MPC 500 preattenuation

Hi all!
I´m fairly new to the forum, just got my 500 a while back.
Although I´m not new to samplers, still got my S2000 and Esi-32 gathering dust. Heh.

There´s been a few posts about MPC500 filters distorting the high frequencies so I wanted to find out myself.
Sure, for example 808 open hihat makes the filter all overdriven and ugly and turning off the filter seems to make the overall sound much better.
I´m using MPCmaid for quickly building programs and noticed the preattenuation setting in filter parameters, and what do ya know, it does what it´s supposed to. The highs are much cleaner on setting -6db.
Of course the sample gets quieter and needs to be compensated with sample volume. BUT still, that feature is in the 1.31 software already as in JJOS (as far as I know.).
So all we really need is an update from Akai to make this baby sound smoother than before.
-J

jmlaos wrote:So all we really need is an update from Akai to make this baby sound smoother than before.
-J

We have a better chance of being hit by lightening. I think the last OS update was 2 years ago....

BLiTzZD wrote:

jmlaos wrote:So all we really need is an update from Akai to make this baby sound smoother than before.
-J

We have a better chance of being hit by lightening. I think the last OS update was 2 years ago....

so true... akaipro could not care less..... its most likely a dead product despite some claims that the 500 is still supported hardware.... akaipro's OS support is a joke now.

you're probably better off selling the parts... or putting it in the trash.
maybe better luck next time...

An attenuator would be cool, since most samplers focus on beefing and boosting the sound. That'll be nice.

Lowering the volume would be the basic thing to do since Akai believes everyone has a Mackie pro-mixer to attenuate.

Heh. yeah - I hear ya, their support has as far as I´ve gathered been not the most loving toward their customers.
Oh well, I do love this little guy though. It´ll suit my live rig just fine.
Maybe I´ll styleflip it to give it more self-confidence.

Seems to be more than a pattern here, take for example Microsampler. Nice concept - dumbass os. and no updates from Korg whatsoever.

But at least the pre-att works through MPCmaid, so one "bug" less. heh.

-J

This is such a great thread. This is really very nice.

Jesmin wrote:This is such a great thread. This is really very nice.

Yup- so anyway...

I cannot find a manual for the os1.31 , my mpc 500 has 1.13 and setting the "headroom" (master) at -12db it doesn't seem to distort, even with sample level at 100.
As I had another 500 in the past that I updated the os to 1.31 but the way to prevent distortion was to bypass the filter , I 'm not so sure to update it again on this one.
I don't remember the preattenuation parameter in the 1.31 menu, is there and it can be changed on the machine or is only in the mpc-maid?
Is it possible to update to 1.31 and then downgrade to 1.13 ?
thanx guys!

xtal wrote:I cannot find a manual for the os1.31 , my mpc 500 has 1.13 and setting the "headroom" (master) at -12db it doesn't seem to distort, even with sample level at 100.
As I had another 500 in the past that I updated the os to 1.31 but the way to prevent distortion was to bypass the filter , I 'm not so sure to update it again on this one.
I don't remember the preattenuation parameter in the 1.31 menu, is there and it can be changed on the machine or is only in the mpc-maid?
Is it possible to update to 1.31 and then downgrade to 1.13 ?
thanx guys!

Hey!

Yeah at -12db there´s enough headroom and mine doesn´t distort either.
Seems like the filter pre-attenuation is a mpc-maid feature (could be on bluebox also...don´t know). And isn´t in menus. But does the trick.
Of course bypassing the filter does the trick also.

Another computer-editor feature is tune setting! You can go further than +12 semitones but if you change tuning on the mpc it´ll revert back to scale of -12/+12 semitones. Although you can get extra octave by tuning in trim menu +/- 12 tones.
One other trick I use to boost the overall output is to set the master compressor to a limiter sort-of-setting, ratio as high as you can (99:1), threshold around -3 (or more depending on your material). 0 attack and 0 release, if u want it to hard limiting.
And then push the gain as much as it won´t distort.
I´m using headroom -6 so basicly gain setting +6 would compensate the difference.
But it does shape the overall sound as it does work like a limiter.
Hope this helps.

-J