thinking of upgrading from 2500 to a 4k, some Questions?

Hi,

I've been lusting for a 4k for about a year and finally decided to give it some serious thought. Just a few things I wanted to ask yall 4k gurus:

1) MIDI out note timing is super tight, right?
2) As the 4k doesn't support memory cards, does it support USB sticks? Any max size limits? Not interested in heavy and noisy hard drives
3) I've been able to do el cheapo freestyles on the 2500 by utilizing a note repeat + swing controlled by qlink in realtime. Is the swing on the 4k able to do the same? ie. adjusting swing realtime with a qlink while hammering on the beat repeats
4) Lastly, any known lil pieces that break first in this unit, like jogwheels?

TIA

PS - Is the jogwheel on the 4k as noisy as on the 2500?

1. Tighter than a gnat's chuff.
2. Anything formatted in FAT32 should work, including USB sticks. USB hubs also work.
3. You can't do it with a Q-Link but you can record swing variations directly from the Main Screen as you use Note Repeat.
4. The Jog eventually develops issues but everything else is dependent on how much use and abuse you give it. I personally think the Jog/Cursor combo is perfect on a bigger screened device like the 4K. It saves fumbling around when you just want to navigate around. It's also a lot quieter than the 2500.

in regard to midi timing, the 4k is extremely tight. it appears that after the 4k, akai's mpc series went downhill in regards to midi timing. this guy has done all the measurements: http://www.innerclocksystems.com/New%20 ... itmus.html

i went in and replaced all the tactile switches as a few were slowly dying. i also replaced the hd and fan and removed the cd drive. it's been rock solid for me going on two years.

Thanks for your replies. Talking about the swing, ok you cannot set it via qlink, but it is possible to audition the swing amount in realtime before recording anything, just via a different controlling mehod (assuming jog wheel?)? What about after recording, can you adjust the swing of already recorded notes in realtime? This is not possible with the 2500 but would be a killer performance feature!

tsutek wrote:Thanks for your replies. Talking about the swing, ok you cannot set it via qlink, but it is possible to audition the swing amount in realtime before recording anything, just via a different controlling mehod (assuming jog wheel?)? What about after recording, can you adjust the swing of already recorded notes in realtime? This is not possible with the 2500 but would be a killer performance feature!

Yes, just change it while the seq is playing. You can redo it.

Sweet! Time to start hunting for a 4K then

Cheers

i got one for sale cheap

where you be at

That'd be Helsinki, Finland (EU). PM me for details pls! Already bidding on one 4K, but I could still lose/cancel the bid, as the unit on sale had a faulty LCD screen..

im in detroit. it would be silly expensive to ship that.

I still appreciate the gesture, kind sir. won a bid, Looks like a 4K is heading my way

Digging into the manuals, there's a lot of functionality in this beast!

Uhh, one more thing - Is it possible to boot the OS from a USB-stick as well? So that I could remove the hard disk completely? Or do I need a HDD for booting into the OS?

Cheers

i assume the os is stored on flash rom

313 studio tricks wrote:i assume the os is stored on flash rom

Yep, it is.

So that probably means that I can just remove the internal HDD altogether, nice.

So, that leaves just the main fan in the unit - Will look for a more silent alternative fan..

Yo can remove the internal HDD. I own both the MPC 4000 and the Z4, they are much the same. I have completely removed the HDD from the Z4 and I only use usb or external scsi mounted drives with it.
Peace
Ian

PS "By the way SCSI is very fast."

Certainly, IIRC SCSI technology utilizes several read/write heads and is therefore pretty fast? However, for my needs, a 32GB USB stick on the front panel is the best way, cheap to replace, easy to connect to everything, needs no power supply and is totally silent in operation. I don't use massive samples so speed is not a main concern for me.

Been reading the manuals some more - can't wait to try the 4K in action The gainstage anomalies no doubt take a while to get used to, but the modmatrix seems pretty cool, aside from that "running state" business (I always thought that velocity value of 0 = note off? wtf). The resampling FX processors sound interesting as well, is there some manual about the various processors anywhere? Talking about the "Qfx commands" - are they just FX presets or is there something else to them?

About the resampling options, how does the DAC handle exotic samplerates and bitdepths below 16? IIRC more modern DACs cannot reproduce lofi digital rates/bitdepths accurately without introducing extra artefacts (?) Or does the 4K still use the project bitdepths/samplerates for the file format, only reducing the data but still keeping the file specs at the 16/44.1k etc?

BTW, speaking of Z4 compatibility, the 4K will open Z4 patches? I bet there's a sample library converter for Z4 format, which will be nice to have in case I want to use my old Akai samplelibraries I have in my closet from the 90s :p