MPC2000 and MPC2000XL LCD Screens

mr_debauch wrote:that being said... in your face mpc world!

You guys need to school me on some back history of these screens. Who has claimed it couldn't be done. How much was spent on trying to do it. That kind of thing.

Any stories?

envisionelec wrote:

mr_debauch wrote:that being said... in your face mpc world!

You guys need to school me on some back history of these screens. Who has claimed it couldn't be done. How much was spent on trying to do it. That kind of thing.
Any stories?

well you were here for at least a part of the modsman debacle - and it's pretty amusing...it begins here:
viewtopic.php?f=1&t=138491&hilit=mpcworld&start=150

...and ends here:
http://mpc-forums.com/viewtopic.php?f=1&t=147236

long story short, the owner of some fly-by-night mpc junkyard shows up, in cognito, in this thread talking about what a stupid idea it is because you can get screens from mpcworld for cheap. a big part of the hilarity is his and the site's insistence on 'going green with a recycled screen'...
we all know it's bullshit, it's just a screen salvaged from another unit, he is just trying to undercut mpcstuff.
he starts out by slagging mpcstuff and you guys, then he goes so far as to accuse a lot of us as working in cognito for mpcstuff (takes one to know one, right?).

anyway so a concerned user starts a new thread asking about this seemingly shady site. when we catch him up to speed on the screens thread, the owner shows up again with the same bs. he gets called out, and strangely enough there is a 'ripple effect' with the mpcworld facebook page - where some evidence pointing to the connection between modsman and mpcworld is removed immediately after being brought up on this site (his reply was classic jedi mind trick shit too).

suddenly, a new account appears to mr. modsman's rescue. coincidentally, they always post one after another, always backing each other up, and in the same, chaotic, double post, ignorant style.

it goes on and on until a lovely mod checks the ip and realises the two users defending this site so vehemently are coming from the same place, which is coincidentally the same place mpcworld is located.

couldn't ask for a better / worse trolling fail.


ps. dont think theyre still in business

as for other attempts at screen replacements -
i believe a lot of people caught wind that the dps hard disk recorder screens would work (with some modifications) and so there are probably a lot of dead dps's out there now.
another user around here was attempting to create a new screen, but couldn't get past a certain point...but i think you are aware of that.

my question for you - what is it about the screen that makes it:
a) so hard to reproduce
b) require extra circuit boards and induce that 'lag' that people are talking about?

...im assuming they are related?

A weinie bumper to the max...


with cheese.

pretty entertaining though in retrospect...

Indeed it was...

tapedeck wrote:my question for you - what is it about the screen that makes it:
a) so hard to reproduce
b) require extra circuit boards and induce that 'lag' that people are talking about?

...im assuming they are related?

To understand how to make the screen work, you have to know exactly how the other screen worked: To my knowledge, nobody but AKAI and my team know what kind of chips the original screens were using. I spent a few weeks trying to determine it, but then remembered something about the design process of the chips that gave me an exact answer - right down to the part numbers. The chips that were originally used are NLA. Even the plant that made the original chips is out of business/doing something else. So, the days of a hardware-based display are over. That brings us to software. Software isn't as fast as hardware*, so we can't do everything as quickly as the original. We know, without a doubt, who made the original screens. They were not interested in developing a replacement - which is the same reason AKAI doesn't have them anymore. Trust me, we looked for the cheapest possible way first. We work on the K.I.S.S. (keep it simple, stupid) principle, and this display is a simple as we could possibly make it - but no simpler.

The reason there is a second board is because nobody makes a direct replacement for the OEM LCD GLASS (this is just the glass - not any circuitry). The second board contains everything that allows the MPC to talk to the display. This is very important to understand. The diagonally-mounted chip right in the center is a PIC microprocessor running at 64MHz - over 5 times faster than the entire MPC. It is flying through custom code written by a top engineer that is stripping the data from the MPC, recording it into a new matrix and re-writing it to the display. The other chips on the board are the "glue" that holds it all together.

The lag is minimal and controlled. We know it's there and don't try to hide from it. Of course, it's not optimal, but it is a side effect of having to figure out if the MPC is actually updating the screen or just "saying" it is. The MPC firmware is pretty craptastic and tries to put too much stuff on the data bus at once, so the screen actually participates in some of the MPC processing.

The OEM screen, like just about every other screen on the market, updates small portions of the screen by using "pointers" that tell the process exactly where the data has changed and by how much. The OEM screen has another area (about 2/3s of the way across) that is completely separate from the rest of the matrix. If you're still reading this - that is the reason this thing lags a bit. Blame the stupid MPC design. It really sucks! We really hate it! But, we kept trying until we got it as close to perfect as possible.

We know for a fact that we could make a perfect screen with zero lag. But it would cost 3-4 times more. I wouldn't buy it and I know you wouldn't either.



*FPGA's (another kind of processor) are as fast, but they are much more expensive. Nobody will pay that kind of money just to save 30 milliseconds. If you are interested in investing $50k into the business end of this design to get your 30 milliseconds back, we'll talk.

thanks for the detailed info.

so the board is acting as a translator sort of from the old school mpc firmware to the new screen and it's way of working.

thanks again.

tapedeck wrote:as for other attempts at screen replacements -
i believe a lot of people caught wind that the dps hard disk recorder screens would work (with some modifications) and so there are probably a lot of dead dps's out there now.

Unofficially, the DPS may work with the new screens. Just flip the ribbon on the display-side over.

I haven't tried it - do so at your own risk!

envisionelec wrote:

tapedeck wrote:as for other attempts at screen replacements -
i believe a lot of people caught wind that the dps hard disk recorder screens would work (with some modifications) and so there are probably a lot of dead dps's out there now.

Unofficially, the DPS may work with the new screens. Just flip the ribbon on the display-side over.

I haven't tried it - do so at your own risk!

I did this before, a pain in the ass. If you could solder another ribbon but in opposite polarity it will work also. Still a pain in the ass. I de-soldered it and revived my DPS once you made these screens haha, now imma have a grey Akai attack as my home setup. Thank you Envision!

Glad everyone is enjoying their screens. Again, huge thanks to Envision Electronics for making it happen. Aaron and I must have gone back and forth 100s of times getting these things all together. They are geniuses and I assure you this wont be their last MPC related project with MPCstuff. Also a special thanks to all the doubters and haters I am quite sure there were times Aaron and Envision wanted to quit the project but kept on just because of you.

shout out to mpcstuff and envision....i hope everyone that has ascreen is enjoying it. I started a new thread because i had some issues with mine and hopefully envision can chime in and help me out.
at first the screen was just blank after the initial "MPCSTUFF spare parts ." screen. I took care of that by ensuring that all my hook up were snug and tight...it appeared that my 8 outs card was a bit loose.
After i got it working, i noticed two things
1: some of the words appeared "jumbled" in my mixer screen when i was assigning tracks to channels
2: this concerns me the most..the beat counter is delayed. its not on beat. This makes it difficult to know exactly where I am in the track as far as time is concerned.
All in all I am very happy to have a new working screen, but I need to know if these two small issues can be fixed...really the beat counter thing because the jumbled words issue is not a big deal. it corrects itself once you choose another function or scroll etc..
Thanks

omarphi215 wrote:shout out to mpcstuff and envision....i hope everyone that has ascreen is enjoying it. I started a new thread because i had some issues with mine and hopefully envision can chime in and help me out.
at first the screen was just blank after the initial "MPCSTUFF spare parts ." screen. I took care of that by ensuring that all my hook up were snug and tight...it appeared that my 8 outs card was a bit loose.
After i got it working, i noticed two things
1: some of the words appeared "jumbled" in my mixer screen when i was assigning tracks to channels
2: this concerns me the most..the beat counter is delayed. its not on beat. This makes it difficult to know exactly where I am in the track as far as time is concerned.
All in all I am very happy to have a new working screen, but I need to know if these two small issues can be fixed...really the beat counter thing because the jumbled words issue is not a big deal. it corrects itself once you choose another function or scroll etc..
Thanks

Both of these issues have been optimized as much as possible due to the way that Akai handles the screen update. We have to add a slight delay (as discussed above) that affects response time a bit. We understand that some people will find this more bothersome, but it is "normal" operation...

Text jumbling is another side effect, but as you pointed out, goes away once another selection is made. We've found that some systems "jumble" more often if the MPC isn't adequately grounded and/or the electrical outlet isn't wired properly.

**EDIT**

Yes jumbled words is a very small price for a new clear screen, however the beat counter is an issue for me. If I'm listening to a track and realize that somethin is wrong with it, I can't determine where the mistake may be in time. What if I need to step edit some really syncopated tracks? I mean again I am very happy to have a new screen but this issue really bothers me because I use the countrerand in some cases rely on the counter. Is it just me?