Two Lemons or Just how the MPC 5k is?

For everyone that has been helping me out throughout the process of addressing various issues with my 5k, I have finally received a new MPC5000. The first thing I tried was the issue that was killing me which was setting a pattern up for 8 bars, assigning a random hi hat to a pad, keep the swing settings on default (16th notes, 50 swing, 100% strength, 100% window), and creating a basic 8th note hi hat pattern through the entire 8 bars (actually playing it the entire time, no note repeat). The first time I went through it, it was fine, no missing midi notes. But the second time, the same thing happened (missing mid notes, sometimes missing an entire bar). Now I tried to post this issue a few times, explaining exactly what I was doing, and many said it was a problem with the unit. But for this to have done this same thing with the 2nd unit, its making me wonder. The way I got around it was to put "window" on zero and it would be perfect. Can anyone explain what "window" actually does? Please don't post the vague meaning from the manual, because I am one of the people who actually do read the manual. Ive owned the 2500 and 1000 MPCs previous to this one, and I never had this issue, but then again those did not have strength and window.

The other few things that I thought were issues with the other MPC, seem to also maybe be "just a 5k thing". The screen, in the bottom right corner of it, it always seems to be a different color than the rest of the screen. Especially if you have it on for a few hours, than the worse that gets. It will be more of a purple while the rest is bluish

The last thing was the screen flickering. When I am playing pads or assigning samples out to a program, the screen will quickly flicker (not always, but most of the time you will see this a few times throughout a session). This is very puzzling to me, because nobody else have ever heard of these issues before, yet on both MPCs this was happening. The flicking is actually a bit more common in the second unit, but the screen being a different color in the right corner was worse on the other one.

Could anyone help me establish a bottom line here. If anyone sees their 5k doing any of these things and could further confirm that maybe these units do these things sometimes, it would be greatly appreciated. It could be that, or maybe this is just part of my curse with electronics and this is just another lemon.

Either way, the curse still lives on. Guitar Center promised me that the unit coming in for me was going to be factory sealed and in the box unit. When I go to get it, I immediately spot the box is double taped (could see the original factory tape was cut previous to the one holding the box closed). We quickly opened it and just gave it a quick look over (seemed ok), I didn't want to be a complete annoyance and tell them I want a different one after they paid the shipping on it. So Stupid me takes it, and when I get home and set it up, there is a ding dent over the top of the screen on the plastic (I really have the worst luck) and the way the unit was wrapped with that sheet of styrophome paper, it was obvious it was taken out of the box before (the chord bag was also tapped, when its usually sealed). It didn't have all the problems of my last unit, but as mentioned previously in this post, some of the things still prevailed.

Any comments are appreciated. Thanks guys.

I'm not gonna tell you that you should have tested it then and there, not accepted anything less then brand new and just return it again, because you already know.

3rd time lucky??

i don't think i've ever had to return something more than once... however, i've actually heard this same story about the MPC5000 more than once here... take it up with JAH... he defends that MPC like his job depended on it... oh wait, it does.

Yes, I hope so dry lol. But why do I have a feeling that the 3rd one is going to do the same? So no takers on this one? Nobody has seen ANY of these issues (or bugs, maybe some consider normalities) with their unit?

Just out of curiosity do you have dirty power? Best to get a sparky or electrician to check.. Have you tried the mpc in someone else's house/ studio?

I think the flickering screen may be a local issue to your electricity supply, I definitely don't get a flickering screen, although I get a laggy one...

Its plugged into a standard power strip. SHould it not be in one. I have other gear going through that same strip and none have any electrical issues such as this.

jigzelmnt wrote:Its plugged into a standard power strip. SHould it not be in one. I have other gear going through that same strip and none have any electrical issues such as this.

Have you tried the MPC5000 at other houses?

No I have not. I guess it very well could be some sort of power issue, but weird coincidence that this is the only MPC or piece of gear for that matter to get some sort of weird issue from my power strip. If the 3rd one performs the same way, then I will certianly test it out in a different room, directly into a wall outlet.

Any thoughts on the issue with the missing midi notes or bars of midi for that matter? I really think its the "Window" feature in the swing menu, but I have yet to have anyone verify this for me.

Tried it here. TC 1/16, 8th note and every other note played in...no problems. Windows 0 or 100.....no problems.

What does the Step Edit reads? And the Grid Edit?

Did you set it up for 8 bars? It don't seem to happen when its 2 or 4 bars. Or at least no where near as frequent. The step edit shows no data there at all. I don't know if the 100% of window pulling to nearest t.c. point means the window is 100% of the bar, 100% of all 8 bars, or just 100% of the space between each 16th note. Just setup 8 bars, 16th notes, 50% swing, 100% strength, 100% window. Then just play 1234 1234 1234 1234... Try it out at least 3 times. Usually its either 3 for 3, or 2 out of 3 where I am missing a few scattered hi hat hits (must play them by hand whole way through). When window is 0, this never happens, or when the t.c. is turned off, this never happens.

Do you want to upload an example project file to mediafire or similar, and we'll test it out.

Its not specific to any project. If you just load up the 5k with the default autoloads, scroll to the next unused sequence, grab any program with a hi hat in it and assign it to track one, make the pattern 8 bars, and the swing settings as default (16, 50, 100, 100) record in a basic 8th note hi hat pattern (one bar = 1234 1234) in manually (playing it out for the entire 8 bars), once it loops around, you will see some hi hat hits that are gone. If it seems to work fine, just rerecord it, and let it loop around again to see the missing midi notes. Some occurances are much worse than others and can potentially see an entire bar gone.

If you don't want to go through the autoload process, just turn on the 5k (with autoload off), load up any hi hat sample onto a pad and then follow the same steps. If you guys can't recreate it, I guess it is possible but not likely, that I got 2 lemon MPC5ks.

MPC-Tutor you are the MAN! I grabbed an extension chord, ran it to a different room, plugged the MPC in, and what do you know...NO MORE FLASHING SCREEN!!! Its a shame this one has a little dent on it now, because it basically works pretty well aside from that missing midi notes thing with the Window feature as we previously discussed.

I honestly would have never thought to do this. I have a bunch of other things plugged into that power strip, and had never had any issues before with any other hardware. What could be causing something like that to happen? Do you think this could be destructive to the MPC if it had been plugged into that power strip for a month or so?