Recording audio sounds overdriven

First off, forgive my naivity if this is a dumb question. I've just been getting into my mpc and have been reading through the manual but cant figure this out. When i have my keyboard plugged into the mpc, the output sounds a certain way. But when i record or even go to the record window, the sound is quite overdriven. I've changed the rec gain to no avail, when i turn it down, it's just a quieter overdriven sound. Is there something extremely simple that i'm over looking?

I think you input thru is set to on. Turn this off and turn down the volume level of your keyboard. Adjust the record knob level to the input.

Thanks. I messed around with it some more and actually a different scenario is happening than what i thought. The keyboard sound is actually the overdriven sound, but when i play it through the mpc or use the sequencer to control it via midi, the sound is quite subdued. (so the reverse is actually happening) but when i record audio from the keyboard, it is the natural 'overdriven' sound. But i dont understand why

Make sure all levels are set correctly when monitoring or recording. This prevents distortion or hiss/noise in your signal. Maybe read up a little on this. It's called gain-staging.

If its only overdriving when you play the keyboard it could be a midi loop. Turn off local mode on your keyboard, or turn soft thru off on the mpc. What could be happening is you are triggering two notes with one key press. Check in step edit of you have 2 notes for one.