Exchange tips and tricks for the Akai MPC4000
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By Coz Thu Feb 21, 2013 10:41 am
Excellent! Looks like you sniped it at the last second too. :smoker:

Some of the early units are apparently a bit noisy, but it's fairly cheap to fit a new fan and an SSD if required.

Looking forward to the 24 bit sample packs! :nod:
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By MPC-Tutor Thu Feb 21, 2013 11:11 am
Coz wrote:Excellent! Looks like you sniped it at the last second too. :smoker:

Some of the early units are apparently a bit noisy, but it's fairly cheap to fit a new fan and an SSD if required.

Looking forward to the 24 bit sample packs! :nod:


Yes, I saw that fan mod a few weeks ago, will probably go for that while I'm getting the sliders fixed.

It was proper heart pounding stuff doing that last second snipe. Addictive though.

I plan on doing a 24 bit multisampled classical guitar as the first project.
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By Coz Thu Feb 21, 2013 11:23 am
MPC-Tutor wrote:I plan on doing a 24 bit multisampled classical guitar as the first project.



That sounds brilliant! The 4K comes into its own with 'real' sounds. The tuning range is killer compared to Nukai MPCs.

In saying that, when I've got some time I plan on turning my little analogue mono synth into a polyphonic beast inside the 4K.

I just need to get my muscle memory up to speed with keygroups first though. The grand piano that got bundled with the machine must have taken ages to piece together.
By SP1200 Thu Feb 21, 2013 5:38 pm
welcome to 4000 circle :nod: if u had never seen a 4000 with your own eyes you could be litle suprised, it is a realy a weight category of its own and the noises of hardrive or fan for me was a litle bit unexpected, but as soon as i have get into the maschine i was blown, this is for me the flagship..

and after i will switch fan and SSD.. :smoker: heavennnn
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By MPC-Tutor Fri Feb 22, 2013 9:09 am
It's here and working :)

Not as big as I thought it was going to be (very 'chunky') so it will fit in my studio without too many issues - definitely not as noisy as I was expecting. It's a bit more worn that it appeared in the pictures, lettering & lines well faded around the Q links and the volume dial, but for a 10 year old machine it's in pretty good shape and the main LCD window is scratch free.

One disappointment - the screen brightness. I was expecting a nice bright white, it's more a dull white is this normal? (it's hard to take a picture of, in the photos I took, the screen looks incredibly bright!)

I used to have a DPS16 which I believe is the same screen, and from memory is was much brighter.

Is screen brightness something that drops over time? Any fixes?
By SP1200 Fri Feb 22, 2013 9:25 am
well after switching from the 2XL it was for me a lil bit noisy - but of course nothing so horrible.

on this photos u can see the display.

http://www.ebay.de/itm/Akai-MPC-4000-in ... 489wt_1140

well i got the blue 4k but it defenitly has a good contrast and with the contrast knob
i can make a good adjust as i wish..

Don´t you have used mainly only the nuKAIs before? They have very difirent kind of dispalys..
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By MPC-Tutor Fri Feb 22, 2013 10:16 am
The contrast is absolutely fine, no problem with that - perfect contrast. It just feels like the screen could be maybe 25% brighter, like someone turned one of the bulbs off. Maybe I'm too used to the ultra bright modern screens.

I just fired up my XL next to it:

Image

Very hard to capture this exactly as the screens don't play nice with camera white balance, but the XL is definitely brighter. The 4000 screen in reality is much less blue than it appears in the picture, but I think the picture captures the differences in brightness quite realistically.

It's not a big deal at all, I think to sum it up, I'd say it's a bit like a very high quality e-ink display. TBH, this might be quite nice on the eyes after a long session...I'm already getting used to it :) I think it was just the initial shock of expecting a very bright screen like my 2500XLCD.

However if this is a case of a known impending problem, let me know :)

SP1200 wrote:well after switching from the 2XL it was for me a lil bit noisy - but of course nothing so horrible.

on this photos u can see the display.

http://www.ebay.de/itm/Akai-MPC-4000-in ... 489wt_1140

well i got the blue 4k but it defenitly has a good contrast and with the contrast knob
i can make a good adjust as i wish..

Don´t you have used mainly only the nuKAIs before? They have very difirent kind of dispalys..
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By Blue Haze Fri Feb 22, 2013 11:00 am
Yes the screen will get dimmer over time that is true. I mean to send my unit in to akai
one day but I don't want to lose time and a new screen may be a bit on the expensive side. All well it is solid in the time I had it I had the USB front port repaired, main page tactile
switch,cd drive and the pads sensor replaced. And it still keeps trucking!
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By MPC-Tutor Fri Feb 22, 2013 11:16 am
New screen is around $200, I don't think it's a hard job to replace yourself. Someone was selling a brand new, sealed 4000 screen on ebay uk a few weeks ago. I forgot to watch it - it sold for around £10 ($16)! Damn :)

Anyway, it's not a problem at all, I've been playing on it for the past half hour and it's a lot of fun. I'll run it through its paces over the next week!

Blue Haze wrote:Yes the screen will get dimmer over time that is true. I mean to send my unit in to akai
one day but I don't want to lose time and a new screen may be a bit on the expensive side. All well it is solid in the time I had it I had the USB front port repaired, main page tactile
switch,cd drive and the pads sensor replaced. And it still keeps trucking!