MPC 500 Freezes/Lags When Recording Tracks

I recently got an mpc 500 and have been getting the hang of it but it keeps lagging and freezing and I don't know if it's the mpc or my lack of knowledge. Whenever I try to record a basic four bar hip hop beat the mpc will either lag or freeze sometimes even on the first track(the hats for example). I've been able to get a beat going but its nearly impossible to record my chops from vinyl sample because the mpc will just lag.

I can mess around with the samples while my beat plays on loop but theres no way I can RECORD them without encountering serious lag. And theres even some lag when recording the first track and the beat. It's like trying to run a music program on a really bad computer and having it load or crash.

At this point I feel like the only way I can record a loop with drums, bass, and chops is by recording beats and chops separately. I've installed 1.31 twice and upgraded the ram to 128mb but still the same problems. Can anyone help out?

Sounds like a bad CF card. Try another one of 1GB. Is it second hand? If yes, then remove the CF card and check the card reader with a flashlight, looking for bent pins inside. If one is bent and contacting the other pins, then the 500 will act wacky like that.

Why would the CF have anything to do with it? More likely bad RAM or it needs a system reset.

Thanks for reply guys, I updated to 1.31 again and realized I had never reinitialized the mpc(the last step). After doing that I can now make beats with no problem but like Green said in another thread I still gotta set up how I want my sequences to loop.

elektrik_muz wrote:Why would the CF have anything to do with it? More likely bad RAM or it needs a system reset.

Because the man said it existed before and after upgrading to 128MB RAM. Bent pins in the card reader are notorious for irradicating the 500. Plus bad CF cards will cause lag if its hard for the RAM to recognize data. Remember, all your stuff is stored on a CF card and the RAM only holds data during use, but disappears when turned off.

Ill-Green wrote:

elektrik_muz wrote:Why would the CF have anything to do with it? More likely bad RAM or it needs a system reset.

Because the man said it existed before and after upgrading to 128MB RAM. Bent pins in the card reader are notorious for irradicating the 500. Plus bad CF cards will cause lag if its hard for the RAM to recognize data. Remember, all your stuff is stored on a CF card and the RAM only holds data during use, but disappears when turned off.

Did he say he plugged the RAM expansion into the CF slot? Didn't catch that. Thought he had lag trouble recording stuff realtime, which only applies to RAM and has nothing to do with CF. Now checking for a bad RAM slot that might make sense... Unless you think he's saying he's getting too much lag while the thing is turned off?

I don't know. Maybe you should cop a 500

No thanks. Had enough of Akai from the previous box, which is built on the same hardware/software platform and still works the same way as far as RAM and CF use.