MPC 500 broken or just running out of memory

I'm starting to wonder if my 500 is busted or not. What's your opinion of seemingly random dropouts of samples and audio (left channel) with a sample-heavy project? Am I just running out of memory or is my hardware flaky?

MPC has the Akai 128 Memory module.

I have a project going composed of the following;
- 3 programs with approximately 75MB of samples assigned
- 6 Sequences with data on 6 tracks each
- 1 Song (20 Sequences long)
- Two effects channels
- Some Slider data recorded

Audio drops out on playback of sequences, playback of the song, as well as when resampling.

I feel like I can reduce the problems by reducing the number of samples loaded, but I'm not sure if this is just my imagination yet. For awhile I believed my headphone jack was the problem, but that doesn't explain why resampling is messed up.

not sure.., but it could be memory, due to samples that are in "stereo" and you are over the polyphony limit and fx's...

That is a heavy load, wow!
I used up half the mem in 1 program once, and it still took a 20 minute song to play every sample!

I have noticed that the sequencer can get confused sometimes if I'm skipping around too fast while recording, so it isn't bulletproof or limitless. But I never had a problem during playback after getting everything recorded.

J-no's theory about the polyphony limit sounds likely. In the manual it says up to 32 dependent on processing.
How many overlaps do you think your hitting?

Its VERY SIMPLE TO CHECK.

If have a computer available and the USB cable: here's how:

1. Plug in the USB from the MPC to Computer
2. Connect via USB
3. Now How I can check (sorry I own a Mac) it tells me how much memory I have left
4. Normally you can find how much memory your device has.

Need more memory? DONT WORRY MON.

Anyone can go to radioshack/target/fry's electronics/best buy a Flash Card 2Gb that will perfectly fit your MPC.

Make sure you get the one like the CF card provided by Akai (50 hole slot)

Also you can upgrade your Internal Memory (ram? lol forgot) to 128mb.

The slot is located under the battery compartment.

Hope this helps!

Thanks for the help everyone. After working with it some more and playing around with a smaller number of samples, I believe it has to be me hitting the maximum number of voices or flakiness from running low on memory.

I really need to start capturing my samples in mono!

didn't want to start a new thread...

I know it's 32 mono, but how many stereo samples can the 500 play at once?

16?

Thanks

^^
That was quick and painless.
Your welcome.