Exchange tips and tricks for the Akai MPC4000
User avatar
By Coz Wed Apr 18, 2012 8:24 am
gertie wrote:RESULT!!! 8)



Certainly is, especially as I'd written it off!


scoobylol wrote:Are you going to keep it standard or customise her?



Contrary to everyone on here, I actually prefer the look of the blue 4k to the original so I'll be keeping it standard.
User avatar
By Coz Wed Apr 18, 2012 7:26 pm
Nice one G.

I've still got 3 or 4 weeks before I get it back but this will come in handy. 8)
By IllRhythm Fri Apr 27, 2012 4:43 pm
Wow, sweet deal Coz! A dud MPC4000 for £195 which has now been fixed, hopefully for not much, is dope! Mega bargain haha!

So besides the £10 postage, what was the problem and how much has it set you back? If you don't mind me asking... depending on prices, maybe I should send my first 2K off to see if they can sort that out!

They seem nice enough. :lol:
User avatar
By Coz Fri Apr 27, 2012 5:56 pm
Yeah, Synth Prof are cool but their turnaround times are long because it's only one guy.

At this point all I know is that the main problem was related to the screen, but he also had to patch up a previous botched repair and replace missing/incorrect cables. He's also getting it back into "factory fresh" condition. What that entails I don't know...

I've also requested a change of fan because the one thats on it is abusively loud. £200 for everything. 8)
User avatar
By damien907 Sat Apr 28, 2012 4:07 am
awesome man!

keep us updated as you hear more!
User avatar
By ceasi Sat Apr 28, 2012 5:48 am
good stuff.
User avatar
By Coz Thu Jun 07, 2012 3:14 am
Synth Prof is personally delivering my 4k back to me later today, which is cool because he lives 150 miles away. Obviously he is on business somewhere close but it's still nice. :smoker:
User avatar
By mr_debauch Thu Jun 07, 2012 2:39 pm
Coz wrote:Synth Prof is personally delivering my 4k back to me later today, which is cool because he lives 150 miles away. Obviously he is on business somewhere close but it's still nice. :smoker:


that is slick right there....

So if everything winds up being good work... and the mpc works as it should (who knows why it was getting repaired in the first place when it got botched) cant wait to hear what you do with that machine...
User avatar
By Coz Fri Jun 08, 2012 1:38 am
ArKyve-31 wrote:that's great news, I look forward to hearing what think of it.



So far so good. 8)

The general navigation around the machine is nice, although there's a fair amount of button bashing going on at the minute trying to work out where everything is! I'm doing an ArKyve at this stage and rolling without the manual, but I'll dig into it as and when I need to learn the finer points... For example, I imagine there's a far easier and quicker way to trim up samples without having to spin the jog wheel a million times?! The usual shift + jog or q-link isn't giving me much joy up to now. :oops:

Trim looks pretty alien from what I'm used to at this point.

With just a few hours play I can tell the sequencer is top notch. Being able to nudge events around in tiny increments in sequence edit and step edit is exactly what I'm looking for. In fact, it's probably the first thing I look for in any sequencer. Likewise, the filters are on the money for what I want. An absolutely VAST improvement over the 2500 anyway. Very very clean, but Ive got an analogue filter if I want something slightly dirtier. Even the effects sound useable in parts.

Now onto the not so good...

The pads on my machine are shocking! I'm getting a lot of double triggers, and I'd probably have to punch the pads to get full velocity! I'll have to look at ways to improve them because I can't do any serious work with them as they are.

Getting sounds into this thing (without physically sampling) is a different ballgame from what I'm used to. Since I have switched to Mac I find that any drives formatted for PC can't be written to. They can be read, deleted, auditioned or whatever but not written to. Getting Microsoft XP running in Fusion could sort out a whole world of issues in this respect. Ak.Sys could also turn out to be an added bonus of doing that.

The only other thing that I don't like so much is having to audition sounds in load using the F4 key. I've been spoilt using JJ by being able to use the pads, play/play start or F keys to audition. It's no biggie, but I've got used to sitting back and using the pads.

All in all, it's got the potential to be a keeper...
User avatar
By Coz Fri Jun 08, 2012 2:10 am
mr_debauch wrote:So if everything winds up being good work... and the mpc works as it should (who knows why it was getting repaired in the first place when it got botched) cant wait to hear what you do with that machine...




It was Synth Prof's wife who dropped it off and I had chance to quiz her on what was wrong with it.

Apparently the insides were a "shambles" and practically falling apart. When I had a look it seemed fairly solid, but there were missing cables and other unknowns going on. What he's effectively done is replaced the missing cables, switched out the sliders and a few pots and added a new hard drive. The 'zero' button which was slightly mashed into the case hasn't been touched at all. It works but I expected it to be fixed up. He's also sent it back minus the 256 mb ram stick for some strange reason.. :hmmm: