MPC5000 reviews, bug reports and fellow user support on the most recent standalone, hardware MPC from Akai
By jocks Sat May 30, 2009 11:48 pm
to Seiko:
Hi, I loaded the 105MB factory piano sound, 3 drum machine programs and a lots of synth programs.
recorded 6 tracks and changed program on track 1 during playback several times.
response was a bit slow in graphics and in changing the playback sound, but no hanging or freezing up.
I have seen that loading of large sample programs during playback, can also freeze up the graphics and control response during loading process. once the sounds are loaded, I regain control over the machine :-)
large amount of samples i RAM does slow down the response of the machine, so don't load samples you're not using :wink:
/jocks
By 4dahaterz Mon Jun 15, 2009 2:36 pm
Dont purchase the Western Digital Caviar Blue 500GB Hard Drive, I have been trying all weekend to put one in, until i talk to tech support today, Monday morning, which they told me they had been having problems with that exact drive.
By BxJaze Thu Sep 10, 2009 10:42 pm
Blood, sweat and almost tears....all literally.

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Those are all the post-it note papers i used to label each set of screws....making sure I didn't lose any. Notice, there's blood on one. Yes, blood. Explanation to come.


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There she is :)



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Pads feel VERY nice quality....the corners recess a tad more than the factory ones (good thing), they feel smooth and sit perfectly. Couldn't ask for a better new one.




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(quality of this pic isn't as good, this one i took with the iPhone)

THIS is what reaaaaaaaally got me pissed. Unlike the first 5000 i bought (which ended up being stolen), this one did not have the same secure cradle where you just plug the drive in and you're ok. This one has 4 black flaps/panels (2 on each side) that house screws holding the CD drive in place. As you might be able to tell, on the far left those 2 screws are damn near impossible to remove since the space is only about 2 inches. Then the metal frame (that you take the side panel off of) sticks out a bit, creating a pocket that makes it even harder to get your hand down there and execute any kind of leverage. So what I ended up doing was taking the bit out of my screwdriver and taking a little rubber panel from my office desk and wedged the bit in between the target screw and the rubber piece so it would kind of jam the screw bit into the black screws holding the CD drive in place. Then I simply held that rubber in place and used pliers to twist the bit (pretty hard to get a mental picture of what im saying, i know). However since the leverage was so tight you had to hold that rubber piece in place, putting enough pressure on your thumb against that metal frame that it was kind of like putting your finger up against a knife blade....only it was kind of numbing since you get some adrenaline flowing trying to unscrew the damn thing.

Got that screw off and as soon as i moved my hand.....blood flows. Got the next one off and i was ok.


THENNNNN i had the same thing happen to another finger when it was time to put 'em back :angry:


Don't know if these things are built differently but in the directions there were one or two things different about mine. For example, there aren't 5 screws holding the hand-rest in place, there were only 3. But who gives a fack. Came out alright and everything works great......though I haven't had this much of a headache taking something apart since the Blackberry Bold and original iPhone ???
By BxJaze Fri Sep 11, 2009 6:00 pm
Thanks Northern....

that drive removal was a BIATCHHHH though.......but there ain't nothing I've ever disassembled that didn't bring at least ONE little problem....

Thanks for the pic-tutorial :mrgreen:
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By Triple-X Sun Sep 13, 2009 7:58 pm
Well I have always been the kind of person to Dive right in and take something apart. You just need to slowly analyze what came from where and make note of it. Simple.
(Then again, I do in depth Laptop repair by Day so..:lol:)
In any case, after having done some mods to my 2500 yesterday, I brought it to a friends house who has the 5000.
I installed a WHITE LCD, and some WHITE LEDS on my Q-Link Board(as a test before doing ALL leds). When he saw it he freaked.

HE of course decided He wanted some mods too.. and started to ask about my grey cursor and silver data wheel.
When I said I would trade, we proceeded to tear the mpcs apart.

My 2500 is a breeze to un cover. the 5000.. holy screws. time consuming, but still simple. plus his crappy selection of screw drivers didnt help.
during the process we traded Knob Bottoms too. My knobs are all Murdered out now.. all black. everything AND I LOVE IT!!!!
HE wants to do black pads, but grey knobs/black tops..

I love how we can put out own little touches on these things..

SO ANYWAY.... my point..
During the process of disassembling the 5000, (and never having looked at the pics on page 1 of this thread)
I too stumbled upon the SECONDARY SDRAM EXPANSION PORT.
WHAT IS UP WITH THAT??? has anyone been brave enough to try sticking TWO SDRAM expansion in their 5000?
or even just tried to put the ONE SDRAM in the secondary slot???
He and I are both VERY VERY interested in this.
Elite? anything?

ALSO.. has anyone attempted reversing the Polarity on the LCD ?
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By NorthernElite Sat Sep 19, 2009 10:07 pm
^^^ I'm not sure if they had that expansion port in mind simply for future expansion (or perhaps it's just a relic of the Alesis fusion PCB design).

I would have thought that if it was possible to simply put an additional RAM module in there, Akai would have confirmed it by now.

I (and others) have raised the 192mb memory constraint on the Akai bug tracker quite some time ago, but no official response to date I'm afraid.

I've never had the urge to reverse the polarity on the screen, but if you're gonna try that; best to make sure the LCD display circuit supports that,
or else you could damage the LCD beyond repair, which could be a costly fix. Let me know if you go ahead and try it though! :P
I'd be interested to see how the negative screen image looked, too hard on the eyes perhaps?

Maybe look something like this : -

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As you probably read on the other thread, I've removed those Black pads now and put those nice Yellow ones on, freshen things up a bit...lol

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Peace - Elite
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By Triple-X Thu Sep 24, 2009 9:42 pm
so i guess noone has been brave enough to try the extra mem module then elite?
or they have and confirmed it did NOT work and THEN raised the question to akai with no reponse? is that wut u meant?

as for the LCD, I have been looking for into on the 5000's lcd specifically, as well as info on how to do the inversion..
but have been coming up short unfortunately.

the pic u put it looks cool.. Personally I much prefer Dark text on a bright bankground.. It just feels easier on the eyes to me actually.
Which is white I went with the white screen in my 25k. white background and dark blue-ish text and compared to the blur screens i have seen and the green pos that came in it(that had a line burn out after 3 months new) I like the White lcd SO MUCH BETTER!! it makes me smile when I turn it on.. thats how much I like it .. lol
By seiko Tue Oct 06, 2009 11:55 am
I also noticed the extra space for memory...the question is 'is it physically connected to the memory bus ?' and 'can it be adressed by the OS software ?'
I'm too scared to try it out though...

What I did try , is to exchange my HardDrive with a CF (there are CF to IDE converters) . In an MPC2500 you can do so , thus eliminating the 'moving parts' HD (which will one day crash on you) by CF...but unfortunately it gives me 'Unknown filesystem on HD' (allthough I formatted the CF on the MPC5000 itself)
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By Peer Wed Mar 10, 2010 9:04 pm
seiko wrote:What I did try , is to exchange my HardDrive with a CF (there are CF to IDE converters) . In an MPC2500 you can do so , thus eliminating the 'moving parts' HD (which will one day crash on you) by CF...but unfortunately it gives me 'Unknown filesystem on HD' (allthough I formatted the CF on the MPC5000 itself)


I wonder if it's a pin config thingee that got reversed or something..?

As soon as the prices get more humane on the 64gb CF's, I'll probably try a hack like this:
http://www.addonics.com/products/flash_ ... midecf.asp

-- peer
By oDESGOSTO Sat Apr 24, 2010 3:21 pm
For this topic:
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I'm curious about the HD upgrade! It's only a matter of IDE and jumpers?! Does the MPC BIOS has any limitations to the size of HD?!
Well, it sounds good in the future being able to upgrade the HD for more storage!


And what about the CF reader? Is it possible to upgrade it too? Right now, 2GB CF cards are almost like dinossaurs!
By BxJaze Mon May 03, 2010 1:26 am
oDESGOSTO wrote:For this topic:
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I'm curious about the HD upgrade! It's only a matter of IDE and jumpers?! Does the MPC BIOS has any limitations to the size of HD?!
Well, it sounds good in the future being able to upgrade the HD for more storage!


And what about the CF reader? Is it possible to upgrade it too? Right now, 2GB CF cards are almost like dinossaurs!




I never paid any mind to the 2GB thing. I bought a 16GB card for mine and it works with no problems.
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By Peer Mon May 03, 2010 5:33 am
oDESGOSTO wrote:And what about the CF reader? Is it possible to upgrade it too? Right now, 2GB CF cards are almost like dinossaurs!


Where does it say you can only use 2GB CF cards..?

-- peer