Share your knowledge on these two classic MPCs
By The_Mudville_Sixty Thu Mar 27, 2025 7:36 pm
Anyone know where I can find a good set or maybe the image files so I can have some burned? Trying to rid my mk1 of the dreaded MPC60 VD.

It's had this issue for awhile now, but basically I feel like its getting worse. You can faintly hear it while in play or while its sitting idle n powered on and last night I noticed the sounds do not respond to the mono/mute parameters. Everything sounded poly, I actually sampled it with a sp303 lol. I have pulled and reseated the voice chips but to no avail. By eye, all caps look good, but looks can be deceiving and until I can get it on someones bench, I wont know, but I feel this has nothing to do with caps in the power or audio line. Also...not sure if this is related but I noticed if i hold a pad down, a high ptched whine plays. Hopefully I can get her overhauled later in the year, but for now I'm hoping these chips can help. Maybe mine are "rotting" er somethin?? :hmmm:

Any idea folks? Any and all help would be appreciated, as all the research I've done leads round and round and I'd like a definitive answer/solution. Peace.
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By Telefunky Sun Mar 30, 2025 1:04 pm
Just stating the obvious...
The bad news: you can‘t expect a 35year old piece of electronic to perform like new.
Even if the machine has rarely been powered. In fact risk of failure is even higher if it sat on some shelf for decades.
The good news: back then the solder contained lead, which makes it easier to replace parts and parts were much bigger in size that today.

The 1st step would be to disassemble and carefully clean all the circuit boards.
(wear a wrist band to protect from static electricity because those chips were much more sensitive to this problem than today)
Check connectors for good conductivity.

2nd step: replace all electrolytic capacitors (incl tantaliums) by quality types.
A temperature controlled un-soldering iron (about 100 bucks) is a great help.

Then re-assemble and work step by step through the service manual.
It will take a while...
A pro service (of course the best and most easy approach) would be a serious investment.
Imho you can DIY up to the caps replacement with a good soldering iron and some training on trash circuit boards, preferable from the 90s (leaded solder).

my 2 euro-cents... :mrgreen: