mpc 500 midi problem

Hey fellow mpc owners,

Yesterday I bought the mpc500 to sample softsynths on stage without having to use a laptop because I don't trust them on stage.

I was hoping to connect some midi keyboards to it, so I could play samples by playing for instance my microkorg. I followed the manual but didn't succeed; the 500 doesn't respond to anything I play on my Microkorg.

Than I tried to hook the 500 up to my pc so I could use it as a midi device to trigger the Lm-7 drum computer in Cubase. Strange enough this didn't work too. The link below shows what happens. The pc recognizes a midi input once in a while, if I hit the pad 20 times it will recognize it 1 time. Also the midi interface from e-mu lights up once in 20 times. At last I tried to connect the microkorg to my pc and that worked perfect so it's the akai being the ****.

The microkorg is connected from midi out to the midi in of the akai. The akai is connected to the pc by its midi out through a midi interface to usb in on my pc. In cubase I added a midi channel which is connected to the Lm-7, just as it's supposed to be and everything works when I connect the microkorg as a midi keyboard or any other synth.

I hope I've missed something but I'm pretty sure I did everything the manual said. I watched some internet movies of guys hooking up akai with midi but it didn't work for me.

Movie: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c-BgWnRE_6I

Help?

Cheers from Holland

1. Is your 500 new or used?

2. Can you input/ record notes to the MPC sequencer using your keyboard (is MIDI being sent by the keyboard)?

I don't use a 500, but im sure these questions will be asked.

My mpc 500 is new, I can't record midi because it won't even receive midi from any synth or keyboard, except for a few notes once in a while. If I connect the same synth and keyboards to the midi input of the computer I receive every note I play on them.

Besides that when I hit the pads sometimes the mpc pans certain samples at random 100% to the right. And when I hit pad 1 with 'note on' for instance and I hit pad 2 while I'm still holding pad 1 pad 1 stops playing. This doesn't happen all the time but I have to be 100% sure it won't happen when I use it on stage.

When I record a seq with more than 3 or 4 different pads the seq seems to hold for a second before repeating from the start of the sequence. When I record as many pads as possible it even crashes and the only way to get it running again is switching it off and than on again.

Besides that the sampler works fine, saving work etc works fine.

I hope someone can help, am about to send it back but maybe re-installing the flash will help?

Who knows(?)

Have you tried the reassign pads function?
I would also try to defrag/resort or reformat you memcard.
You can also try auto resetting to factory settings in case you might have accidentally changed some settings that you cant find to undo now.

I dont know anything about midi, but have you double checked your midi configurations on the MPC and on the controller to make sure they are set correctly?

i tried reassigning the pads and midi notes but still had the same problem. I'll format my mem card this afternoon but I think it won't matter cause the mem card is just storage. Since loading and saving isn't a problem that won't be the case. It's either the os/system/flash the mpc is running on or the hardware itself thats malfunctioning. or both

Midi settings should be ok, took 3 days before I managed to convince myself it wasn't my fault.

Do you have the manual?
I forget the process but theres a few buttons that you can hold during boot up that resets everything to the factory defaults. Have you tried that yet? That might help with your sequencing problem.

As far as midi, I also had a terrible time trying to midi an oxygen 8 to my 500. It just wouldn't work. At least not before I gave up so I returned it. It would only trigger a few random samples on a few random keys across the keyboard.

I didn't get around to reseting the midi assignment of my program in bluebox though which might have helped, but I was too disgusted by then.
BTW: Maybe you should try that. Its under the tool menu in blue box and it's called "make pads chromatic".

On the other hand I can plug my buddies EPS into the 500 and it triggers across all the banks in order. I never even had to set either of them to master/slave just plugged and played.

I really have no idea with this midi, all I know is that apparently some hardware seems more compatible with each other than others.