Flash memory vs CD vs Hard Drive vs Internal - clarification

New to MPC, blah blah blah. Mine has a 512 mb flash card and a CD drive. And 128 MB of ram.ww

What does this all mean? From what i understand, the flash card holds your samples and songs. To get samples onto the flash card, you need to... load them from a PC or CD? Is this right?

The ram does not hold your samples and songs - right? What does the ram do?

I don't believe my unit has an internal hard drive. But there is an "Internal" option when I'm in the Load window. Stock sounds labelled "2500" this and "2500" that. Is this referring to the RAM?


And unrelated, can you load folders at a time or does it have to be one sample at a time?


Sorry for newb questions, I've read a ton on this site, just trying to fast track my understanding

Copying folders/files from PC over USB to the CF is one way. (All files must be 16 bit/44khz). Or samples you've recorded (through the inputs) and edited inside the MPC can be saved to the CF card.

The RAM does hold your samples but only the ones you've loaded into it. And the song data is in RAM too but it's MIDI data so takes up very little space compared to audio files. And anything in RAM is gone on shutdown.

Internal on the load screen wouldn't even show up unless a internal HD is already installed. See if you can load whatever is listed. The 2500 had the HD mounting bracket already installed so more people put them in than 1000's, also many 2500's were sold with an HD installed from factory.

And yes you can load whole folders at once. If it's a bunch of samples you have to assign them to pads. If it's samples and a Program file is already saved in the folder, loading the folder will load the samples on the pads as your saved Program assigns them.

When you save you have options to save programs with samples on up to options fir saving the entire contents of the memory.

Try walking through all the screens with the manual handy (pdf on computer screen works good) and all this stuff clicks pretty fast.

you got most of it down, Metatron72 explained the rest

I can load files off the "Internal" but I can't save to it, as it says its already full :/

alex1fly wrote:I can load files off the "Internal" but I can't save to it, as it says its already full :/

I just looked at mine (JJOSXL so my screen may differ) and my internal is labeled hard disk and underneath lists HDD and like 91,000+MB free (I have like 90GB free).

If your screen doesn't list it like that or you're still unsure if it has a hard drive plug a USB cable in the back plug it into a PC or Mac and press USB then Mount. After a few seconds it will show the hard disk in Windows Explorer or Desktop/Finder on OS X.

If you do have an HDD it's easier to manage folders on the computer.