MPC 60 noise floor

I'm curious if the MPC60 I'm using is just noisy or normal. If I have the gain switch set to MED and have the input volume set to anything over about 65-70 my samples end up getting a lot of digital trashy noise behind them. At 50 they are fine and 60 still pretty good. So is this pretty standard.

I also always have issues with high frequencies distorting, I usually have to drop the input down to about 20-35. If I try and sample a hi hat or snare with a lot of highs it gets nasty fast and not in a good way. I assume part of this is from the compander circuit boosting the high's but just wanted to make sure it too was normal and if there are any tips about this floating about?

Mine is just the same when sampling cymbals or hihats. Very easy to get that harsh, unpleasant effect. If I have to sample such sounds I try to eq a bit before sampling instead of just lowering the incoming signal, but still it's not easy to sample certain types of sounds.

I often end up converting + importing cymbals instead, gives me much better results..

yes very easy to overload aswell, i am more after the sequencer and pads anyway

it probably makes sense for the 60 (or in general) to find a proxymately template-recording level aswell as a Turntable Out Level, as i foudn myself several times recording several one shots just to find out they sound like pooh alltogether because of distortion

I have an MPC60 with 3.10 operating system. I used to get a lot of floor noise when I would sample into the machine. I started using a wave editor (Wavelab) and a wave file converter (Awave studio) to edit and load sounds into the 60. I batch process my samples at 12 bit. I only little inconviniences are, the disk have to be formatted in a windows 2000 machine as DD (720k), and after the mpc60 loads them, I have to pitch the samples +17. You can use Awave and convert them from 4400hz to 4000hz to avoid pitching them, but the samples start to get a little too grungy for my taste.

I know how to convert sounds, although I don't really know what you're doing to experience that pitch inconvinience. Mine are always correct straight away.

Also I'd recommend transfering samples/programs onto zip disks or similair instead of floppies, it's easy through tools like WinImage.