Exchange tips and tricks for the Akai MPC4000
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By koncepticon Fri Dec 21, 2018 5:48 am
Ive tried to do some research before posting.. This is the second MPC4000 I have purchsed in the month of december. The first never showed, and now my christmas money is being ransomed by paypal till at least January. [stay the f away form paypal]


Here's the issue --= wanna guess? Aksys. omfg. I setup parallels, but only had windows 7 so gave it a try. it works fine, except the transfer continually gets interrupted, and says "file transfer failed. mpc abruptly powered down (or something) error 15.

i know with certainty the usb cable is good. I had to go through 18 sticks of RAM to find one 128MB chip that works and doesn't cause distortion when i load samples or record..

This is incredibly frustrating. Since i saw this happening with parallels, i went on another scavengar hunt and got a pentium 3 laptop running windows xp to do the transfer. It is no better, even more unreliable than the mac to parallels through a usb port on an external monitor type of connection. Im gonna just bet a dollar now that i will probably need to jsut do a careful bit of resoldering on the USB port next time she is opened...

Or is disconnecting in the middle of a file transfer) something that is common? I really hope not.. not sure why anyone would say this is the best mpc ever if you can't even load shit on to it without throwing it through the window because it **** up so much..

I got this one the second time around from a guitar center. It wasn't cheep, and looks mint. Im starting to wonder if they had anyone who was capable of proper testing, as they couldnt not even give me the specs before buying and of course, no ram and a most likely bunk hard drive. Luckily in this case, i can return within 45 days, but i dont want to return it i would rather make them fix it for me.. but i will need to figure out whats wrong first

if the majority, or better yet the 3-4 people who actually know whats up think its the hard drive, i can do that but may need info if only some brands work. Samsung does not seem to work (80gb Enhanced IDE)

i have the service manual also, still not seeing where there are any startup or diagnostic options.. is there anything like that?

Also why the heck does the blue one not come maxed out and with a cf card? Now i need to go look and see when they put that blue 2000xl on the market and sulk.. i could have just got one of those local for $350 in mint condition. sent a friend after it and he didn't even bite, meanwhile i just spent 1800 and have a level 4000 headache. I was thinking that it was at least slightly newer than the 1000, considering my mpc 1000 has been deteriorating more and more daily and just purchased a few months ago. Its running 16MB ram and no right on 1&2, but i can still throw a drum, a bass, and at least some hats on and bring them in on seperate channels. if it wasn't such a piece of shit form day one i wouldnt have had to rush into the 4000.. but on the other hand in my perspective, these are already getting a bit rare, and will probably start going back up in price soon 9unless they all keep **** up like this)

Please tell me there is an easy fix and im an idiot. id be cool w that.
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By koncepticon Fri Dec 21, 2018 11:57 am
ok bet i will test that.. as soon as i find out how to do it.. im kind of thinking the same thing, but really hope it is not so.. my mpc 1000 fell ill in the same manner a few months ago. it is allergic to all RAM. as long as no ram is in it, its happy... with 16MB RAM.. how is this not newer than the 1000 -- and nearly abandoned completely? gonna have to call this mpc Outcast.

So I was 'forced' to get this.. and guess what -- 16MB RAM is what its calling for.

Weirdness continues..

I let it sit for a few hours, after i loaded a few programs and tested recording a sample.

It only lets us record 6 seconds? that's weird it says 7 minutes available with the 128 chip in...

Anyways after a few hours, i step up to the station and its all static. i noticed a bad ground type of shock when i touched it at some point too. Few hours? I leave my 2000xl on for months at a time, through power outages...

Rebooted, loaded the same pgm.. sounds ok - except for Pad 4. its all wonky. so, i reassign a different note. Still wonky .i know the pad isnt defunked it sounded alright earlier. .

I know it sounds like RAM, but could the damaged audio files be due to a bad disk, or software error in ak? That seems most likely , after using that piece of ... i wish mpc editor 3... actually yes, i can use that kind of, i dont think i can browse tho. .

i think about 99% im gonna have to take this back.. but ill play with it for a month at least and see if i change my mind and cant live without it. 512MB sample RAM tho.. if it worked! my ram might be shit tho i am not gonna lie. i had a gig of hynix around here somewhere too (in 256mb pairs)
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By koncepticon Fri Dec 21, 2018 12:32 pm
not sure waht details may help the 1-2 people in Earth that may have the answers... but I haven't had a cahnge to try the bitrate thing (whenever i did that on my roland sound card it went ape shit instantly... i will tho

interestingly, after another hour i went to load another pgm, loaded the same pgm i had issues with without thinking, and it all sounds gravy now. :/ These ain't run on voodoo right?
By CharlesRandolph Fri Dec 21, 2018 1:26 pm
koncepticon wrote:not sure waht details may help the 1-2 people in Earth that may have the answers... but I haven't had a cahnge to try the bitrate thing (whenever i did that on my roland sound card it went ape **** instantly... i will tho

interestingly, after another hour i went to load another pgm, loaded the same pgm i had issues with without thinking, and it all sounds gravy now. :/ These ain't run on voodoo right?


Are you using: Two 256MB - 168 pin SDRAM DIMMs (PC133/PC100, CL2) Make sure the ram is a Double-sided. If you look at the picture, it should have 8 Black Chips on the front of the RAM and 8 chips on the back.

Image
By CharlesRandolph Fri Dec 21, 2018 4:42 pm
koncepticon wrote:Currently i only have one 128mb cl2 133 dimm. it seems to be working ok.. the ones that were not working ok just produce white noise as the output


You can MAX out to 512 for $20 dollars.
$10.00 each: 256MB PC100 CL2 2Rx8 (16-chip 16x8) 168-Pin SDRAM DIMM
https://www.memoryx.com/pc7-2500.html

koncepticon wrote:Also why the heck does the blue one not come maxed out and with a cf card?.


With the front USB port, you don't need a CF Card. Buy SanDisk Cruzer Fit CZ33 64GB USB 2.0 Low-Profile Flash Drive and call it a day. I took out all the Hard Drives out of MPC 4000's.
By CharlesRandolph Fri Dec 21, 2018 6:33 pm
koncepticon wrote:less than that i just need to go to goodwill, or look around the house while im home for xmas


thanks for the input!


That's true. I have other usb keys, however I do find many people damage the front USB port because their usb key sticks out to far. The low profile USB Keys are shorter than the headphone jack volume knob. :nod: :nod:

ENJOY!
By CharlesRandolph Sun Dec 23, 2018 12:22 am
Lampdog wrote:Low profile usb drive in the front for the win.


Inside a MPC 4000, I've found all I ever needed was the front USB for backup/loading. Loading a projects from HD saved me about 12 seconds at most. :lol: I did the SSD swap, but I found it to be a waste of an SSD, so I removed it.
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By koncepticon Sun Dec 23, 2018 8:56 pm
Quick update.. did not find, nor want to fux with the sample rate, but i made it out of the midi and hidden sync menus alive, and have my clocks synced up so that's something. it did save the sync settings after restart too,

Looping, trimming, slicing to pgm or to sequence is either really sloppy, even with the zoom, or i need a better guide on that shit because i was about to throw the thing right out the window seeing how i can't for the life of me make a recording and get it to loop without a extra beat or missing a beat.. but the biggest headache is setting the tempo. i did find where you have to tell it the number of beats, bringing the tempo from 8.6 to 140, but when i say make a new program, its always 120. if i adjust from there it does not do right for the sample.
why am i dong this to myself? oh yeah, 24bit direct from vinyl .. in like another 10 years.
Also, where are the "perimeters" for pads/notes.. can i change to mono/poly instead of note on for pgms chopped form loops? thanks in advance
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By Lampdog Mon Dec 24, 2018 9:46 am
Only way I’ve ever known do note on/note off is pg 209 in 4k manual.

PITCH pg, highlight SPAN LOW or HI and hit OPEN WINDOW.
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By koncepticon Fri Dec 28, 2018 2:30 pm
Nope, thats not the way...

i answered all my own questions eventually.

So my self exercise was to take a drum loop from a record, then trim it, then chop it into a new pgm like i do on the 1000 and 2000xl..

Getting that far wasn't too hard, but by default, the pads are all "note-on" - only play while button is pressed down. That's no good. I need one-shots for the drums.. and i was able to change that in Program > Zone > edit all > then change play mode from as sample to one-shot.. worked for me