Getting Poor Sound out of 2500 - what's going on?

I notice that playing any samples through the record screen drops the quality dramatically. I thought I was originally just using bad quality samples, until I spent some time listening to music while running through the 2500; the dynamics are gone, some frequencies aren't even audible and it sounds like the whole thing has gone through a bad EQ job. When I bypass the MPC and listen directly through my monitors, the same music sounds bright, clear and with dynamics intact. These problems translate into the quality of my final mix. Sampling in stereo or mono has no effect, and running samples through my s1000 makes it sound only somewhat nicer. I've used the 2500 for a few years and tried to overlook this problem, but there is a drastic drop in quality.
Anyone else experiencing something similar?

post up examples, before and after?

dynamics being gone would suggest that there's something wrong in between the source and the mpc, as the mpc applies zero compression unless told to do so.

was the problem there from the beginning? or did it start happening over time?? Is ur Master effect section maybe turned on?
Normally the 2500 sounds fine.. at least mine does... Untill I start screwing things up

I just realized I posted in the JJ forum, my bad

Here is an A B comparison of two tracks. I tried to use a clip with a lot of different instruments. The first was recorded stereo into the mpc from CD format (couldn't use vinyl in this case) and the second is straight off the CD:

http://soundcloud.com/tjaved2/abdemo

Listen to how the dynamics in the organ, vocals and cymbals are much clearer on the second take. I understand that all samplers go through conversions and process sounds differently, but in this case everything is sounding flat and messed up. I used zero effects, eq, comp or filters in this process. Is this supposed to be normal?

thanks for making the test.

i am listening to this test on good headphones on my laptop
2 things - soundcloud player does some funny things with dynamics anyway, but i think i hear what you're talking about. unfortunately i can't be sure though without a different (sorry) a-b comparison sample.

if you have the gumption, find an open drum break or an otherwise sparse song to AB for us...the song you have chosen is extremely dense for such a test, it's kind of difficult to compare.

another point - B is louder than A, you can see that in the waveform. any idea why this might be? do us a favor and normalize both A and B so that we don't suffer the fletcher munsen effect.

you surely already know this, but make sure your audio isn't clipping as you're recording it.
secondly, SPDIF is infinitely preferable in my opinion over analog input. any issue you are having that truly stems from poor quality AD conversion could be sidestepped with a SPDIF cable.

Appreciate the help Nym

Here is the second test, again first is from the MP, second is original. Didn't use soundcloud this time

http://www.zshare.net/audio/94417948913d3f9e/

After normalizing I managed to get it to sound closer to the original, but I usually never normalize to avoid extra noise being added.

and the second is straight off the CD

You mean you sampled inside the 2K5 with the CD player?

I can't see the waveform or listen to the files but I think you already got all the answers in the thread : issues with A/D conversion, fletcher munsen thing and louder is better syndrome.

This time I sampled off CD. The problem is still noticeable after sampling vinyl (I'll post something up later). The sound quality on samples that have entered the MPC are sounding worse than the source material. I know D/A and A/D conversion will happen regardless but there is something wrong with the way the audio is being processed.

If I had to narrow it down, I would say that the sound isn't fully utilizing both left and right dynamics; it sounds choked and crammed in the middle as soon as it hits the MPC. At this point I have tried everything to fix it

And if I'm not mistaken I would like to add that if your global setting is not set at 0 there will be an attenuation in input thru or record mode.

Off-topic but I'm still hesitating about creating a topic about "level optimization" inside the MPC. From my experience there's an attenuation in load mode. Even if the global out is set at 0 there's a slight difference when resampling. In looper recorder mode (jj os) it records in mono so that's a thing to take into account. My aim was being able to hear exactly what I played for "live" performance but it's not so easy to find the good tweaks.

very pretty recording!
i will put this in reaper and check it out.
one quick point, normalizing doesn't add noise or add anything, really - it just brings the loudest peak up to a predefined level (usually 0 db). this DOES make the noise louder, but it makes everything else equally as much louder, so there is no degradation in quality or increase in the overall noise of the recording.

it's like magnification, it's the exact same sound, there's just more of it to look at.

in the 2nd recording, i hear less in the high range than in the first. dynamically, they sound pretty similar to me, but in DAW you can see that the 2nd recording's waveform looks different here and there. it actually appears that the 1st waveform clips or is limited in some especially loud moments. this is not reflected in the 2nd recording.

all said, the 2nd recording appears more dynamically varied. which is which? i'm guessing the 2nd is the original and the 1st is the MPC? though this doesn't fit with the 1st recording seeming to have more highs going on, but that just could be because it (even when both are normalized) is more squeezed than the 2nd recording.

very interesting. honestly, they both sound good to me and i wouldn't worry too much about it, but i can see why you're interested and it's a good topic.

(spdif ftw)

Nym wrote:all said, the 2nd recording appears more dynamically varied. which is which? i'm guessing the 2nd is the original and the 1st is the MPC? though this doesn't fit with the 1st recording seeming to have more highs going on, but that just could be because it (even when both are normalized) is more squeezed than the 2nd recording.

Exactly, the first one was from the MPC. The dynamics are much clearer in the second clip, which is telling me that the MPC is cutting them out for some reason. I don't know if this is normal or not; I have spent a lot of time trying to mix on DAW's trying to compensate for this problem. Not sure what to do at this point

Funny this comes up now... Last night I noticed something similar. I have my Fantom running through a kaoss pad and into my MPC. The sound coming out of the Mp sounds great, until I put it into record mode. It's not just a drop in volume, but a loss in quality. I plan to really get into a process of elimination tomorrow, as it could easily be an error of mine.

subscribing to this. I thought I noticed this too at one point. not to get off topic, but I also notice a major degredation in quality when applying effects (atleast it seems to my ears). The fx just don't sound good to my ears, especially the eq, there is just something really harsh about it.

le rat wrote:And if I'm not mistaken I would like to add that if your global setting is not set at 0 there will be an attenuation in input thru or record mode.

Off-topic but I'm still hesitating about creating a topic about "level optimization" inside the MPC. From my experience there's an attenuation in load mode. Even if the global out is set at 0 there's a slight difference when resampling. In looper recorder mode (jj os) it records in mono so that's a thing to take into account. My aim was being able to hear exactly what I played for "live" performance but it's not so easy to find the good tweaks.

where is this global settings? are you talking about master level? or the gain knob?