Exchange tips and tricks for the Akai MPC4000
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By Telefunky Mon Jul 04, 2022 10:02 pm
thanks for your attention, the original problem was solved and the display improved.
But of course it‘s an old box and some construction sites remain.
(not unexpected...) ;)

The pad sensors are worn out, can be compensated on the sensitivity page, but the stored value doesn‘t survive power cycles :hmmm:
That means when I switch the 4k on and 150% is assigned, it performs with 100%.
If I tap a pad and dial a tick up and another down, then it activates the 150% thing.
Until the next power cycle (saving with the multi didn‘t change anything).

I don‘t mind because I learned some details about the sensor technology... the wear out may be slow, but it‘s unavoidable.
Sensors don‘t cost an arm and a leg and will be exchanged anyway.

I also learned a lot from the service manual.
The MPC4k is quite unusual with it‘s dual hardware sample rate converters on both input and output.
I use a Mutec MC-7 as studio clock for a Pro Tools TDM, a Creamware Scope system and the MPC4k and syncing Adat streams by wordclock works great, but I doubt the internal processing of the MPC even „sees“ the external clock. I suspect it only uses it to sync transfer.

Which is quite different from most gear, that switches to the external clock if a wordclock signal is present and declared as „master“.
The Digidesign 882/20 and 888/24 boxes really benefit from the improved clock.

Anyway, there are no audible flaws, clicks, whatever. The MPC is monitored (Adat1/2) through PT driving a dedicated headphone amp, it can use additional fx channels in PT and track to or sample from PT via Adat.
Works as intended with less than 2ms of latency thanks to PT TDM‘s hardware DSP chips.
(btw PT runs on a G4/800 under MacOS9) :D

As you can see that‘s all gear > 20 years of age... I‘ve decided to invest in some proper measurement and repair tools to maintain it in workable condition.
I will certainly examine the clock handling when it arrives.

cheers, Tom