Problem with RCA to 1/4 adapters

Hi, brand new to the forum. I just got myself a used MPC 1000 on ebay, was told it was stock everything, got it and found out that it already has the 128 mb RAM, a hard drive built in, and the free JJOS. So I was pretty happy. Been reading the manual and watching a lot of tutorial videos and tried to sample for the first time last night. Just something off my iPhone to play around with. I have RCA to 1/4 inch adapters from monoprice that were like .40 each. I plugged them in and couldn't figure out why I wasn't getting any sound. Finally I pulled them out slightly and then got sound. Is this because I got cheap adapters? Also, does it matter if they are mono or stereo plugs? I mean if they have one black line around the plug itself or two?
Thanks.

yes it does matter. You'll need a TRS to 2xRCA cable. TRS means Tip,Ring, Sleeve and its the one with the 2 rings. The Tip gets the the LEFT signal from the iphone and will send it to the pin of the BLACK (or sometimes WHITE) RCA connector. The ring (the metal ring between the 2 colored or black rings) gets the RIGHT signal from the iphone and send it to the pin of the RED RCA connector. The sleeve of the TRS connector is connected to the both RCA connectors (the metal rings around the middle pin) and its the ground connection.

Since you now know that the iphone output is TRS (3 poles) you might can imagine that a 2 pole connector (TS = Tip, Sleeve) won't work cause the signal that usually would hit the ring now hits the sleeve and the ring and sleeve wires now have a short circuit.

peace

EDIT: I was wrong thinking the the MPC1000 had RCA inputs. It has TRS inputs (balanced mono inputs) but to not overcomplicate things here I cut short and tell you that the cable you'll need is a cable that has a 3,5mm TRS phone jack to 2x 1/4 TS phone jacks.

peace

Yeah, that's what I have, except using adapters on the RCA ends, just don't know why I'm only getting sound when they're not all the way plugged in.

1. read my edited post
2. for the turntable or other signal sources question: It always depends on the source what kind of connection you need.


On the MPC1000 side you'll always have to use 1/4 phone connectors (TS will be fine but if you use a source with balanced outputs which means 1 TRS or XLR for the left signal and 1 TRS or XLR for the right you can also use 2 TRS to TRS cable or 2 XLR to TRS cable) <- thats what I ment with overcomplicate stuff cause a TRS connector is used for two diffent things:
1. a stereo signal (left and right goes thru ONE connector
2. a balanced mono signal (google/wikipedia will help you with the differences here)

In your case like I said you will be fine with 2x 1/4 TS phone plugs on the MPC1000 side ond whatever plug the source need on the other side.
And do yourself a favor and don't use any adapter stuff. Buy cables that aleady have the correct plugs.

peace

Cool, I will. Thanks a lot.

the real problem with cheap rca to 1/4" adapters is that they come apart... no joke. The **** tip can pop off in the gear and you would have to open it up to get it out. That shit is a total ****... happened to me on a mixer once.

Hmm I don't get it, I went and got new 1/4 inch connectors from radio shack (they didn't have any cables) and I still need to back them out a but to get sound into the MPC. They are the TRS style too. What's going on here? Perhaps I need the TS style?

mr_debauch wrote:the real problem with cheap rca to 1/4" adapters is that they come apart... no joke. The **** tip can pop off in the gear and you would have to open it up to get it out. That shit is a total ****... happened to me on a mixer once.

Yeah, me too. I had to carefully drill a small screw into the adapter to pull it out. Took hours of sweat dripping on my face and a shakey hand but I got it out.

This is what I use. All solid.

Ill-Green wrote:

mr_debauch wrote:the real problem with cheap rca to 1/4" adapters is that they come apart... no joke. The **** tip can pop off in the gear and you would have to open it up to get it out. That **** is a total ****... happened to me on a mixer once.

Yeah, me too. I had to carefully drill a small screw into the adapter to pull it out. Took hours of sweat dripping on my face and a shakey hand but I got it out.

This is what I use. All solid.

So there's the answer. I need TS adapters. Thanks for the pic.

yes you do..


I dont even know how an rca gets rigged to 3 leads in a trs adapter.

you had to pull it out half way because the rca has 2 leads (wires and contacts) and it's being routed to two of the 3 on your adapter. if you use those like ill green showed you wont have to do that anymore.


get the good ones.

Thanks. I'm just glad that it's not the MPC that I bought that was the problem. I've been fooling around with it and everything else seems to be working great. My only problem now is finding the time to actually sit and learn it!

Jfinesse wrote:Thanks. I'm just glad that it's not the MPC that I bought that was the problem. I've been fooling around with it and everything else seems to be working great. My only problem now is finding the time to actually sit and learn it!

well good luck! when you get it sorted, don't forget to post some stuff in the your music sections of the forum!

Well golly fukken gee!