Few 2500 questions

After nearly a year of dreaming, I get my 2500 on Monday 20th. I have a few questions about it, if you can offer any answers to any of the questions that would be great.

Here is the link to the store I am getting my MPC from. The specs are a little poor. http://www.htfr.com/more-info/MR171786

1) Do you think you get a HDD and/or CD-Drive with it? The images show the CD Drive but not sure if that's just a direct image.
2) Is there any sort of memory built in? By that I mean usable memory. Or am I going to have to buy at least a memory card?
3) Why does one of the pics show a white LCD? I thought they are green?
4) Can I hook it up via USB to the Mac to load in samples and export tracks?
5) What memory cards do I use?
6) Can I use an external HDD with the 2500? I.e a USB Hard Drive or USB Stick?

It's going to break my pocket getting this, so I don't want to have to go out and buy additional memory just to be able to use it. That to me sounds a bit wrong. I'm hoping it will be usable out of the box.

JamesJeffery wrote:After nearly a year of dreaming, I get my 2500 on Monday 20th. I have a few questions about it, if you can offer any answers to any of the questions that would be great.

Here is the link to the store I am getting my MPC from. The specs are a little poor. http://www.htfr.com/more-info/MR171786

1) Do you think you get a HDD and/or CD-Drive with it? The images show the CD Drive but not sure if that's just a direct image.
2) Is there any sort of memory built in? By that I mean usable memory. Or am I going to have to buy at least a memory card?
3) Why does one of the pics show a white LCD? I thought they are green?
4) Can I hook it up via USB to the Mac to load in samples and export tracks?
5) What memory cards do I use?
6) Can I use an external HDD with the 2500? I.e a USB Hard Drive or USB Stick?

It's going to break my pocket getting this, so I don't want to have to go out and buy additional memory just to be able to use it. That to me sounds a bit wrong. I'm hoping it will be usable out of the box.

waddup man, welcome to the world of mpcs. all of your questions can be easily found by navigating the forums... but here are some straight up answers for you to look into:

1. cd and hdd are expansions. you can install non-akai hdd's though, so they aren't that expensive. search for 2.5" hdd threads on the board
2. ram. yes, the 2500 memory can be expanded to 128mb of ram, but it does not come with this expansion. you can install non-akai ram, search the board.
3. they are green. anything else is aftermarket
4. yes. read your manual.
5. any compact flash cards will do.
6. no, internal 2.5" hdds and compact flash cards only.

Many thanks bro.

You've been dreaming of getting one for a year yet you don't know the answers to those questions?


First thing I would say is don't buy from HTFR. Sure their price is about the same as you will find it most other places but they're not a very good company morally and I know people who have had a lot of trouble with them with returns. If you really want to buy new try and get it from somewhere local enough to pick it up, and take it back in case of problems.


Can't find details now but pretty sure the CF card they come with is tiny (64MB?) so would recommend you get a larger one or hard drive quick to stor your samples and projects. If you're going to be using much more than single hit drum samples you are going to want to upgrade the RAM. Don't buy the Akai branded stuff but search this site for what's good. People sell RAM that will work as being for the MPC on EBay for about £30 whereas the Akai branded stuff is £100.


Personally I would recommend picking up a secondhand one, hopefully with some upgrades already installed, from either Ebay or the Sound On Sound classifieds.

I never really like second hand stuff as I've always had problems in the past with second hand stuff.

I might get my MPC from Digital Village. I already know HTFR's return policy. I tried to return some CD decks because they where playing up.

I also think I might grab a laptop HDD and some ram on the same day. Will save me having to do it in the future.

I will be using it to produce on. Sampling from vinyl etc. Won't really be using a DAW much with the MPC as I already own an MPD32 for that.

Yeah Digital Village have always seemed OK although I have read reports of people having issues with returns with them in the past too. Guessing you're in Birmingham as you first mentioned HTFR then DV and will be buying in person yeah? If you were going to go for postal purchase I would recommend either Dolphin Audio or Chemical Records as I know they are both very good with customer support.


Also bear in mind that you will be recommended to install JJOS, even if just the free version (I did the moment I got mine after reading up on things as much as I could.) This will void your Akai warranty and the above arguments become a bit moot anyway. Saying that I'm not sure if they can tell if you've installed the free version, I know they can with the paid version (and you can only buy XL for the 2k5 now anyway) as the licence string is permanently stored in the machine.


Good luck with your purchase and enjoy making some beats.

Yep. I'm from Birmingham. Well actually I live in Wolverhampton for university, but my home is Birmingham.

I see alot of people mentioning the JJOS. Will have to read up more about that. I'm a but touchy on fixing something that isn't broke, but then again, if it's worth it I will do it.

I just phoned PC World and ordered 256mb ram. This one: http://www.pcworld.co.uk/martprd/store/ ... egory_oid=

Also ordered a 2.5 ATA/SATA drive from ebay. 150gb.

So in total cost me 50 quid for little upgrades. But at least I don't have to worry in future.

Can you install a standard laptop CD Drive? Or do you need a certain drive?

I bought a Teac CD-RW/DVD-ROM 24x10x24x8 Laptop Drive DW224E/S

This drive cost me $30 (plus shipping) of off eBay and installed in minutes without a hitch, no mucking around with the pins and I'm able to read cd's and dvd's access my hard drive and compact flash no problem. I've not tried burning to it, but I don't think I will ever need to.


check out http://myworld.ebay.com/auction_4less/ on eBay... I bought mine from him/her/them and can say the one I received was perfect.

cheers
Steve