Advice needed : SCSI to USB / Firewire for MPC 2000 XL

What up MPC heads? I been thinking about trying to connect my macbook/external harddrive to my MPC 2000 XL. The only way I can think of doing this is by converting the SCSI output to USB or Firewire...but I'm not sure if this will work.

I have a ton of drums and samples on my computer, but can't get them onto my MPC unless I use the sample function and record the sound in, cause I'm working with a floppy drive on my XL (128 MB ain't much)...I want to be able to add the samples right to the MPC from my macbook/external HD.

I found this adapter to convert SCSI to USB -

http://www.amazon.com/Systems-FR1SX-FireWire-Converter-IEEE1394/dp/B00006BANR/ref=sr_1_2?ie=UTF8&qid=1308231447&sr=8-2

Can anyone please please please shed some light on this?

Peace

You can't directly connect an mpc to a mac except via audio cables.

You need a medium that you can access with both the mpc and the computer.
So, you either need a usb floppy drive for your mac...
or you need to get a usb card reader for your mac and a card reader for your mpc.

there is an active card reader thread every day in this forum, just poke around on the front page a bit to get an idea. you will either need to go scsi or ide/atapi.

You cannot use the USB-to-SCSI or Firewire-to-SCSI converters because they require a driver be installed in the host and in this case, the MPC would be the host. You cannot install a driver into the MPC os, so those converters won't work.

And since the MPC doesn't support SMDI, you cannot use them with the computer as the host, at least not in any useful way.

As nogginj pointed out, your best bet for transferring files is either a USB zip and SCSI zip or a USB card reader and a SCSI or IDE card reader. These are the tried and true methods.

i reckon i will be placing an order with scsicardreaders.com in the next couple of weeks for exactly the same reason you described.
- i need to transfer 2000 data to something thats not zip or floppy. their external cf reader works with a lot of other hardware too.

thanks for the advice y'all, good to hear that it won't work before I bought it.

I have been using a USB to Floppy from my mac, I'm just over it cause it only holds 1.2 MB and I can't load in samples greater than 1.2 MB. I also have a 2000, and its got the zip drive, but its sketchy and fails epically and it's a dead media.

I guess what I need to do is go with an SCSI CD-ROM, cause its the closest to a "modern day" digital media, and I can still have the floppy in it to load my grimy ghetto floppy's.

Anyone from Toronto here that knows where to get an SCSI CD-ROM drive in the city? (not feeling the shipping cost to Canada from the scsiwebsite.com dude)

peace

disco technique, contact me when you are ready to place your order and I will give be glad to help you get set up. I'll throw in a free USB card reader so you'll be set to transfer those samples.

mistamouse, I hear you on the shipping. The CDROM drives and external CF-CARD drives are pretty heavy, so the shipping outside the US is expensive. Plus, as I write this, there is a Canada Post strike in effect, which is how I normally ship to Canada. I would think that you could find something on Canadian eBay that wouldn't be too expensive. If you see anything there that you would like me to verify compatibility for, just email me from my website or PM me on this site.

On thing - you do realize that a CDROM drive is a read-only device, right? You cannot save to it from your sampler. But you can burn CDs on your computer and load those on the XL, so it makes a decent one-way sample transfer option. The only thing is once you transfer the samples and tweak them into a program, how will you save them? You wouldn't want to have to do all that work every time. Or do you plan to make the programs on your computer and burn them ready-to-load onto the CDs?

JD - yeah I hear ya about the shipping ...im actually in the shipping business and I know its a heavy piece of equipment and all that which contributes to cost. Thus, I'm going to try to find one locally, if not, I'll get something from you on your website.

I understand that its a one way device...I guess an SCSI hard drive would be the 2 way device right?

Well, a hard drive is tough to get data into. Unless you have a SCSI card in your computer, you won't be able to load into it.

Have you considered a Card Reader drive?

Yeah im going to have to go with a card reader...I think this is the one I need for my XL

http://www.shopaddonics.com/Itemdesc.asp?ic=ADIDECFB&eq=&Tp=

You supply something like this? I like the idea of hot swappable, the one above doesn't look like it is.

I sell that exact model with the install kit and 1.2 upgrade floppy for just a few dollars more than the price on that web site. I also sell a guaranteed compatible Sandisk CF card for it at a pretty good price and if you buy, I'll give you over 1000 free really good drum samples on the CF card.

No, that drive I sell is not hot-swappable. If you want hot-swappable and can spare $100, that guy on eBay bnradiosquad looks to have a good product. I haven't spoken with anyone who has used it but he has sold a lot of them and has good feedback, so they must work okay.