Damm*t! To hell with IOMEGA!

nogginj wrote:Agree. HOt swap is nice in theory but maybe not worth waiting around for in a situation like this.

Record your tracks out, then your samples if you want. Be glad if you can at least get some RECORDINGS (that's the point, right?).

sorry to hear about that.

Thanks,

Yeah, I'm just going to have to 1 by 1 them. take my time over the weekend. It's cool I can organize my sounds better. I ain't even mad anymore trying to keep it positive.

johnnyonehand wrote:They know the XL market is huge. How can you just ignore them.

They can 'ignore them' by releasing a more up to date product and wanting users to move on. The specs on an MPC 1000 are a lot higher than a 2kXL.

johnnyonehand wrote:...I mean this is the year 2000 what now?

Yea it's 2011 now but the XL came out in 1998. So really, can you fault them for not supporting a 13 year old piece of equipment...you should realise that dealing with vintage gear means putting in the work and getting yourself the knowledge to make it work.

They actually did update the MPC with modern options, and now it is called mpc 1000, mpc 2500, etc.

I know it's frustrating and you probably just need to vent, so good place to do it here.
But like you said, keep yer head up, move forward, and use this as an opportunity to:
1) finally bounce down some tracks (and i mean whole songs/beats) that you had not yet
2) bounce your samples to some other medium (tape maybe), then resample with all that added warmth/grit ;]

could be a blessing in disguise

scsicardreaders.com wrote:JVC, I'm afraid you have been misinformed.

Just to make it clear, folks, the SCSI card reader drives I sell can use CF cards up to 16GB in capacity and this works totally well. No worries, no problems - it just works.
There are lots of folks all over the world using my drives and 16GB CF cards with their MPC200XLs every day.

I'm actually using a 32GB CF card with my MPC2000 Classic and it seems to work great but I am still testing this before I start selling them for the MPCs.

If you are interested, you can read more about them here:

http://scsicardreaders.com/cfcard.asp

PS: the 1GB limit is strictly for the ATAPI/IDE card readers and os 1.2.

I see, XL supports more than 1GB of disk space with SCSI devices.

I also have feeling that CF reader on SCSI would be more secure (less chance of data corruption) than using IDE CF reader. XL's IDE device handling is unreliable, I think.
(SCSI is technically better protocol than IDE, since SCSI port is always handled by dedicated SCSI controller, whereas IDE is directy handled by CPU. That was the reason SCSI device was always expensive than IDE peripherals.)

Having said that, I am not sure how useful 32GB CF card on MPC-2000 classics would be in reality, since classic does not support folders...

Both the MPC2000 Classic and MPC2000XL support 16GB (and seemingly 32GB) using a SCSI Card Reader drive.

Actually, using a 32GB CF card with the MPC2000 provides a big benefit. Consider that you are limited to 512 files per partition on the Classic (that is the DOS limit on files per directory) and you cannot create folders. So then the 8 extra partitions that you get using a 32GB CF card means you have 8 more "folders " and room for 4096 more files on the card. IMO that's pretty significant for a not too big price difference.

JVC wrote:I also have feeling that CF reader on SCSI would be more secure (less chance of data corruption) than using IDE CF reader. XL's IDE device handling is unreliable, I think.
(SCSI is technically better protocol than IDE, since SCSI port is always handled by dedicated SCSI controller, whereas IDE is directy handled by CPU. That was the reason SCSI device was always expensive than IDE peripherals.)

I dont think so dude, I rocked a IDE CF reader (Maxed out with a 1GB card, rocking OS 1.20) for 4 years, not 1 hiccup, no data errors, etc.. I upgraded to SCSI dudes internal SCSI (W/16 GB card). The SCSI Dudes product is ill for keeping a cubic shit-ton of things organized, but my boot time is probably twice as long, and loading files takes longer. ....Still, SCSI dudes reader is dope, I can wait an extra 30 seconds-1 min. when powering on my MPC.

I assume the dedicated SCSI controller has to transfer data between the SCSI port and the processor anyways, which means longer loading times and more chance for data corruption, as data is flowing through more components to be processed. JD?

jonestown massacre wrote:I dont think so dude, I rocked a IDE CF reader (Maxed out with a 1GB card, rocking OS 1.20) for 4 years, not 1 hiccup, no data errors, etc.. I upgraded to SCSI dudes internal SCSI (W/16 GB card). The SCSI Dudes product is ill for keeping a cubic shit-ton of things organized, but my boot time is probably twice as long, and loading files takes longer. ....Still, SCSI dudes reader is dope, I can wait an extra 30 seconds-1 min. when powering on my MPC.
I assume the dedicated SCSI controller has to transfer data between the SCSI port and the processor anyways, which means longer loading times and more chance for data corruption, as data is flowing through more components to be processed. JD?

SCSI controller handles data flow between devices, which makes less work for CPU. IDE devices are not handled by dedicated IDE controller (there is no such thing) CPU have to handle all the data transfers process. That is why IDE hard drives were much cheaper to make than SCSI hard drive, which had SCSI controller build in.

Having a dedicated controller means less chance of data corruption, since CPU does not have to deal with actual data transfar process. SCSI device is more compatible than IDE devices. Like I said before, SCSI is more advanced system than IDE.
(well, both of them are obsolete now anyways.)

I think slow loading might be due to the fact that your SCSI CF card's disk space is 16 times larger than 1GB CF card. But, MPC-2000XL uses oldest (slowest) SCSI protocol, before wide SCSI came out.

I've had issue with my CF card twice (XL cannot mount CF card, although it was totally accessible with PC) may be because I'm using 2GB CF card.

nogginj wrote:

johnnyonehand wrote:They know the XL market is huge. How can you just ignore them.

They can 'ignore them' by releasing a more up to date product and wanting users to move on. The specs on an MPC 1000 are a lot higher than a 2kXL.

johnnyonehand wrote:...I mean this is the year 2000 what now?

Yea it's 2011 now but the XL came out in 1998. So really, can you fault them for not supporting a 13 year old piece of equipment...you should realise that dealing with vintage gear means putting in the work and getting yourself the knowledge to make it work.

They actually did update the MPC with modern options, and now it is called mpc 1000, mpc 2500, etc.

I know it's frustrating and you probably just need to vent, so good place to do it here.
But like you said, keep yer head up, move forward, and use this as an opportunity to:
1) finally bounce down some tracks (and i mean whole songs/beats) that you had not yet
2) bounce your samples to some other medium (tape maybe), then resample with all that added warmth/grit ;]

could be a blessing in disguise

The XL is a classic. The new MPC's you expect them to be better but really who's buying those to replace an MPC2XL? Other than the 4K most studios still use the MPC 2XL. Even the top industry producers still stick with a 2XL. The 2KXL was never broke so they can't fix it.

It's not venting. it's just understanding the market base. There's a lot more 2K owners than 2500 owners out there. People aren't going to replace something they already have because a new model has more gigs or can allow you to edit a sample better. Only people looking at the newer models are those that don't have them or guys trying to get into something like the 5K. The only gear I've seen people dump an MPC over is the Maschine for the obvious reasons of it's sound management. If you have loads of samples and get tired of running disk that's probably the next direction.

For Akai to have broke a deal with a drive manufacturer and have sold a kit to upgrade to card reader wouldn't have hurt them. It's just money they lost out on in sales. Look how many people here are looking to upgrade. Zips went extinct for not being reliable its a given people want something that is reliable.

My reason for running into my problem was that I wanted to dump my sounds on my PC through it's only means the Zip drive. The MPC is old but it's not an 808 considering other websites have better support for their own products says A LOT.

there is a lot of good info in this thread.

yea i agree with you the 2k/xl is a classic but i guess it just makes more sense to a manufacturer to sell a more modern spec'd machine, with much cheaper manufacturing, using parts that are currently available in abundance (you don't see atapi/ide shit too much at the store), with a much higher price tag....than trying to make considerably less money trying to manufacturer/find outdated equipment running on a fading standard (ide/atapi), and still leave other parts of the machine stuck in the 90s.

why would akai bother just updating the storage drive when they could update the drive, the ram, the processing, the usb capability, etc etc....probably do it cheaper too, and sell it at a higher pricetag?

i get what you're saying, it makes sense to us because we have a lot invested in these instruments but try selling thousands of them every day. manufacturers don't really care about 'classic' they care about cheaper to make with higher returns. and i would be willing to bet manufacturing a new mpc is actually cheaper than producing just a non-standard drive due mainly to supply of compatible parts.
probably why roland doesn't just remake an 808...building an analog synth of that quality is probably 1000x more expensive than putting an entire workstation on a chip and into a box.

and again, i agree with you, other synth manufacturers are a lot more helpful, though you do got to hand it to akai for allowing jj to do what he is doing with the new mpcs (or hell, maybe they hate it...probably not...its just more reason to buy an mpc).

and no i aint trying to replace my xl. ;]

well to add to that,

okay maybe the 808 is a bad example.... but lets say they made a fully analogue drum machine similar in style and functionality to the 808.... they cant get away with charging 2 grand for just that and expect to sell thousands of units like they would for something like a keyboard workstation that they charge 2k for... especially when if you are spending 2k chances are you will drop that money on the vintage original proven machine... the real deal 808. it's just like guitars, you aint dropping 5k on a fresh out the factory strat (supposing you plan on spending that type of cash on a guitar) you are going to get that 40+ year old one.

so you are probably right about the workstation on a chip thing.

as for IDE, well it's true it is becoming a thing of the past... but I wont say from the 90's only... all the 2000's we have been using burners running on IDE... and aren't the drives in the nukai mpc machines running on IDE?

mr_debauch wrote:as for IDE, well it's true it is becoming a thing of the past... but I wont say from the 90's only... all the 2000's we have been using burners running on IDE... and aren't the drives in the nukai mpc machines running on IDE?

good point, i just say 90s cause thats how i see pre numark mpcs. you know in ten years it's gonna be 'what a waste to use a hard drive with MOVING parts', how un-green.

nogginj wrote:

mr_debauch wrote:as for IDE, well it's true it is becoming a thing of the past... but I wont say from the 90's only... all the 2000's we have been using burners running on IDE... and aren't the drives in the nukai mpc machines running on IDE?

good point, i just say 90s cause thats how i see pre numark mpcs. you know in ten years it's gonna be 'what a waste to use a hard drive with MOVING parts', how un-green.

yeah I know what you mean.. haha

well I mean, I like being relatively up to date with the times (ie: **** zip drives and the click of death) however I still use a few various 90's MPC models still running floppies flawlessly. While sometimes I find, a new media for them would be nice... I also know what worked then still works just as good today and makes music. Not to mention you have to factor in the saying "they dont make em like they used to" ... I am sure you have noticed that about every type of product... haha.

One thing I will admit about floppies on say the 2000 (since scsi card readers are over 100 bucks) ... they are easy and cheap to maintain.. I know what I'm dealing with. shit breaks? I walk 10 minutes from the house up to a spot that has bins of floppy drives for like a buck or two a piece including the ones with the large jumper pin selectors. I might go pick a stack of those up some day to test on the 60... they do in fact have a bunch of teac ones too.


one guy mentiones MO drives which as we all know is supported also by the 2000/xl ... I have honestly never seen one of those in person. But the one person who suggested them says they are reliable.