i feel dumb asking this... but when using a CD ROM drive...

... in the SCSI port with an MPC, are you using it as a drive to load sounds (like a zip or floppy)... or can you use it to sample from (like a turntable)? i'm asking this after searching for pages on this forum trying to find out about SCSI CD drives.

if the first part is true... is the only way to directly sample from songs on CD's (like vinyl) by using a CD player connected to an amp and plugged into the AV plugs on the MPC?

yes

I got this advice from the mpc tutor myself. The mpc can only read from the cd-rom if you hook it up via scsi. Now if you use the cd-rom the files must be either.snd or .wav those are the only ones that worked for me. So no you can't sample from the cd=rom unless you hook=up the jacks from the cd-rom to the input of the mpc(if the cd-rom has audio jacks not all of them do). But if you did that then you shouldn't hook it up through the scsi because it won't be using the scsi it'll be using the audio outs....Now the last factor is that if you DO get the sounds off of the cd-rom depending on the size you'll be using either A. a helluva lot of floppies to store the sample, or B. a external scsi drive (ZIP, Jaz or HD) but if you use B. you'll have to daisy chain the scsi drive and terminate the last one.