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By Tonedef Sat Dec 22, 2012 9:23 pm
Hello Everyone,

My name is Lyndon

I'm from Toronto Canada. My uncle and I want to purchase a MPC 2500

But before we do we wanted to know if the files we have on the Roland
MP 50 can be transferred onto the MPC.

We have music that for years we have programmed on the Roland

But its way overdue for an upgrade so we wanted to
go with the MPC 2500. We just dont want to have to reprogram
15 years or more of music all over again

It would probably take us like forever. :-)

Any advice and suggestions would be greatly appreciated

Thanks a lot

:-)

Lyndon
User avatar
By damien907 Sun Dec 23, 2012 3:48 pm
if there is a midi export on your roland it would be possible (im not sure about on akai os though, check and see if it has midi import), but with jjosxl, and possibly the other jjos operating systems it would work fine.
By Tonedef Sun Jan 27, 2013 12:54 am
Thanks for the input guys. Really appreciate it.
One more question.

Which would you get?

The MPC 5000 or the 2500?

My uncle wants the 5000 but his friends keep telling
him that its loaded with bugs and has a lot of problems
that he should get the 2500

What do you guys think?

Should he get the 5000 or the 2500?

Thanks again for your advice
User avatar
By damien907 Sun Jan 27, 2013 3:30 am
get the 2500 and put jjosxl on it, it is better than the 5k imo, its also still being updated, the 5000 probably wont ever see another update.

jjosxl costs around 120 dollars i think, but i wouldnt even be using a 2500 or a 1k without it. its the single best upgrade you can do for your mpc hands down. also now with the xlcd screen, you are really going to be getting alot more bang for your buck in the future. this also makes your screen on the mpc 1000 or 2500 the same size as the 5000 screen.

go to www.mpcstuff.com and look up the xlcd screen, it costs 185 bucks, but well worth it imo. and also look at this thread, it explains the xlcd screen more in depth, and alot of updates have been added since the beginning, im going to switch to it after i finish up my current projects on my jjos2xl on my 1k:

viewtopic.php?f=41&t=155560

and dont get confused with jjosxl and the xlcd screen, they both run different versions of jjos. the jjosxl and jjos2xl are used for mpc 2500 and mpc 1000 respectively, but if you get the xlcd screen there is another version that you can upgrade to for 70 or 80 bucks, i think this is going to be the most powerful thing you can put on a hardware mpc ever if it already isnt.

another thing, i would def buy a used mpc over a new one, if its well taken care of you can find them for really cheap, and they will last along time. your just throwing money out the window if you buy one new imo.
By Tonedef Sun Jan 27, 2013 3:27 pm
Hi Damien

Thanks a mill for the expert advice

Will surely take it.

I will get the 2500 for my uncle and inform him of what you said in this post

Gonna do these upgrades for sure

Thanks again really appreciate the advice
By Tonedef Sun Jan 27, 2013 4:43 pm
Can someone please explain to me what exactly is JJOXL?

My uncle is asking now

Thanks
User avatar
By damien907 Mon Jan 28, 2013 2:51 am
yeah man, no problem, i would hate to see someone buy an mpc without really knowing all the options.

basically jjos is an aftermarket os made by a former akai employee, they had some bad buisness so he parted ways and started developing the jjos which pretty much turned into the holy grail of mpc OS's.

its made off of the code of the original akai os, but imo (as well as most people on here) jjos trumps any akai os, especially the ones for the mpc 1k and 2500. i wouldnt even consider working on akai os for either of these models.

there are quite a few different things you need to know aobut them though,
first of all, there is a free version (i dont remember the number)
then there is jjos 2 ( i think this is the 70-80 dollar version)
then there is jjos2xl, and jjosxl (these are the exact same os, except jjos2xl will only work on a 1k and jjosxl will only work on a 2500.)
up until recently, jjos2xl and jjos xl are the only os's that are being constantly updated and developed, but they are pretty complete, there is just bugs people find and jj fixes them as they come.

recently though, mpcstuff.com and jj have teamed up to build a bigger screen (which mpc stuff manufactures) and jj is developing an OS for it, so this is primarily where his focus has been lately, but he is still doing bugfixes for the 2xl and xl, but he is developing this new OS from scratch now, and it is called 128 and 128xl (this is the paid upgrade to 128os which ships with the larger screen).

so basically, jjos2xl and jjosxl are probably not gonna see much future development, but we will probably still see some bugfixes and stuff from time to time ( very recently he has updated these os's despite of alot of his energy going into the 128 and 128xl OS's which is really cool.
but realistically, if your using os2xl or osxl, you really dont have to worry about it not having features that you will want, because honestly, it will probably do everything you would ever need it to do. but with the development of the new OS, while there is still a few complaints about him just leaving osxl and os2xl in the dust (which we really dont know for sure anyway) you wont have to worry about something it cant do.
stuff in the new large sreen os is just being streamlined and integrated better because he can write that one from scratch instead of just adding and taking things away from the original source code.

basically, you cant go wrong with xlcd or osxl with the small screen. im perfectly fine with my os2xl on my 1k with the small screen, but after i finish the album im working on i will probably consider upgrading to the xlcd screen paid for os.

also, if i were to buy an mpc that is used, i would make sure it has an on board harddrive, and also the RAM upgrade (128mb is what it holds) and the jjos2xl already installed so you dont have to install it yourself.

when you do buy the jjos you will be asked to put in a serial number and then its locked to that machine forever, so rest assured as long as you have that mpc you will always have that os. this is why i would wait for one to come up on ebay with the jjosxl version on it and then buy that one. if you get those 3 things, you will pretty much be set to go right when you plug it in.

also you can load any jjos on a machine without paying for it, you just wont be able to save, so this is a good way to try it out before you buy, but honestly i would just get one with jjosxl strait away and youll be set, unless you want to upgrade to the xlcd and get the 128os or 128xl.
you probably wont find an mpc on ebay with the xlcd screen already installed because its so new, but you could just buy that yourself afterwards if you decide you will want it. check out the jjos subforum here.