Share your knowledge on these two classic MPCs
By msolay Mon Feb 13, 2006 10:55 pm
I have a 3000 and i am in a dillema with what to do in regards of saving beats and loading sounds. The 3000 still has the floppy drive. And the way i record my beats is to pro tools via the gigi 002. But i want to save my beats somewhere using floppy zip, etc... What is the best solution with the 3000. I heard the 3000 does not understand folders, that sucks! Does anybody have a good idea or advice to what should i do to organize my beats and load sounds and save as well? Thanks,
By mpc3000le Tue Feb 14, 2006 12:23 am
msolay wrote:I want to save my beats somewhere using floppy zip, etc... What is the best solution with the 3000. I heard the 3000 does not understand folders, that sucks! Does anybody have a good idea or advice to what should i do to organize my beats and load sounds and save as well? Thanks,


Consider each of the PARTITIONS that the 3000 creates on a SCSI storage device as your "Folders" ...

Get an external SCSI ZIP drive or compatible external SCSI flash card reader for storage purposes.

Rohan.

By msolay Tue Feb 14, 2006 1:45 am
so you can get an external scsi hard drive and make partitions on them just like folders and save a beat in the partition and rename the partion whatever you want and you can keep creating partions just like folders on the 2000 on a sip disk. Let me know if i'm wrong.

By Palenque Tue Feb 14, 2006 12:33 pm
No, you can't rename the partions, they are just "A", "B" etc.... the other problem is the size...lets say you create a partion with 8MB, but the song you made is 8,5MB...now you cant save the song, cause you cant make a new partion, except you format the whole zip disk... its not likethe 2000

what i do:
format the zip disk, usually in 1! partion(100MB)
make your song
when you want to save it, just put a number in front of every sound, like 1_Snare; 1_Bass; 1_blabla...name the pgm and the sequences also 1_seq and so on....
with this way i cant overwrite sounds(you have to use a new number with every new song, but i think you can imagine that) and you have all of the sounds of your song together...takes about 1 sek. more time when you name your sounds...

By mpc3000le Wed Feb 15, 2006 2:01 am
Palenque wrote:what i do:
format the zip disk, usually in 1! partion(100MB)
...


Remember that the MPC3000 and MPC60 will not format a partition greater than 29 ( just under 30 megabytes in actual terms ) megabytes in size.

Rohan.

By anon_twist Wed Feb 15, 2006 3:59 am
if you plan on naming each and every sample uniquely, you're shat out of luck. the keypad is dreadful to actually type with. alternatively, if you allow the mpc to name the samples sequentially as you sample them you'll save yourself lots of time. instead, name the sequence & program something unique to remind you which record(s) you took the sample from... (keeping a database of it might be more accurate, you're anal about that sort of thing).

By Palenque Wed Feb 15, 2006 11:35 am
@rohan:
but the pgmmaker on my pc do that(when my pc isnt crashed...) of course you're right that the mpc doenst format the partions that big.

@anon:
at first i thought the same about typing, but now it doesnt take much time... for me its the best solution to name every sample, i do that right after i edit them... so i got everything together under 1 specific numer...the samples, the sequences and the pgm, its like a folder in some way...
oh, and i doesnt name the samples after where they come from, just 101_snare; 101_chop1 etc....
User avatar

By c.toon Wed Feb 15, 2006 11:55 am
I'm using partitioned zips with 15 mb each and/or usual floppies.
I'm trying to locate an external scsi card reader that is compatible.
Most common Microtechs dont work with the 3k.

Please let me know if anyone knows a place to cop an external joint that is compatible with the 3k for a reasonable price (some companies offer them for $ 300-700, damnnn!)

.toon

By anon_twist Wed Feb 15, 2006 12:56 pm
Palenque wrote:@rohan:
@anon:
at first i thought the same about typing, but now it doesnt take much time... for me its the best solution to name every sample, i do that right after i edit them... so i got everything together under 1 specific numer...the samples, the sequences and the pgm, its like a folder in some way...
oh, and i doesnt name the samples after where they come from, just 101_snare; 101_chop1 etc....


maybe it's just the buttons on my 60, some you gotta press harder than the others so i try to use them that way as little as possible. but it seems unless you actually go back and re-use samples, you don't really need to re-name each sample, since each sample is loaded automatically when you load the pgm. so all I do is load beat1.all and beat1.pgm and never scroll through the .snd's

By Palenque Wed Feb 15, 2006 5:04 pm
compared to my asr10 its waaaay more easy to name/rename samples on the mpc3000...
but you're right- you dont usually need to rename them, but when you have much beats in partion you have to be carefull that you dont overwrite some old samples cause they have the same name...

overall i would recommend a zip drive(100Mb or 250MB) for the mpc... i heard about trouble with broken zip disks, but that never happened to me(knockknock)...
a scsi cardreader would be a bit more safe in my opinion but never thought of buying one..

By anon_twist Wed Feb 15, 2006 8:10 pm
Palenque wrote:compared to my asr10 its waaaay more easy to name/rename samples on the mpc3000...
but you're right- you dont usually need to rename them, but when you have much beats in partion you have to be carefull that you dont overwrite some old samples cause they have the same name...


if you leave the mpc to name it, it automatically changes the sample name from sample122.snd to sample123.snd on the subsequent sample. so you never run into that problem..

By Palenque Wed Feb 15, 2006 9:03 pm
but after sample_999 it starts again with sample_1...btw, when i look for one sample(like a snare) i find it easier when the sample is named "Snare_11"... but everyone should do what works best for him..

By anon_twist Wed Feb 15, 2006 9:50 pm
Palenque wrote:but after sample_999 it starts again with sample_1...btw, when i look for one sample(like a snare) i find it easier when the sample is named "Snare_11"... but everyone should do what works best for him..


absolutely, everyone should use what works best.. but there's always options that may improve our existing methods.

yah, you'll run into problems when you get to sample_999 but by the time you reach sample_999, sample_001 would have been in a much earlier partition, since each partition only holds so many files. wait.. sorry, this is for the 60 though, dunno those rules apply to the 3000