Custom 2500

yo them glow in the dark ones look sooooooo funkin dope man ,,, if i was you id leave em in ,,, foreal

Explicit- wrote:Not really feeling the pads. I wonder how they are gonna look at night?
They look okay to me...

Now I got 3 sets of pads.
Grey, Black and Glow In The Dark Green



















I will most likely go back to the black pads.
Still gonna work on getting green ones.

I have to agree. Those green pads look sick and make the whole thing look finished. Better than the black to me. Before, the green screen looked kinda off from the green paint and did not gel. The pads tie them both in somehow.

Your probably just looking at em to hard. Keep it!

LOL!

On second thought. I just looked at the black again. I see what triple-X was saying. The black gives it more punch and stands out. They both look nice. Better than those ugly gray pads. How is the green for lint?

I like the blue too.

Redsox00 wrote:

Explicit- wrote:

phx_chronic wrote:yeah, thats dope..... are you gonna tryn make the leds green too?

Yeah I have had the green LEDs for a long time now but havent installed them beacause Im scared to solder them myself. lol

Down the line I will pay vst to do it unless I find somebody to do it for free that know what they are doing.

dont be too scared, you can get the q link and the sample bank pcb boards replaced. What I'll do is buy the pcb boards just in case you mess up, but even than you should practice soldering on junk electronics sitting around or you can pay someone local whos good at soldering. Getting a company to do it is always going to end up being expensive.

yeah this would be no problem if not for the fact that mpcstuff and vst both have NO qlink boards right now and they are on backorder thru akai. not good. thankfully I am #1 on the list of ppl waiting for one.

master-ceo wrote:
Edit: Anybody ever tried dyeing their stock white buttons? PEEP
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AKy-OGGtU1o

YES.. I tried. unlike that vid you linked to, the plastic buttons used in the mpc are a much softer plastic and they melt/shrink in water that isnt even boiling.

it kinda works, and pretty much doesn't at the same time.

In order for the buttons to get fully black, the water/dye mixture has to be VERY hot.
The results I got were One very Black button shrunk to the point where it has just about unusable, and slightly shrunk buttons that were usable but not completely black, and appear more brown than black.

I tried it with a few buttons using the powder and also the liquid versions of the Rit Black Dye.
A damn good idea that I had High hopes for. But no good in the end.

One of my biggest hopes was to die the medium clear buttons black to get a "smoked" look so you could then use the black/clear buttons over an led and get a dimmer light from them. On the Red leds it made them appear more red and less pink, but the button shrunk enough that it hardly fit into the slots on the pcb afterward and once the case was back on, the fit was altered and the button appeared kinda bowed/bent inward and not satisfactory for my standards.
Keep in mind that I experimented with different sized buttons and different heat levels, as well as only dunking the buttons and not leaving them in the hot dye, and they STILL melted. When I reduced the temp and tried on a fresh button, it didnt melt, but also would not get anything more than brown.

It was worth a try, but no go in the end. DAMNIT.

Back to paint.

^^^^^ lol X! You a lifesaver lol. I was about to to a test run this week too. You saved me a button or two.

I saw on one video a guy dyed a clear piece blue like what you mentioned and It turned out sick. Clear with a bright blueish tint.

I'm going to try This Vinyl Paint on my jog wheel today or tomorrow. and report back.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Vvg51Oz_C-g

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kgMWwBFLY3I

X- I like your idea of dying the clear buttons to alter the brightness of the led's- would work well w/ people that have aftermarket led's that are way brighter than the original stock. Seems like there would be a dye out there that doesn't require heat- maybe not!

Looking forward to how your experiment goes CEO! Let us know!

Those glow in the darks look ill wit all the green. good work

phx_chronic wrote:Those glow in the darks look ill wit all the green. good work

Thanks but Im gonna switch it back to the black pads.

The look didnt really fit my taste. Im probably gonna sell them on ebay.

Explicit- wrote:

phx_chronic wrote:Those glow in the darks look ill wit all the green. good work

Thanks but Im gonna switch it back to the black pads.

The look didnt really fit my taste. Im probably gonna sell them on ebay.

ship me your glow in the dark pads, your green leds and your 2500 and I will install your leds for free.. or for the glow in the darks actually. lol

I did my friends 5000 last night.. holy freaking leds on that thing..
dozen on the qlink alone.
Went over like a champ. Not one bad led, or bad solder joint. and they all worked first time. and it looks DOPE.

Im waiting on him to text me a pic now.. then Ill post it up here (despite it being a 5000)

Explicit- wrote:

phx_chronic wrote:Those glow in the darks look ill wit all the green. good work

Thanks but Im gonna switch it back to the black pads.

The look didnt really fit my taste. Im probably gonna sell them on ebay.

maaaaaaaaaaaan I dunno- if they only made a limited run of the glow in the dark pads, I'd be tempted to bag them up and sock them away somewhere. But then again, I'm a bit of a pack rat like that

its a lousy pic from a camera phone, but you get the point.
we did black pads and the blue leds. but now after the blue leds he thinks he wants to do blue pads.
so we'll see. he even had me do the play button led.. it came out dope. I not a big fan of the blue.
Im doing all white on mine.
And the leds look way brighter in the pic than they actually are in person. Again, GARBAGE cam phone.

But I got this led install thing down now. I have soldered stuff on hundreds of laptops in years passed, but the pcb boards in mpc's have crappy single layer contacts and traces, so you have to be careful.
using the right soldering tools is the most important thing.
I got that.

seriously tho Ex. If you dont mind paying to ship it here and back.... I got you.

master-ceo wrote:^^^^^ lol X! You a lifesaver lol. I was about to to a test run this week too. You saved me a button or two.

I saw on one video a guy dyed a clear piece blue like what you mentioned and It turned out sick. Clear with a bright blueish tint.

I'm going to try This Vinyl Paint on my jog wheel today or tomorrow. and report back.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Vvg51Oz_C-g

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kgMWwBFLY3I

Vinyl Dye might work okay.. but you won't catch me with a any can in my hand that says DUPLICOLOR on it.

I actually just finished spraying the first coat of black on some of my buttons. Still waiting on the replacement buttons to come from vst after the ones that melted in my Rit dye experiment this passed weekend. (your welcome )

Now im bout to yank all the red leds out of my 2500's operation pc board replace with white ones.
I was thinking of leaving the function 1-6 buttons grey at first, but I might actually paint them red.
I KNOW i don't want red leds (they look pinkish to me) but since there IS red text on the mpc cover, and since I AM keeping the red Rec & OverDub and Rec volume top intact, I thought maybe a few Red Function buttons might make it pop a little more. and NO im not even entertaining the though of red pads or a red screen. 2 each his own but ew.

Btw.. speaking of pads.. When I was doing the blue leds on my boys 5000 last night, we were comparing the black pads he got from mpcstuff with the black oem pads that came out of my mpd16.. there's a definite difference.

The oem akai pads were more square on each pad corner and were semi reflective under light. The mpcstuff pads were definitely rounder on the edges of the pads and not at all reflective under light. Also they are a tad stiffer and a lil more responsive as a result. IMO the look better too with the rounded pad corners since the pad and button cutouts are rounded the same way.. but Im told and I know that I have way too detailed an eye for this sh!t.
anyway it was just a little side note.

Triple-X wrote:seriously tho Ex. If you dont mind paying to ship it here and back.... I got you.

Thanks. I will consider that as an option.

The LEDs look dope aswell fam.

yeah man- I'd think about that! I don't know how much shipping would be, but it's a pretty nice offer