Exchange tips and tricks for the Akai MPC4000
By wireboy Wed May 21, 2008 11:51 am
Just powered-up my unit and I'm getting no effects coming through. All saved multis with effects data show all effects parameters reset to zero and if I try and edit effects data with nothing loaded into the internal memory I get the following message:
Fatal Error! "Data Abort"
[ID: 00000003, I: 00102D40]
[FSR: C0005003, FAR: EA0042C5]

Can't access Q-FX either.

Anyone got any ideas?
By adrian Wed May 21, 2008 7:03 pm
Try reinstalling the OS.
By wireboy Fri May 23, 2008 9:46 am
adrian wrote:Try reinstalling the OS.


I tried that but still no joy.

I had a look inside to see if there's any visible problem with the effects board (EB4JS) but I couldn't find it. My MPC4k was supplied with effects ready installed so I was wondering if there's a difference between this and a unit that doesn't have effects fitted as standard.
By adrian Fri May 23, 2008 7:46 pm
effects board was standard on all MPC 4000's. It could be a loose solder joint or connection somewhere. or something worse. Sorry.
By wireboy Tue May 27, 2008 11:29 am
renegadebliss wrote:What about trying to reseat the FX card?


Service Manual is here:
http://openmpc.woralelandia.com/files/M ... Manual.pdf



Cheers,
Dave


Thanks Dave. I tried this but the link gave me a "page not found" message.
Is there another way of accessing the Service Manual or do any of you guys have a pdf copy?

I'd really like to get to the bottom of this!!

Dave.
By renegadebliss Tue May 27, 2008 10:36 pm
wireboy wrote:
renegadebliss wrote:What about trying to reseat the FX card?


Service Manual is here:
http://openmpc.woralelandia.com/files/M ... Manual.pdf



Cheers,
Dave


Thanks Dave. I tried this but the link gave me a "page not found" message.
Is there another way of accessing the Service Manual or do any of you guys have a pdf copy?

I'd really like to get to the bottom of this!!

Dave.



PM me, and I can email it to you.

Dave
By wireboy Wed May 28, 2008 11:07 am
renegadebliss wrote:
wireboy wrote:
renegadebliss wrote:What about trying to reseat the FX card?


Service Manual is here:
http://openmpc.woralelandia.com/files/M ... Manual.pdf



Cheers,
Dave


Thanks Dave. I tried this but the link gave me a "page not found" message.
Is there another way of accessing the Service Manual or do any of you guys have a pdf copy?

I'd really like to get to the bottom of this!!

Dave.



PM me, and I can email it to you.

Dave


Thanks Dave. I got the email and attachment.

I'll have a look around today and let you know if I find anything amiss.

Thanks once again,

Dave.
By Sovereign Thu May 29, 2008 7:54 pm
Have you gotten around to checking the effects board?
By wireboy Mon Jun 16, 2008 1:54 pm
Sovereign wrote:Have you gotten around to checking the effects board?


Hi guys,

Sorry it took me so long to get around to this, but I checked the board yesterday and it all seemed ok. It took me about 90 minutes to get to it and when I found it there was nothing obviously amiss. In fact, the whole thing was surprisingly clean and dust-free inside.

When the unit is switched on and I select GLOBAL and look under CONFIG (F3), the effects board is listed as being installed. When I load multis from memory, however, the saved FX have been reset to zero and, even if I put non-zero values into them, there's no output whatsoever. It's a real shi**er! I'm still getting no Q-FX (for what they're worth) and I get the fatal error message when no effects have been loaded and I select EFFECT, EDIT (F2).

Anyone got any other ideas?

I was thinking about ringing AKAI over here in the UK. If anybody's got a contact name/number for someone at AKAI who may be able to deal with this issue, I'd really appreciate it? In fact, any help/suggestions at all would be welcome.

Dave.
By Sovereign Mon Jun 16, 2008 3:39 pm
So you did reseat the board?
Did you try booting the unit without the board installed to see if the Config knew it was missing?
There are some service oriented reset type things you can do but if you aren't careful you can kill the unit when doing them.
By renegadebliss Mon Jun 16, 2008 4:10 pm
wireboy wrote:
Sovereign wrote:Have you gotten around to checking the effects board?


. When I load multis from memory, however, the saved FX have been reset to zero and, even if I put non-zero values into them, there's no output whatsoever. It's a real shi**er! I'm still getting no Q-FX (for what they're worth) and I get the fatal error message when no effects have been loaded and I select EFFECT, EDIT (F2).

Dave.



What about creating a new mulit and see if the FX work from a scratch program to make sure there is nothing wrong with the Multi that
you are loading up...

Otherwise, try what Soveriegn has indicated...

Dave
By wireboy Wed Jun 18, 2008 6:46 am
Sovereign wrote:So you did reseat the board?
Did you try booting the unit without the board installed to see if the Config knew it was missing?
There are some service oriented reset type things you can do but if you aren't careful you can kill the unit when doing them.


I didn't reseat the board because I wasn't sure how to remove it. It's sort of piggy-backed onto another board and I was thinking I might need a special tool to unseat it. I was afraid of using too much force and breaking something, to be honest.

What's the best way to remove it without causing undue stress on the board(s)?
By wireboy Wed Jun 18, 2008 8:00 am
renegadebliss wrote:

What about creating a new mulit and see if the FX work from a scratch program to make sure there is nothing wrong with the Multi that
you are loading up...

Otherwise, try what Soveriegn has indicated...

Dave


I tried creating a new MULTI from scratch but there was no sound from the headphones or from the main L/R outputs. I've got the IB-48P board fitted and had to monitor from the L1/R2 outputs but there was still no FX. Sound, but no FX!

There are other problems too: the pads are being recognised by the unit but aren't triggering the sampler; there's no signal from the L/R inputs; and the internal CD-ROM drive isn't shown as an input option when sampling either. I've checked the MIDI inputs and triggering samples from a keyboard is OK.

It looks like I may have created more problems than I started with.

I'm sure I did but I'll double check and make sure I connected everything back together when I'd finished looking the other day.

F*ck, if it's not one thing.......
By wireboy Fri Jun 20, 2008 10:45 am
Had a quick look inside and made sure all connections were sound and all the recent problems disappeared: I should be more careful in future putting stuff back together!

The FX problem remains, however. I didn't have time to look at the FX board but I'm still unsure of how to remove it from the main board. Like I said, it's piggy-backed and I don't want to break anything. If anyone has any idea of how to safely do this, I'd be grateful if you could let me know.

Dave.