Share your knowledge on these two classic MPCs
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By cornelius Fri Dec 04, 2009 12:39 pm
fellows, this is my first post/topic and my English is not the best, sorry for that.
there are at least two other topics about that or a similar problem (MPC60 II Pads prob ? and
Strange clock noise in background of MPC60 ) but i decided to start a new discussion.

when i hit a pad with, lets say a hihat sample assigned to it. i can hear in the background playing another sound i sampled into the 60. that background sound is not loud but its there. if i have different samples in my 60, the background sound changes randomly. the background sound only play as long as the sample assigned to the pad is playing.
I powered on/off my 60 a few times, experimented a bit with different samples and i realised, that when i fire up the machine, load/sample some sounds, assign them to pads and play one after the other (e.g. first a hihat then a snare then a longer piano sample) the problem with the ghost sound does not occur!! *BUT* then, when playing the longer piano sample and *WHILE* its playing i play some hihat and then after piano sample has finished i play only the hihat sample, then i can hear sometimes parts of the piano sample in the background...damn. AND its not always playing the same part of the sample in the background, its flipping.

I opened my 60, took the ram extension out and tried again...same problem.
I have the SCSI board installed, but i think it has nothing to to with that.

I also realised that if i delete the piano sample it can still occur as ghost sound, wtf?

any hints?
thanks
By Toe Fri Dec 04, 2009 2:05 pm
Hello

I've the same problem, some one PM'd me recently about it, this is what I told them


Hello

I've reached a dead end with this really.
I contacted a place called panic music who are near me, I explained the peoblem and the guy said not to bother taking them the MPC as it was 90 % likely to be the voice chips (I think thats what he called them). Its a problem with the actual board that you sample in to not the ram. He said the only thing to do is replace the whole board, but they don't make them any more.
It sound like loads of peoples 60's do this now, must be to do with the age of the machine.

Hope that helps

Toe
By skylab001 Fri Dec 04, 2009 4:47 pm
Well since my post was the strange clock noise, I will chime in here. Same problem except I would get a clock noise sometimes too. I only noticed sounds that were actually in memory at the time triggering.

I finally got frustrated and took my unit to VST. They spent hours on it and I'm still not sure exactly what they checked, but I do know they ran the diagnostic on it and it said I had a bad chip on my RAM expander. So they pulled the RAM expander calibrated everything and got it back to me. I still have the problem.... the clock noise is still there it's just quieter, the random sample strings, still there too....but now it occurs less often, and more randomly. Before I took it in I could make it happen on demand, now all bets are off, it will just do it when it does it. I'm going to take it back for further investigation.

I don't have a lot of experience with digital devices like the MPC, but with I do with analog devices, my best guess is that I may have another bad RAM chip on my voice board, as well as possibly a leaky cap or bad IC. I would think it's is most likely something on the voice board because it only happens when a sound is triggered (audible only when an envelope is open and another sound is playing).

Does your problem happen all the time, randomly, or can you make it happen on demand? I also have found five more people with MPC's that have this problem since I noticed it, and they didn't even know it(let's just say they are not happy with me pointing it because now they always notice it.) Anyway I wish I had more info for you. I would say if you can afford it, take it to a tech, and give them all the info you have, I'm sure somewhere in the world somebody has actually figured this problem out, because it is definately not an isolated incident. But I do think it is going to take an experienced tech to figure it out and most likely won't be fixed without getting their hands into the unit. And if you do please share your results.
By sequoia1232 Fri Dec 04, 2009 5:48 pm
Well, this is definitely the same problem we discussed in the other thread. Nobodies figured it out yet. I've personally tried just about every possible solution, including switching ram, no ram, switching OS, new pads/sensor, using all memory, etc... I've had it occur on three different 60s/60IIs and I'm starting to wonder if its inherent in the OS??

The good news is, I can never really hear it when sequences are playing. This problem still sucks!
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By peterpiper Fri Dec 04, 2009 11:20 pm
sequoia1232 wrote:
The good news is, I can never really hear it when sequences are playing. This problem still sucks!


this make me wonder if the problem has something to do with "hitting the pad" or rather said hittin the machine. I can imagine some parts inside acting strange because the machine has been hit thousends of times in the last 15 years.

How does the machine react if you dont hit a pad but hit the machine? Try hitting on different positions of the MPC maaybe this will give a hint to whats happpen inside.

Just a thought.

peace
By sequoia1232 Sat Dec 05, 2009 12:28 am
@Peter, definitely not that. I have a 60 thats in mint/new condition and it also has the same problem. I've also tried replacing the pads/sensors.

I fix my own gear and am very familiar with the 60 and 3000, inside and out. Still use them everyday. The OS is my best guess, but I'm stumped.

@Toe, yep, I've heard it while playing a sequence too, usually only when stuff is soloed. Its horrible to think that muddiness is always happening behind the scenes whether we know it or not.
By skylab001 Sat Dec 05, 2009 7:32 am
sequoia1232 have you tried replacing the on-board RAM? I mean with new chips? I will say that once my expansion RAM was pulled and the MPC calibrated, the problem got a little better, it makes me wonder if the on-board RAM might have bad sectors too. I'm also curious if anybody with this issue has re-capped their MPC? I still lean towards it being a component issue rather than software. Cap's are the most suspicious, IC's less so, but they do fail as well, and 16-20 year old electrolytics really are about due for replacement. I've had quite a few issues with same era gear from my studio that started acting crazy due to a single bad cap. Only problem is that caps are hard to test. I'm not giving up yet.

It only happens on my machine when a sample is playing and the envelope is open for that particular sound triggered, not in between (as far as I have heard), and it happens when just hitting a pad or while a sequence is playing. It's so faint though most of the time it's not noticable thankfully.
By Toe Sat Dec 05, 2009 11:03 am
Mine can happen any time a sound is being played, tiggered by a pad, editing, recording a sequence, or in a sequence (not hitting pad). And I some times get a crackly static noise, this is why I think its prob some thing on the main board. I've taken the RAM ex out and still get it.
By master-ceo Sat Dec 05, 2009 2:08 pm
Lord Toranaga wrote:looks like time for ebay, for me


rof! :lol:

I ran extensive tests on my 60's (60-60II) and thank god I don't have that problem in either one. Both run 3.10 with Ram Upgrade. I bought both OS's from RL in 2008.

Any test you guys want me to run for comparison just let me know.

Peace.
By sequoia1232 Sat Dec 05, 2009 5:25 pm
Its not something I realized immediately. I was using one of mine for years on the daily before I noticed. It can be very subtle, and doesn't happen all of the time either. It really depends on the ghost sound its triggering, and how much other stuff is going on in the background. I got all of my OSs from RL, and no memory hacks here. I have also had several variations of ram card.