New MPC head

Hey there,
First post. Been toying with the idea of buying an MPC for a while and finally got a brand new 2500 yesterday. Just wanted to post some questions I have about it so far:

* Is there a way to sample audio while a pattern is playing?
* Why is chopshop so effin slow? Takes almost a minute to export a few bars worth of slices to samples..?
* Which JJ OS should I go for if I want to keep my MIDI timing as tight as possible? I remember reading something about certain JJ OS versions causing MIDI timing to loosen some..
* I can only use the delay effect in FX slot 2?

After messing around with the 2500 for a few hours last night, I am really warming to the unit! The pads are very responsive and hitting them feels great For some reason I feel like jamming with the 2K5 is faster and more fun than with my copy of Ableton Live (minus the sampling/chopping, which feels clunky and slow)

Cheers

You will get quicker at chopping eventually

ChopShop 2.0 is incredibly slow on the latest (last) Akai OS. This was the pay off for the ability to handle stereo patched phrase files.

Chopshop 1.0 is fast, so you can roll back your Akai OS, but the better free option is to install JJOS 3.10. But Patched Phrase is in mono.

Not sure about the MIDI issues, but ultimately I'd go for JJOS-XL. Check out 'audio tracks' if you want to record audio directly into a sequence (er, think there was 'direct recording' in the Akai OS on the 2500, been so long since I used it!)

JJOS-XL allows delay in FX1 as well

You can sample and edit sample while sequence is playing on jjos, dunno if its available in free version though.

Thanks for your replies!

Looks like I'm going to have to invest into JJOSXL then, I need delay for FX1 and to be able to sample/edit samples while a pattern is playing. The faster chopping sounds very appealing as well - could care less about stereo patched phrases ATM, the ability to sample/chop/refix audio (even in mono) on the fly is much more important to me.

Perhaps I should invest into your OSXL chopping guide while I'm at it - your discount is still available?

Forgot to mention non destructive chopping

Wow! That sounds really good Can you manipulate start/endpoints in realtime while ur at it as well ?!

tsutek wrote:T
Perhaps I should invest into your OSXL chopping guide while I'm at it - your discount is still available?

Yep, the JJOSXL promo code is still available for all purchases of the book

tsutek wrote:Wow! That sounds really good Can you manipulate start/endpoints in realtime while ur at it as well ?!

Ok, so I installed demos of JJOS 1 and JJOSXL yesterday, but run into problems and had to rollback to using the Akai OS. Is this a known issue? I started getting unexpected issues with the JJOS's, like being unable to record to a looping section on the 1st downbeat (JJOSXL) and sometimes using the grid edit mode changed the decays of some pads sound, setting a seq to 4 bars in lenght causing issues aswell.. Like what's that directory bug that was mentioned in the JJOS FAQ? There's no way that I'm paying anyone a hundred bucks for an OS that seemed as buggy as what I experienced last night.. Surely I did something wrong?

And oh yeah, I could not remove JJOS's with the Erase-button-down-while-powering-up method, that did nothing (it does not work on my MPC?!), so had to copy the Akai OS .bin to the CF card and update the OS with the Window-button-down-while-powering-up method..

Anyhow, things seem to be working OK again. Wondering about that earlier Akai OS version that had faster chopping (chop shop 1?) but only supported mono patched phrases, is it available online somewhere? I'd very much like to try it.

The directory bug I believe is referring to the bug in the Akai OS that the free JJOS fixed (you you have to reformat your disk in JJOS to fix it - only do this if you experience the problem though - I never experienced it myself).

As for the other issues, not ones I've experienced, reboot holding down erase to reinitialise the OS, you should always do this after swapping OS. If you do find a bug, please report it with a step-by-step recreation the bug report forum here so the community can take a look and confirm it as a bug or user error. We can then report it direct to JJ.

BTW, you cannot remove JJOS by holding down erase, you have to manually re-install the Akai OS on top of it, so the method you used was correct.

JJOS free will give you the quick chopping you're looking for, plus a whole load of extra features. It's more stable than the Akai OS and is still updated if anyone does find a bug. No brainer IMO.

As for OSXL, people infrequently discover very minor bugs, and JJ is still fixing them quickly (last update a few days ago). Also remember that all versions of JJOS are effectively live betas from a third party source, and no warranty is offered - it's very much reliant on community involvement - we all work together on it and JJ gets on with coding it and making our MPCs better machines.

My suggestion is try OSXL out for a few days in trial mode and if you experience problems, post here and we'll try to help, but you need to be specific regarding the problem. Remember you can switch between the free OS and OSXL by booting up with the TAP TEMPO button held down.

If you are not happy to drop any cash, just stick with JJOS free, or the Akai OS.

MPCTutor, thanks for chiming in so quickly. Perhaps I'm just trying to run before learning to walk. I'll install the JJOS free again and see if I can get along with that better.

So you're saying that by installing JJOS free yesterday, some kind of bug was fixed without me knowing about it? Did not reformat my CF card though, I only have the stock CF card that came with the MPC, don't want to mess with it. So I am to get a new CF card and reformat it with a JJOS, will try that.

So the erase-boot thingy does not reflash the ROM at all? It is related to something else entirely?

It feels a bit frustrating tbh.. I get a feeling that the MPC jungle is a weird WIP project development world where most of the critical info on how things work is undocumented, passed on through word of mouth kinda deal. You guys have been really helpful in all of this though, much appreciated. If I ever get all of this sorted out I'm a make "the missing manual" about these things LOL

If you experienced the directory bug in Akai OS, you can install JJOS free, reformat your drive and all is sorted. It was related to an issue with the way the Akai OS formated some drives. However if you didn't have any problems, it's no big deal.

ERASE upon boot just reinitialises parameters and settings

I think it may be best if we continue this in your other topic, otherwise it's going to get very confusing, so I'll lock this one and you can continue here:

viewtopic.php?f=25&t=164888