Help - Japanese Akai MPC 60 II

gowansy wrote:Hi thanks for the quick responses!

Yes I'm in the UK I should have mentioned that!

The power cable is ungrounded, its only 2 pin. Is they're anybody here using a step-down transformer with there MPC in the UK that can help me further? I've double checked the multi-adapter the 2 pin plug from the MPC is plugged into and its a 110V 13A adapter the pins on it for the mains are 2 square shaped pins with holes in them, could I use a USA - UK transformer as the difference is only 10 Volts or is this risky?

Hi I am using a USA MPC60 with a transformer or however you call them things, works great for me in Eire. I think we got the same power system as the UK over here.

I would NOT risk frying ur unit over 10volt though, get a Jap - UK converter.

yeah your right, i've went ahead and ordered a japanese converter. should arrive tomorrow or friday hopefully, then fingers crossed everything is fine and i can start making some beats! no doubt most of my time will involve reading the manual! i hope the backlight is okay!

Hehe I thought the same but once you have read it once or twice ull wont be looking in it anymore, workflow is amasing for such a old piece of gear.

finally got my voltage converter and its running fine! the backlight needs replacing as its really dim but i can live with that as the sound from the thing is incredible, as well as the swing! I'm not too bothered about the limitations and the time spent saving/loading samples because once your set, the stuff you can come up with is amazing, ive never got beats like this in ableton!

As for constructing tracks and full songs thats another story! off to the manual again! I've had some strange things confuse me, for instance I've been recording all my samples in, and then saving them to floppy disk, then loading the samples to a pad. However I have had it once where by complete mistake my drums loaded into all the pads and the samples werent even on the floppy disk, I'd deleted them previously so I'm assuming they loaded into the memory on the unit but I've no idea how to do this again!

Also my sound/sequence memory reads 1536kb? I'm thinking I may have got an MPC with the upgraded memory in it which I wasn't expecting!

Next up is grabbing os 3.1 but thats a long way down the line yet, happy as it is so far!

Glad it's worked out smoothly. Yes it looks like you do have the max Ram. Congrats.
I would definitely work towards getting the v3.10
as well as improved features, it will also allow you to install the SCSI option (if you can get it). Worth having so you don't have to use the floppies.
The backlights are available and cost about £30.00 or so. They are easy to install. The 60 and the 60ii use slightly different size backlights so, make sure you get the right one.
Have fun !

thats not so bad a price for a backlight i was expecting much more, i think its going to be a necassity as producing at night is really difficult.

on another front, can anyone here recommend a good synth for strings/pad sounds, i produce deep house, and most the stuff im into is ron trent, moodymann, chez damier, etc.

im after something with a really nice string sound much like in Ron Trents - Nature of Retribution http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bBf0KF5frwA

I was thinking of grabbing a Juno 60/106 but im not sure if that would do the job for string sounds? i know it does really nice pads/stabs. is there any other synths anyone can recommend?

gowansy wrote:thats not so bad a price for a backlight i was expecting much more, i think its going to be a necassity as producing at night is really difficult.

on another front, can anyone here recommend a good synth for strings/pad sounds, i produce deep house, and most the stuff im into is ron trent, moodymann, chez damier, etc.

im after something with a really nice string sound much like in Ron Trents - Nature of Retribution http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bBf0KF5frwA

I was thinking of grabbing a Juno 60/106 but im not sure if that would do the job for string sounds? i know it does really nice pads/stabs. is there any other synths anyone can recommend?

I suggest a tb-303 ... O.o