MPC 60 upgrades nowadays...

Hey, curious what can I do to the mpc 60, i'm not sure what's out there.

the mpc i'm grabbing is a 3.10, but what is the differene between 3.10 and 3.11...i forget...

It's got no memory expansion, and no scsi.

I read about swapping the floppy drive out with an SD card?

also I read about soldering some DIM ram chips onto the board for the max memory?

Any other new upgrades I could be done? Hot pink pads?

I miss the mpc60, I'm not really looking to make music anymore...but it's just something to chill out with. I got an mpc500 i've been borrowing from a buddy of mine, it kind of sucks...it's just not user friendly, but the setup will be mpc60+mpc500+microQ+quadraverb+piano/organ module+macbook for recording+1 fostex monitor+a half working behringer 16 channel monitor....ghetto I know, I had a lot of bad shit happen to me in the last few years though...

are people still even using MPC60s ? lol.

Memory expansion (Official or hack)

SCSI expansion (Out of production)

Internal Card Reader upgrade (Requires SCSI)

HxC Floppy Emulator (Uses SD cards but doesn't require SCSI)

Replacement Pads (Regular or Fat Pads/ Pad-Corx to increase sensitivity)

Skins or Paint (Customise the appearance of your machine)

3001 wrote:


are people still even using MPC60s ? lol.

damn right!

Awesome, should be here in a week or so.

I'm thinking about trying the SD floppy mod, and the memory hack.

What do you think is the safest method? I tried going through the "MPC 60 bible" but a lot of the links were dead...

I dont really want to deal with scsi...such a pain... but the memory upgrade is a necessity.

what bout the backlit display. I saw some on ebay dirt cheap, and some links elsewhere ridiculously high. Are they horrible quality?

you can get a new backlight on ebay for under 40 bucks.. the mod doesn't require soldering either.. I forget the guy's ebay name.

the memory hack that involves piggy backing ram chips soldering them onto the existing ram chips seems risky and not worth it.. you can get the ram upgrade on many mpc 60s for cheap... when i bought my 60 a while back it came with OS 2.12 and the ram.. it was like 400 bucks. I suggest buying one of those.. and removing the ram expansion card .. then maybe reselling that mpc or something.

3001 wrote:



Any other new upgrades I could be done? Hot pink pads?

I miss the mpc60, I'm not really looking to make music anymore...but it's just something to chill out with.

I hear you.

3001 wrote:Hey, curious what can I do to the mpc 60, i'm not sure what's out there.

the mpc i'm grabbing is a 3.10, but what is the differene between 3.10 and 3.11...i forget...

There is no OS3.11 for the MPC 60. The last OS released for the MPC 60 was 3.10. 3.11 was only for the MPC 3000.

3001 wrote:
also I read about soldering some DIM ram chips onto the board for the max memory?

I've done this mod a few times for myself and some friends. It's cheaper than buying a "memory expansion" and easy if you know how to solder. Be careful when removing the old parts as the boards are old. If you have trouble removing the original chips, add a little solder to the solder joint to reflow and it should work much easier.

The link below is still valid and has some nice pics.
http://blog.retrosynth.com/archives/200 ... rself.html

3001 wrote:Any other new upgrades I could be done? Hot pink pads?

You can change the LEDs on the control board to something other than red.

On my 60, I reupholstered the armrest with black leather. The material came from a custom auto shop that had some scrap material and sold to me cheap. Took about an hour to do after watching YouTube videos on upholstery.

If you need to change your backlight, buy this one from eBay for $9.49 shipped: http://www.ebay.com/itm/330565161421

All backlights are made from the same material -- many people put the word MPC in the listing so they can charge more for it.

3001 wrote:are people still even using MPC60s ? lol.

Yes. I use it for all of my sampled drums.

Thanks for the replies. I'm going to look into the guy with the backlit display

What about replacement sensors? Is there anyone good to get from? should I just wait on ebay for it?

I'm thinking It'd be best to replace them.

Who does the overlay on the MPC for cosmetics?