Post your views and questions about the Akai MPC2500
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By stevenclements Mon Mar 16, 2009 9:21 pm
Greeting fellow MPCers.

This is my first post so be gentle :shock:

I've recently purchased a MPC2500 and have ordered the RAM upgrade.

I don't have a CD/DVD drive as yet... what are you thoughts? Do you use yours much? I'm wondering with the USB connectivity to the computer if it's of much use. Opinions regarding their usefulness are very welcome.

I've searched the forum seeing if I can find info on using this size Hard Drive in the MPC2500 but have not found any references to it.

I do want to add a Hard drive into the beast... and thought the bigger the better may be the best choice. Hence the question... has anyone installed a 320 GB Western Digital? (WD 2.5" 320gb IDE 8mb Notebook Hard Drive WD3200BEVE) These can be had on eBay for about $100 (not including shipping)

Ideally I would like that to be a solid state 1TB hard drive... for about $50 BUT... well I can dream.

I await you lucid and illuminating responses oh MPC gurus.

cheers
Steve
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By stevenclements Mon Mar 16, 2009 9:37 pm
temetrepo wrote:try it and let us know :)


Yeah I was kinda thinking that way too... however, I don't need a 2.5" IDE hard drive if the bugger doesn't work :?

I was thinking it should be fine... really all the requirement for a HD for the MPC2500 is a 'laptop' style IDE/ATA (unless I missed something). So I guess it should work
By phx_chronic Mon Mar 16, 2009 11:48 pm
Make sure you format the harddrive using your latest jj. I can't seem to find it right now, but i thought i remembered someone sayin that some of the recent jj updates allow for more than the 130 gb's that were the limit before. I might be trippin though... iss dat sour purps!! -peace
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By Explicit- Tue Mar 17, 2009 12:04 am
I guess just try it.

320gb for a MPC is an extreme amount of space that will never be filled up. Not even half of that would be filled. Just insane. :shock:

I personally would just go with the cheapest drive possible. I was looking for a 40gb but instead ended up buying a $30 100gb Toshiba HD that was alot cheaper than any of the 40gb or 60gb that I came across.
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By Ess Tue Mar 17, 2009 2:51 am
If it helps, I received a free 160G HD from a buddy and I installed it. Works fine, although it only shows 150G on the screen. And, yes, it is WAY more than I'll ever use, but free is free!
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By stevenclements Tue Mar 17, 2009 4:22 am
I was wondering the same thing.

I've got bucket loads of samples but really when you get down to it... only a certain amount of those single shots really make the grade. I've got lots of drum machines so I would use the MPC2500 to supply drum sounds that they cannot all ready, and having some fun with loops... my MB 808 http://eight-oh-eight.org/phpbb2/ clone is nearing completion :D YAY!

Plus the USB port would allow me/you/us to back up stuff on the SATA terabytes we have connected to our PC/MAC's.

It's interesting that the 160 only shows up as 150... I guess there is a limit to with the MPC software with regard to the HD format... I've not tried JJ yet... but based on everyone's rave's I better just do that... stick it on and go with it :)

I'll probably just pick up a cheap 80 or 160 and see how that goes.

Thanks for the replies!

Steve - yes I am a gear ho
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By stevenclements Tue Mar 17, 2009 3:23 pm
Ok... here's the scoop from AKAI

Hello Steven,

Any ATA/IDE 2.5" laptop style drive can be used with the MPC. With larger drives over 120gb, you will need to first format the drive in a computer as FAT 32 before the MPC will be able to see the whole drive.

Best Regards,
Justin Baro

Technical Support
Numark/Alesis/Akai Pro/Ion Audio
200 Scenic View Drive
Ste.201
Cumberland, RI 02864
401-658-4032


There you have it... you can go as big as you want... and live large with the excess :D
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By stevenclements Tue Mar 17, 2009 8:35 pm
Explicit- wrote:I still think its a waste of money...


:lol: So you say... but... peeps will paint the mpc green? Or switch buttons, pads and leds? :shock: just playin' man... pimpin' the mpc looks cool, and that's all right. Not a functional upgrade but that's cool none the less.

For the local place where I'll get my drive the breakdown is like so...

SEAGATE 80GB - $69.99 - 0.87 per GB
SEAGATE 120GB - $69.99 - 0.58 per GB
SEAGATE 160GB - $84.99 - 0.53 per GB
Western Digital 320gb - $141.99 - 0.45 per GB

So really it's not a HUGE outlay of cash... as it stands I'll either get the 160 GB - FAT format it or the 320 GB and waste my money that way :roll:
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By DJ Hellfire Tue Mar 17, 2009 10:02 pm
It doesn't matter how much per gig you spend or trying to get the best value. The point is wasting money on the extra space that you will never use. When you buy groceries, do you buy a shit load more food than you know you will eat just so it can sit there and not be eating and go bad, all just because you saved a lot of money on the food?!
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By stevenclements Wed Mar 18, 2009 2:42 am
Well if you don't use it yes... but who says I won't use it? It's not a waste of money if I use it... if I buy something smaller... and find out I wish I had of bought something large for those instances... well I'm stuck.

You can record into the MPC2500 ladies a lot more then just drum beats... Hell I can record 8 bar loops on bass or keys... hell I can even sing into and trigger as I please.

So lets just say I'll agree to disagree with you chaps and thanks for your opinion... ok?

Lets say you won the argument... with the grocery analogy. ;)

$141.99 - 69.99 = 72.00

and you saved me $72 :)
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By stevenclements Wed Mar 18, 2009 2:52 pm
Explicit- wrote:Now this gets me thinking...

I wonder wats the most amount of **** inside of anyones MPC HD's?
Im sure nobody has more than 10gbs easy...


You know... that had me thinking as well. Seriously, at 10 megs per stereo minute... hell an 80 gigabyte is about 800 minutes of stereo recording. 320 is humongous.

8 bits - 1 byte
1024 Bytes - 1 Kilobyte
1024 Kilo Bytes - 1 Megabyte
1024 Mega Bytes - 1 Gigabytes
1 terabyte - 1024 Gigabytes

80 gigabyte = 81920 megabytes
160 gigabyte = 163840 megabytes
320 gigabyte = 327680 megabytes