Mpc 2000 Sample Storage Options ?

Technical questions for the MPC2000xl and the MPC2000
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Re: Mpc 2000 Sample Storage Options ?

By Clint Sun Aug 10, 2014 8:25 pm
hok-2 wrote:I sure as f**k am not about to spend the same price I paid for my mpc on a outmoded scsi storage system.


How much did you spend, I suspect it was dirt cheap compared to the original retail price. So you've already saved a bunch of money by buying used.

hok-2 wrote:external Cf's are not available in the U.K


Not true, I've never bought from anywhere else. What UK are you living in, the Un Known?

hok-2 wrote:Surely there is a cheaper solution.


Cheap isn't usually the best option in the long run. Avoid Zip drives like the plague.

hok-2 wrote:Not sure the route I'm going to go in, really depends on what's available when I have the disposable income.


The benefits of saving for something you really need is underrated.

A cardreader will cost you between £150 and £200, regardless of what your MPC cost. Don't think of it as money spent, think of it as an investment in yourself and your passion. You can always get your money back later if you decide to sell.
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Re: Mpc 2000 Sample Storage Options ?

By hok-2 Mon Aug 11, 2014 1:30 pm
Clint wrote:
How much did you spend, I suspect it was dirt cheap compared to the original retail price. So you've already saved a bunch of money by buying used.

Yeah it was £220, I'm aware that there original price was around £1000 but it's no longer 1999 so I'm not sure that logic really applies.
Now days that's how much they cost.
I took it to the pawn shop once, to borrow some money to buy something else and they offered me £30.
Obviously I told them to "go F themselves"

Clint wrote:
Cheap isn't usually the best option in the long run.

And conversely expensive isn't usually the only option.
I agree Zip drives don't sound too appealing, but I imagine inside them there is just a PC type zip with a IDE socket on it?
Which could then be swapped for a hard drive or a cf card with a scsi to IDE bridge.
(this is pure speculation, so if anyone has advise on that, it would be appreciated)

Clint wrote:
A cardreader will cost you between £150 and £200, regardless of what your MPC cost. Don't think of it as money spent, think of it as an investment in yourself and your passion. You can always get your money back later if you decide to sell.[/quote]

Word, if money wasn't so tight I'd probably buy a external cf reader, but I think they are over priced, they seem to be old beige external hard drives with cf cards installed, and I'd probably just think 'jeeze man, I payed £150 for that wack ass sheeeet"
I haven't seen any that don't have to be imported from the U.S. and don't the U.S use a different voltage system to the U.K?
Really I'm just looking for a way to stagger the cost, and I'd quite enjoy the satisfaction of making something that solves the problem myself.
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Re: Mpc 2000 Sample Storage Options ?

By Wal Martian Mon Aug 11, 2014 3:23 pm
hok-2 wrote:...Zip drives don't sound too appealing, but I imagine inside them there is just a PC type zip with a IDE socket on it?
Which could then be swapped for a hard drive or a cf card with a scsi to IDE bridge.
(this is pure speculation, so if anyone has advise on that, it would be appreciated)


It's a little harder than that to put a card reader in a 2K.
There's two methods... one is to slice up a 25 pin scsi cable and solder it to where the external scsi connects.
Here's the old thread made by destruktiv
viewtopic.php?t=67154
and a newer one made by JVC
viewtopic.php?f=1&t=130248

The other method is to reroute the external scsi connection inside the case with a 3 way DB25 ribbon then convert SCSI to IDE with a few adaptors.
The back of your MPC with solderless mod will look something like this:


https://lh5.googleusercontent.com/mp8EL ... 15-h836-no

Re: Mpc 2000 Sample Storage Options ?

By dr4track Mon Aug 11, 2014 4:03 pm
Clint wrote:
hok-2 wrote:I sure as f**k am not about to spend the same price I paid for my mpc on a outmoded scsi storage system.


How much did you spend, I suspect it was dirt cheap compared to the original retail price. So you've already saved a bunch of money by buying used.

hok-2 wrote:external Cf's are not available in the U.K


Not true, I've never bought from anywhere else. What UK are you living in, the Un Known?

hok-2 wrote:Surely there is a cheaper solution.


Cheap isn't usually the best option in the long run. Avoid Zip drives like the plague.

hok-2 wrote:Not sure the route I'm going to go in, really depends on what's available when I have the disposable income.


The benefits of saving for something you really need is underrated.

A cardreader will cost you between £150 and £200, regardless of what your MPC cost. Don't think of it as money spent, think of it as an investment in yourself and your passion. You can always get your money back later if you decide to sell.


Hey man I feel u when ure talking about cost effectiveness, the main reason I didn't go for one with my eps is that I did not want to spend more money on the reader than on the sampler itself.That said I'm no expert on cf readers and for mpc 2000s it s prob a bit different than eps, but when I was looking into them for the eps and trying to source parts I was in touch with a guy from England and the only part that was from my side of the Atlantic was gonna b the casing, everything else would have been sourced from Europe, the problem seems to b (again I'm no expert, and I'm referring to ensoniq s ) most of the cheap options for the parts (I'm not gonna talk specifics cuz I don't remember anymore) that were available back when scsiforsamplers was open have dried up. For me literally 200$ was the pruce of the parts.

Anyways that was a bit long to not say much , good luck.
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Re: Mpc 2000 Sample Storage Options ?

By hok-2 Mon Aug 11, 2014 5:02 pm
dr4track wrote:
"Hey man I feel u when ure talking about cost effectiveness, the main reason I didn't go for one with my eps is that I did not want to spend more money on the reader than on the sampler itself"

Word up mate
Infallible logic

The effects card can be got cheaper
I'd pay 125-150 pound for one of those and have no problem
But for some ones moldy ass Commodore 64 hard drive that's been sitting in there nerdy flat all nicotine stained and stinky?
Mans talking joke business.
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Re: Mpc 2000 Sample Storage Options ?

By hok-2 Sat Aug 16, 2014 3:00 pm
distortedtekno wrote:I bought an optical drive for the 2k earlier during the year. The drive failed on me a few months ago. I never had any problems with the discs, so I may buy another MO drive. For now I'm using floppies.

Are you comfortable with building your own? If so, I'd suggest buying the parts (drive, enclosure, cables) and save a lot of money. I always built my own PCs since the late '90s. So this was fun to do, and I recommend it. If you need any further help, let me know.


Yep I would prefer to build my own
Then at least I know whats going on
And I'm ok with electronics

But when I factor into it . he price of a Scsi cable and the ambiguity of whether or not a thing will even work. I'm starting to think about just getting somthing like this
http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/Scsi-External ... 4184c02577
But even that I'm not sure will definitely work and I can do a lot of other stuff with 50 quid.
Yo know

But saving my beats on the floppy drive i'snt working
I think the Floppy drive on my MPC is probly a bit knacked
But it did well to last this long , so Kudos.

I've also been judging up the merits of getting somthing like this
http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/2x-HP-JetStor ... 1e8f53f4cc

Then putting a hard drive or cf reader in.

Tape buisness. you know I look at all these things and just think "this is obsolete technology" kind of stuff you'd find in a skip.
So I'm not keen on buying it.
But I suppose some people look at a Mpc2000 with the same mind-set

I Know for a fact this is the best drum machine I've ever had.

And I'm not going to sell it or trade it in for a Xl.
NO !
I use a 2000
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Re: Mpc 2000 Sample Storage Options ?

By distortedtekno Sat Aug 16, 2014 3:15 pm
hok-2 wrote:
distortedtekno wrote:I bought an optical drive for the 2k earlier during the year. The drive failed on me a few months ago. I never had any problems with the discs, so I may buy another MO drive. For now I'm using floppies.

Are you comfortable with building your own? If so, I'd suggest buying the parts (drive, enclosure, cables) and save a lot of money. I always built my own PCs since the late '90s. So this was fun to do, and I recommend it. If you need any further help, let me know.


Yep I would prefer to build my own
Then at least I know whats going on
And I'm ok with electronics

But when I factor into it . he price of a Scsi cable and the ambiguity of whether or not a thing will even work. I'm starting to think about just getting somthing like this
http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/Scsi-External ... 4184c02577
But even that I'm not sure will definitely work and I can do a lot of other stuff with 50 quid.
Yo know

But saving my beats on the floppy drive i'snt working
I think the Floppy drive on my MPC is probly a bit knacked
But it did well to last this long , so Kudos.

I've also been judging up the merits of getting somthing like this
http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/2x-HP-JetStor ... 1e8f53f4cc

Then putting a hard drive or cf reader in.

Tape buisness. you know I look at all these things and just think "this is obsolete technology" kind of stuff you'd find in a skip.
So I'm not keen on buying it.
But I suppose some people look at a Mpc2000 with the same mind-set

I Know for a fact this is the best drum machine I've ever had.

And I'm not going to sell it or trade it in for a Xl.
NO !
I use a 2000


The cheapest way to go is to find a used enclosure similar the tape drive you found. I saved a lot of money buying a CD Rom enclosure. It just takes a little time to gather everything you need at a more reasonable price. But it's definitely worth it. I believe I only spent $80 for everything I needed (MO drive, enclosure, drive bay adaptor, SCSI cable).
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Re: Mpc 2000 Sample Storage Options ?

By hok-2 Thu Aug 21, 2014 10:42 am
So after looking at a lot of different devices I went for one of these
http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/Teac-SCSI-CDR ... 35cb86be01
But mine doesn't have a the cd drive part installed, It's just the enclosure with the Scsi port and the connecters inside, it was £19 and it looks like the internal connecter is a Ide, although I haven't received it yet and it's hard to tell what type from the photo.

The tape drive's I was looking at seemed to have scsi to an internal scsi port on the actual tape drive inside, and also I wasn't really sure they could be modified, so I decided against that.
Plus scsi to IDE bridges all seem to cost over £100
I've got an old 10gb hard drive out a mac that looks like it will fit the connections.
Ultimately a I'd like to fit a cf card reader into it.
But for now just a hard drive will be great, so I hope it works out.

Re: Mpc 2000 Sample Storage Options ?

By JVC Thu Aug 21, 2014 4:16 pm
If you want to use MPC-2000 classic rather than 2000XL, then SCSI MO drive is the best option, I think. (I don't think tape drive would work with MPC, and it would be way too slow to save and load, even if it work with 2000.)

AKAI officially supported SCSI MO drives (MO disks are mentioned in MPC-2000 manual), so you don't need to hack anything.
It works like ZIP drive (means it is hot-swappable), but MO drives are much, much more dependable, and MO disks are one of the most reliable data storage system I know (MO drive may fail, but disks, data loss on MO disks are so rare, I've never heard of one incident.)
I used to use MO drives with old Mac back in the days, and I never had a single issues with MO.

Make sure NOT to get 5.25-inch MO drive, they don't work with MPC-2000 or 2000XL (because of sector size.) Make sure to get an external 3.5-inch SCSI MO drive.
I think the hardest part is to find SCSI MO drive. They are hard to find. MO disks are not that hard to find though.
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Re: Mpc 2000 Sample Storage Options ?

By hok-2 Thu Aug 21, 2014 4:29 pm
To Simon In Australia
Just to apologize for going off on one at you
I just got back from the pub, and was tanked up
I see now that I got the wrong end of the stick

My post was in the wrong section and very badly written
And I acted like a prick about it.

I know you cats are just trying to keep it coherent and legible for all the users, so soz about that mate.

I learn a lot of useful stuff off this website and it really helps with my progress technically and musically.

So you know, Big up.
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Re: Mpc 2000 Sample Storage Options ?

By hok-2 Thu Aug 21, 2014 4:52 pm
[q, but MO drives are much, much more dependable, and MO disks are one of the most reliable data storage system I know (MO drive may fail, but disks, data loss on MO disks are so rare, I've never heard of one incident.)
I used to use MO drives with old Mac back in the days, and I never had a single issues with MO.

Yeah the tape thing was a bit too oldscool
Just the enclosures seem usefull

One guy on here said his M.O drive just failed
I mean it's all allready got ten years on it
So you're allways going to have that in the back of your mind.

I'm going to make a external scsi hard drive

What I don't get is the triumphant increase in price
I saw two scsi tape drives for ten pound & a scsi cable
Then the same device singularly for 500 pound

But yeah M.0 drives are about 25 poand

Why's no one into scsi hard drives?
Is it hard to find the specific files ?

For me just being able to save a sample bigger than 1.44 mb sounds like paradise
I usually make a beat then try to play a baseline to it, over say 8 bars, if I then have to chop that up I will often loose the nuance.

I can get as hard as drives cheep as a pack of floppy disks

So I'm going to try using a hard drive for a while.
Ha Haaa!

Re: Mpc 2000 Sample Storage Options ?

By JVC Thu Aug 21, 2014 6:20 pm
hok-2 wrote:...
Why's no one into scsi hard drives?
Is it hard to find the specific files ?
...

Because MPC-2000 does not support directory; you won't be able to organize your data files with folders.
Yes, you may get by with having a lot of partitions, but organizing files with disks makes more practical sense.
Plus, it is much easier to transfer files between PC to MPC with MO disks than a SCSI hard drive.
And MO drive might go bad, but data on MO disks would be most likely fine.

I mean, Zip drive would've been great for MPC-2000, if Zip system were reliable.
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Re: Mpc 2000 Sample Storage Options ?

By Serattic Thu Aug 21, 2014 9:05 pm
I've never had to use more than 2 floppies for a track. what exactly are you doing going about 28 floppies per track? There are a lot of ways to save up on kb's mate!

My mpc2000 came with a broke floppy drive. I tried the external zip route for a while, but reading up on them here made me hella scared everytime I heard the slightest clicks coming from the diskdrive. replaced the floppy drive and bought new floppies. I'm a happy man.
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