would
just create a new product and takes Akai's thunder and money.
User avatar
By mr_debauch Tue Dec 23, 2008 11:03 pm
renegadebliss wrote:
mr_debauch wrote:
just writing a kernel for that machine would take months with a small team of people.


exactly, so cost wise it isn't justifiable for anyone to do it. Anyone with the Skill level would
just create a new product and takes Akai's thunder and money.



well only a company can make hardware and stuff like that.. software can be made and spread over the internet.
By renegadebliss Fri Dec 26, 2008 5:06 pm
mr_debauch wrote:
renegadebliss wrote:
mr_debauch wrote:
just writing a kernel for that machine would take months with a small team of people.


exactly, so cost wise it isn't justifiable for anyone to do it. Anyone with the Skill level would
just create a new product and takes Akai's thunder and money.



well only a company can make hardware and stuff like that.. software can be made and spread over the internet.



And stolen. Hardware is the ultimate dongle. There's a reason that the anounced Akai VZ8 vsti was never released:

http://namm.harmony-central.com/WNAMM03 ... R/VZ8.html
By renegadebliss Fri Dec 26, 2008 5:11 pm
shimmyshimmy wrote:Are this really necessary to make new OS for 4K? I think not...


Different Opinions for different folks. It's not neccssary to own a 4000, but does that mean that I don't
want mine? You can ask some people and they would indicate that it wasn't
necessary for Akai to create the 4000 in the 1st place but I don't agree with that.

Most "wants" aren't necessary. Almost every feature in the 4k isn't necessary, but do I use them.....

Yes...

If no further OS is made for the 4K (which there won't be any further) will stop
it's usefulness for me? No....
***************************

Is the Chord feature on MPC 1000 JJOS2XL necessary? Nope.. but it's dope


Cheers,
Dave
User avatar
By mr_debauch Sat Dec 27, 2008 12:47 am
renegadebliss wrote:
shimmyshimmy wrote:Are this really necessary to make new OS for 4K? I think not...


Different Opinions for different folks. It's not neccssary to own a 4000, but does that mean that I don't
want mine? You can ask some people and they would indicate that it wasn't
necessary for Akai to create the 4000 in the 1st place but I don't agree with that.

Most "wants" aren't necessary. Almost every feature in the 4k isn't necessary, but do I use them.....

Yes...

If no further OS is made for the 4K (which there won't be any further) will stop
it's usefulness for me? No....
***************************

Is the Chord feature on MPC 1000 JJOS2XL necessary? Nope.. but it's dope


Cheers,
Dave



Is it even necessary to make beats? no, we already have a lot of pros doing that for the world... but we want to because we like to hear what we think sounds good and they say..... you want something done properly, you gotta do it yourself.

The 4k is a neat machine. I think most of it's power is in it's flexibility.
User avatar
By SMC Mon Dec 29, 2008 8:58 pm
Just a quick note here,

I am using a 640GB Western Digital in a USB Enclosure without issue. Front Port. Haven't tried rear, need to dig out the right cable.

I'm assuming then, that the MPC will recognize at least that on the internal IDE bus.

Now, where to find a 1TB IDE HArd Drive.... heh heh (I haven't even looked to see how big they stopped at, if they have stopped)
User avatar
By mr_debauch Tue Dec 30, 2008 5:18 am
SMC wrote:Just a quick note here,

I am using a 640GB Western Digital in a USB Enclosure without issue. Front Port. Haven't tried rear, need to dig out the right cable.

I'm assuming then, that the MPC will recognize at least that on the internal IDE bus.

Now, where to find a 1TB IDE HArd Drive.... heh heh (I haven't even looked to see how big they stopped at, if they have stopped)



i think they can go up to 2TB by now... not sure though.

Anyways fat32 and ntfs doesn't support partitions larger then 2tb if I am not mistaken (i am a bit rusty on my a+)
User avatar
By McSmooth Tue Dec 30, 2008 7:34 pm
SMC wrote:I am using a 640GB Western Digital in a USB Enclosure without issue. Front Port. Haven't tried rear, need to dig out the right cable.

It should be the same cable for both except they connect the opposite way. Keep in mind that the rear port is a slave connector that goes to the PC, you can't plug a drive or anything else you would plug into the front. This is used with ak.sys on your computer which makes your storage virtually unlimited. Extremely handy tool if you haven't used it yet.

I'm assuming then, that the MPC will recognize at least that on the internal IDE bus.

No. Either the BIOS or the drivers in the OS must not have 48-bit LBA since everyone says they cannot use more than ~130GB. That issue caused the same limit in older versions of Windows. This is still plenty of space when there is only 512MB of RAM, plus you have the front USB and ak.sys to go nuts with.

Now, where to find a 1TB IDE HArd Drive.... heh heh (I haven't even looked to see how big they stopped at, if they have stopped)

I believe IDEs are only up to 500GB. Since you have to use external to get above the 130GB limit, you can use any type of drive, or storage so long as it is formatted fat32 and can be recognized as a USB mass storage device.

Almost every damn device has a card reader on it today. I've used cameras, cell phones, etc to quickly cary a few samples over. That port is so much better than a dying memory card (CF) reader.

mr_debauch wrote:i think they can go up to 2TB by now... not sure though.

Anyways fat32 and ntfs doesn't support partitions larger then 2tb if I am not mistaken (i am a bit rusty on my a+)

Single disks are up to 1.5, and we should see 2TB shortly. You can get a multiple drive enclosure with RAID to get much higher though (2x1TB enclosures are pretty common at the consumer level).

FAT32 can theoretically go up to 8TB with 2k clusters, but it wasn't designed to work well at that size. 2TB is the recommended limit.

It will be interesting in the not-too-distant future when memory cards start hitting this limit and devices will have to adopt a new common file system. The 4GB file size limit is already annoying with video.
User avatar
By SMC Tue Dec 30, 2008 7:56 pm
Yes, I use Aksys, and I also really see no need for anything over 80 GB for internal,
as I have all my samples on the 640GB external, and save 'sessions' on the 4K, and the external, and transfer to the studio computer, so I'm pretty well set.

In regards to your comments on SSD

I'm about to pick up one of Samsungs SSD HDD's to test with my Pro Tools rigs, and I may even throw one in the 4K

Granted there will be limitations on performance based on the machines capabilities, and bus speed, RAM, etc,
however the faster drive may improve things as it will probably relieve some lag on the system while accessing the drive.

This coupled with the newer 110/11 Family ARM/Sharc I've got on the way (Once I can find a donor board/unit, read my CPU post)
Should provide greater performance on some level, probably not spectacular, but we'll see.

Back to SSD, I don't think we'll see a "limit" on SSD any time soon. Rather, it IS going to be the standard for ALL storage,
At which point, mechanical, platter, etc, storage will be legacy and a thing of the past.

Take the SSD idea a step further and you get this:

http://www.engadget.com/2008/12/11/f...age-confirmed/

This will almost certainly see 1TB consumer versions within 2 years, probably around $200-400 when first released.

INSANE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
User avatar
By mr_debauch Tue Dec 30, 2008 10:09 pm
McSmooth wrote:
SMC wrote:I am using a 640GB Western Digital in a USB Enclosure without issue. Front Port. Haven't tried rear, need to dig out the right cable.

It should be the same cable for both except they connect the opposite way. Keep in mind that the rear port is a slave connector that goes to the PC, you can't plug a drive or anything else you would plug into the front. This is used with ak.sys on your computer which makes your storage virtually unlimited. Extremely handy tool if you haven't used it yet.

I'm assuming then, that the MPC will recognize at least that on the internal IDE bus.

No. Either the BIOS or the drivers in the OS must not have 48-bit LBA since everyone says they cannot use more than ~130GB. That issue caused the same limit in older versions of Windows. This is still plenty of space when there is only 512MB of RAM, plus you have the front USB and ak.sys to go nuts with.

Now, where to find a 1TB IDE HArd Drive.... heh heh (I haven't even looked to see how big they stopped at, if they have stopped)

I believe IDEs are only up to 500GB. Since you have to use external to get above the 130GB limit, you can use any type of drive, or storage so long as it is formatted fat32 and can be recognized as a USB mass storage device.

Almost every damn device has a card reader on it today. I've used cameras, cell phones, etc to quickly cary a few samples over. That port is so much better than a dying memory card (CF) reader.

mr_debauch wrote:i think they can go up to 2TB by now... not sure though.

Anyways fat32 and ntfs doesn't support partitions larger then 2tb if I am not mistaken (i am a bit rusty on my a+)

Single disks are up to 1.5, and we should see 2TB shortly. You can get a multiple drive enclosure with RAID to get much higher though (2x1TB enclosures are pretty common at the consumer level).

FAT32 can theoretically go up to 8TB with 2k clusters, but it wasn't designed to work well at that size. 2TB is the recommended limit.

It will be interesting in the not-too-distant future when memory cards start hitting this limit and devices will have to adopt a new common file system. The 4GB file size limit is already annoying with video.



Actually IDE can infact go above 130GB but you need to have 40 pin - 80 wire cables (40 grounds, one for each pin)

fat 32 doesn't have enough cluster addresses to support more then 2 TB partitions.
User avatar
By McSmooth Wed Dec 31, 2008 6:22 am
SMC wrote:In regards to your comments on SSD
...
Back to SSD, I don't think we'll see a "limit" on SSD any time soon. Rather, it IS going to be the standard for ALL storage,
At which point, mechanical, platter, etc, storage will be legacy and a thing of the past.

Not sure if you were referring to my post, but I wasn't talking about SSDs and the limit I was referring to was just for FAT32. SSDs are still a little bit small and expensive for me at this point, but they are making some amazing improvements! No one can argue that they will start replacing moving platters in a few years. I would say it is a bit of a waste to put on the MPC right now unless you need the silence. I doubt you would even see a difference between a 5400 and 7200 drive considering how slowly it loads samples (relative to say a 5 year old laptop). This is most likely due to bus speed (or crappy driver) limits.

mr_debauch wrote:Actually IDE can infact go above 130GB but you need to have 40 pin - 80 wire cables (40 grounds, one for each pin)

fat 32 doesn't have enough cluster addresses to support more then 2 TB partitions.

Sure IDE can go above 130, but has it been verified that the cable is the only thing forcing this limit on the 4k? If so, that is funny that so many people reported the limit without using a modern cable! Can't say I bothered to try, mine has been big enough... although I wouldn't mind getting a quieter one in there. Now I want to try it out!

The 2TB limit you speak of is with 512 byte clusters. 1k and 2k clusters will get you 4 and 8TB, it just isn't a good idea.
User avatar
By SMC Wed Dec 31, 2008 2:52 pm
Not to keep beating a dead thread, but I have a couple things yet.........

1st, a 7200 drive makes a world of difference over a 5400 in any machine. Access, read, write, etc., time is not limited only by the bus speed, but is also limited by the drive speed. The faster the drive the better performance, on any bus speed.

Secondly, I have to pretty much guarantee that the internal bus on the MPC4K will recognize more than 130 with a properly formatted drive and an Ultra IDE cable.

The ultra IDE cable would benefit the drive even if the machine doesn't see it that way, as it works downward compatible. If the USB bus recognizes more there is no reason the IDE bus wont. I will crack mine open and throw drives in it just to check this, in fact I'll throw in the 640GB drive that is in my external, via an ide to sata adapter, which it sees fine, just to check....... could be wrong, it's been known to happen, but with my experience in computers it just stands to reason, even though I know there has probably been much experimenting here already, I'll let you know what happens