MPC 2000XL signal levels issue.

Hello MPC people,

I have recently bought my first MPC ever, a 2000XL with external ZIP.
I am running my setup with Sonar V-100 Studio interface (soundcard and mixer).
http://www.rolandus.com/products/produc ... rentId=436 - for reference.

I will try to keep it short and sweet.

I upload a sample of a kick, .wav format, 44khz, 16bit, mono to the MPC, volume KNOB maxed out.
Before I upload it I look at it in Adobe audition, peaks reach 0dB.

I trigger the kick on the MPC, with MPC mixer settings: master 0dB, sample level 100 (0-200 possible).
I record this kick sound to my PC directly to Adobe Audition, without anything in between, no compressors, no eq enabled on my soundcard/mixer. Sound recorded (single kick) appears to be peaking at -15dB.

Why is that? Where does the level drop occur and for what reason?
MPC looks like its fully operational, there are no quality issues whatsoever.
If i change the MPC mixer settings to master +12dB, I sort of get the levels that I should be (around 0dB, but still a bit less).

Can anyone enlighten a noob?

All the best people,
Bart

PS (MPC->Soundcard connected with quality TRS cables)

If what I wrote is unclear I will happily provide screens of everything Ive spoken of.

There is a button called 'full level' on the front of the MPC.

Try hitting that, and it will trigger the sample at full velocity. See if that helps.

By default, the MPC will alter the volume of a sample depending on how hard you hit the pad. Pressing 'full level' will eliminate that issue and send every pad hit at.....you guessed it....full velocity ;].

Now that is just one thing to try, and a common thing to overlook. However, it could be any piece of gear in the chain...it could be your soundcard is just quieter.

In reality, I think you are splitting hairs. See if the full level button gets you closer to what you are expecting, then adjust your playing style accordingly (ie learn to hit harder). You can also adjust each pad to just not respond to velocity at all, or in a smaller degree. This is done in the program edit mode, hitting open window button on the 'attack' field. Your manual will explain this in much more detail.

splitting hair?

http://www.image-share.com/ijpg-521-31.html


my soundcard is considered "studio grade", and in fact is pretty good, ive done recording from multiple sources like turntables or even reel to reel, without this problem. and the "full level" thing you suggestes, was never the issue here, but thanks.

c'mon 0dB should = 0dB...

updated comparison with +12dB on master out on MPC

http://www.image-share.com/ijpg-521-40.html

Your Roland VS is probably doing some scaling. I imagine it is set up to receive a much hotter signal than your mpc can spit out, so it's actually doing it's job properly.

'db' can actually mean different things, so it is not safe to assume 0db in one application = 0db in another. I get what you are saying though, but you've got a lot of equipment that all have many gain stages and volume knobs, so they are likely to be operating at different levels.

From your picture, it looks like things are actually working pretty good.
I still think that drop is not a huge deal, but that's just my opinion.

yeah sure, just for playing around with the mpc its ok i turn the volume knob up on my roland and works perfectly fine, but if i want to turn this into a song, lay an acapella over it and lets say give it to someone, it will be the quietest song on their mp3 player... with no juice whatsoever.

ive considered the option youre talking about... but hmm why would a 50 year old reel to reel tape player give me good levels and not the mpc... i would assume it is faulty if it wasnt for the quality which is really good when i turn the knob up

I really don't think your MPC is faulty. Your MPC is giving you good levels...it's just not the levels you expect. I cannot comment on your reel-to-reel but it's very likely it just put out a different level than your MPC.

If the MAX on your recorders INPUT is greater than the MAX of your source OUTPUT, your output will appear scaled down. If I put 1 gallon of water in a gallon jug, it will look full. If I put that same amount of water in a larger container, it will not seem as full.

How loud your MPC gets recorded into your audio interface is only 1 of a bout 1,000 steps you would need to take to make your song 'loud' on an mp3 player.

You don't generally just hit 'record' on one device and 'play' on another, and suddenly you've got an mp3 that sounds as good as any other well produced mp3. There is a lot more to it than that. The drop you are experiencing in recording level is the least of your troubles, honestly.

Back to the point though, and to hopefully ease your mind a bit, your equipment is all functioning properly.

ive been asking the same question for a while, still trying to figure it out.

viewtopic.php?f=1&t=42242

weird... maybe impedance of the receiver in my case? as +12dB seems to solve everything "graphically" at least
i still find that it sounds better and waveforms are less jagged and edgy, when instead of going +12dB i use the 0dB and gain the volume with the compressor built in my soundcard, then i monitor the recorded sound until satisfied and it sounds OK

but its still bugging me a lot, just as an unsolved issue

Just a thought (I dont read the specs of this roland thing):

search google for: consumer level vs pro level

peace

nice post ^

i am going to quote:


Once upon a time you may have learned that ``professional'' gear ran at a nominal operating level of +4 dB compared to ``consumer'' gear at only -10 dB. (Nowadays, this seems to be the only distinction between the two...) What few people ever notice is that this is not a 14 dB difference in level. If you take a piece of consumer gear outputting what it thinks is 0 dB VU (0 dB on the VU meter), and you plug it into a piece of pro gear, you'll find that the level is not -14 dB but -11.79 dB VU... The reason for this is that the professional level is +4 dBu and the consumer level -10 dBV. Therefore we have two separate reference voltages for each measurement.

0 dB VU on a piece of pro gear is +4 dBu which in turn translates to an actual voltage level of 1.228 Vrms. In comparison, 0 dB VU on a piece of consumer gear is -10 dBV, or 0.316 Vrms. If we compare these two voltages in terms of decibels, the result is a difference of 11.79 dB.

One other thing to remember is that, typically, professional gear uses balanced signals (this term will be discussed and defined in Section 6.5.2) on XLR connectors whereas consumer gear uses unbalanced signals on phono (RCA) or 1/4'' jacks. If you're measuring, then the +4 dBu signal is between the hot and cold pins on the XLR (pins 2 and 3 respectively). If you measure between either of those pins and ground (pin 1) then you'll be 6 dB lower. In the case of consumer gear, you measure between the signal (the pin on a phono connector, the tip on a 1/4'' jack) and ground.



seems exactly what im bothering with. although i have no idea which part of my gear is consumer which is pro now haha.
well, seems like thats on the money. any cicruit geeks out here with a possible solution?

i am using balanced trs 1/4 jacks everywhere, or XLR so weird...
probably the mpc's signal not hot enough as someone said before. well good opprtunity to get a valve compressor then i guess

In terms of gain staging, you always want to max out levels in the earlier stages first. idk if this is common knowledge, but if it's turntable>mixer>mpc>interface (for example) You want your mixer faders up, then the channel gain peaking to neer RED, then what ever the master gain OUT is... you need that peeking, MASTER or maybe it's a BOOTH out... so that when you reach the mp, it's a high level. i usually have my REC at ZERO on my MP by the time my signal is getting there... also, something i'v noticed tons of people doing is NOT using RIAA phono pre's comming out of the turntable, if you're running through a mixer and the turtable is going through a phono channel, you're good. The RIAA established an eq curve which is basically a bass boost. (vinyl is recorded with a highpass filter to reduce bass to compensate for needle tracking issues and then the bass is made up for and leveled out by this RIAA eq curve) SOOOO, if you record phono to line for example, ur shit is going to sound all jacked up... lower level, mostly bass missing.

2000 output does not use trs (balanced) cables btw, only mono/TS unbalanced cables

hey fathertime,

thanks for the reply. are you saying that if i go to mono cables that would fix the issue?

I don't think the 'issue' will be fixed with the proper cables. Like I said earlier, it aint actually broke, it's all working as it should.

What you could try is the other input jacks on the recorder...maybe they are operating at different levels within the device. I know on my Edirol, there are at least 3 different operating levels distributed around the inputs (4 if you count the digital).

If you run a device that outputs X volts, into a digital recording device that can accept Y volts, you will always have a disparity of Y minus X volts.

However, it sounds like you already found a 'solution' - just run your MPC with the output cranked to +12. Another option is to get a preamp (not a phono preamp), but I think that might be overkill.

Another option, try using an unbalanced cable, let us know how it changes.

Finally, if you really want to do it proper, you could run your unbalanced signal into a DI and then run that, via balanced cables, into your balanced interface.

My guess is, you are still going to see the db difference no matter what kind of cable you use.

Looking back at that, I think I suggested solutions in reverse order of what is probably best ;].