MPC 60 mk 2 + Which floppys?

Hello everybody,

I recently bought a mpc-60 mk2 and it somehow its not reading my floppys, it recognize them, but dont show info on them.
I have a feeling that im using wrong floppys or where can be the problem? Please advice partners!

Thanks!

Use 2DD Double Density floppies.

if you have the sliding flap on the bottom closest to you and the spinning metal circle is on the bottom... put a piece of tape to cover the hole on the top right. I use electrical tape. cover the hole on both sides of the disk.... not the hole with the lock/unlock switch but the other one.

so basically if you were inserting the disk into the mpc, the hole would be on the bottom right of the disk.



This trick works on 99% of floppy disks because the internals of DS/DD and HD/DD disks are the same.... the debate has been going on for decades about if that is the case and it appears that it is.

Also, that is the trick I use for my mpc60ii with no issues what so ever, except for one of my disks but I suspect that disk is screwed up.... no need to spend a fortune on double sided disks for nothing.

make sure you use 3.5" floppies

Ok thanks a-lot guys! Floppys are reading now BUT it cant load any sounds! i made it with MpcPgmMaker, made snd files and pgm! but when i view them on mpc 60mk2, it give the files weird names and then dont load them, saying cant load or saying that files is not there?! Can you help me with this guys? Thanks a-lot for help!

Pilchard wrote:Use 2DD Double Density floppies.

Heaven

TACCOBEATS wrote:Ok thanks a-lot guys! Floppys are reading now BUT it cant load any sounds! i made it with MpcPgmMaker, made snd files and pgm! but when i view them on mpc 60mk2, it give the files weird names and then dont load them, saying cant load or saying that files is not there?! Can you help me with this guys? Thanks a-lot for help!

I have no experience with those, but somehow I dont see it working well.... but anyways.... as I always say.....


you have a sampler, why dont you use it's main feature (sampling) half the charm of the 60 comes from sampling the sound into the machine.

Yes, i agree, but i also layering the drums and doing lots of wavelab / protools works, sampling is sampling, but why i have mpc 60 while i cant even load sound! Thats what bothers me now

TACCOBEATS wrote:Yes, i agree, but i also layering the drums and doing lots of wavelab / protools works, sampling is sampling, but why i have mpc 60 while i cant even load sound! Thats what bothers me now

take those wavelab worked sounds.... and while still in wavelab, run an audio out from the computer into the mpc. it aint hard....


I mean, what OS do you have on your 60? It could be that the PGM maker program makes files only readable byu 3.10 or something... who knows. fact is why bother even looking at that issue when sampling into the mpc via the record input will sound better in the end anyways.


Also, keep in mind it is a 12bit sampler, not a 16bit.

To start with.. I think the guy knows he just got himself a sampler. It's somewhat lazy to just tell him to sample, personally I don't see the point in sampling for instance 300 similairly sounding hihats.. I'd rather transfer those kind of sounds to build a library and focus on the more creative side of sampling instead. But each to his own.

Anyway, don't just assume that PGM maker will work just because it works with an MPC3K or MPC2K. The wave format on the MPC60 differs from the other MPCs.

The best way that I've found to transfer large amount of samples to the 60 is through SCSI and whatever storage media that you can read on both the MPC and the computer. Make up your .PGM files in MPC3000 format with MPC editor (use 44khz mono wave files for this), then after you've done this convert the .SND files to MPC60 12 bit/40 khz format with Awave studio. Also while doing this make sure no programs exceed your maximum memory (1.5 mb if expanded) and that the total amount of files for your transfer including programs doesn't exceed 227 or something. Copy all files to an MPC editor formatted zip disc (or jaz disc, memory card, or whatever you're using), the MPC editor give you a single partition of 32 MB. Most likely you won't ever come near 32 MB during a single transfer, you'll hit the file-count limit instead..

The reason I make up programs is just to speed up the transfering of files from MPC memory to MPC formatted and partitioned media - you can't just save onto a formatted MPC SCSI disk on the computer, you have to load everything to the MPC's memory first and then save it onto a correctly formatted and partitioned MPC disc. By having programs you can at least load up big chunks of the converted samples automatically, minimizing manual work.

If you don't have SCSI I don't recommend doing it at all, try sample everything instead. It's just not worth the wait. I'd say the process described above is even more difficult with floppy disks, but when I did do it I usually used disk image-writing tools like WinImage to 'inject' PGM's and samples into an image of an MPC60 formatted floppy. Then I used floppy controller-manipulating software which enables windows to write the image onto the MPC60 floppy... but as I said, to me it's not worth it. Too much work.