Just got my 60 MkII...a few questions

Whattup family! I am now officially the owner of a 60. I just picked it up yesterday from the post office. Sold my XL and bought a mkII for a wonderful price - big up to UNSYSTEMATIC from this board for hooking up a sweet deal.

I got a bunch of floppies for it, HD ones until I get a paycheck, and then Im ordering the DSDD pack from the link Elmacaco posted. I already read about the tape-over-the-hole trick, and also how Elmacaco said it ruins/damages the drive. I figure a week with normal floppies is fine until I get the DSDD ones. Since it has full memory....which is what 1.5 MB....I figure I can fit the entire RAM of the 60 on two floppys (i.e. two floppys per song, assuming I used the entire sample and sequence memory on each track).

Now a few questions - and these are not in the manual.

It has OS 3.10 and full memory (I'm told, because I havent powered it on yet). The reason I havent powered it on is because this 60 was purchased and made originally in Japan. As such, the back says it runs on 100 Volts which is apparently standard voltage in Japan. If I remember correctly, American power outlets run at 110V. Will I blow out my 60, or some fuse in it, if I plug it in here in the US? UNSYSTEMATIC said he used it here in America after bringing it back from Japan without problems, but I just wanna be safe and not fry my new baby. Hope yall understand. Will it blow anything out if I plug it into a normal US electric outlet?

two - DRUMATIC! or anyone else...whats the verdict on the output boost modification? Worth it or not?

three - Does anyone have a template for the 60, so that I can repaint it it myself? I love Forat but $600 is pretty steep for a paintjob.

Glad to be a part of the 60 family, and stay tuned for a bunch of new 60 beats. Now....I'm off to re-read the 3.10 manual

The tape over the hole trick is for the SP-1200. I've never seen or heard anyone doing that with a 60. I've owned maybe 20 60's in the past 2 years, and I always used standard 1.44 mb disks to save. Only had 1 disk corrupt to date.

In regards to the power supply, you should be safe plugging it in. I've got an S900 from Japan, an it's ran like a champ for a few years now.

The output mod is not essential. The soft sound of 60 is part of it's character. In Drumat!cs case, he was an SP user who got converted to an MPC user. As you know, his drums are stupid complex in terms of programming, which is why he made the switch. Because of his focus on hard hitting drums, and the analyzation of his SP drum recordings, he felt it was a nessaccary investment.

Glad you ditched that plastic peice of sh*t for the authentic. Good move. Enjoy.

finally tic.... good sh!t man... thing is awesome and i dont even have the upgrades yet... hit me up on aim...peace

Lo Pass Filter wrote:The tape over the hole trick is for the SP-1200. I've never seen or heard anyone doing that with a 60.

http://www.mpc-forums.com/viewtopic.php?t=29188

Post number six.

Lo Pass Filter wrote:
In Drumat!cs case, he was an SP user who got converted to an MPC user. As you know, his drums are stupid complex in terms of programming, which is why he made the switch.

Ive heard his beats, and his drums are dope. I wouldnt call them "stupid complex", or more complex than others I have heard here, but they are dope drums nonetheless.

I used the tape over the hole trick until I got my DSDD floppies too. It worked fine. I also forgot to put tape on the hole and it also worked fine so I don't think it matters. Also, the 60 will format the disks as 720k so you won't be able to fit the entire memory on one disk. I ordered my disks from route66 and it took more than 2 weeks so I emailed them and they came a few days later... a bit slow but a decent price. Probably been quicker for other but I don't know for sure.

anyone else?

I've always purchased my disks from this kat:

http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?Vi ... eName=WD1V

Tic- Interesting link. Like I said, i've never used DSDD disks on my S950 or MPC 60. I've never had a problem saving to disk, and I've never damaged a drive. I've never had a drive die on me yet ether! I'm sure it can't hurt to use DSDDs, but feel free to use 1.44MB's in the mean time. It's not going to harm your drive.

In regards to his drums, they are crazy complex. I know this because thats my man, and I know the process he goes through to get them to sound that way. The mastery in the craft is when you take something really complex, execute it, and make it appear to be simple. Sort of like Lord Finesses programming or Pete Rock.

I'd be interested to hear some audio of people who got drum programs like Drumat!c.

Damn, Lo Pass, I assume those 20 60's were sold, I hope the HD use was minimal on each machine, because they can mess up the drive.

I read a lot on this in the past, it has to do with the different magnetics, you might be able to do it for many years, but they are magnetically mismatched and your data is not reliably saved.

Here's a little something on DD/HD disks:

I did some magnetization tests on Double Density (800kB) and High Density
(1.4MB) diskette surfaces. The tested DD surface produced more than twice the
deflection of the tested HD surface. Clearly, there is a big difference in
signal levels required to reliably store data on HD vs. DD. Either way, there's no question: a drive optimized for DD will
not be optimized for HD. If you'd rather not 'roll the dice' on your data
collection, stick with Double Density diskettes.

Again, the drives were designed to work with DD disks, HD disks require a different drive, while the DD drive can use HD disks, there are reasons why they added an extra hole so DD drives could reject them. It's your choice, it might seem to work fine for years, but later on you may have a floppy problem.

TicToc wrote:
It has OS 3.10 and full memory (I'm told, because I havent powered it on yet). The reason I havent powered it on is because this 60 was purchased and made originally in Japan. As such, the back says it runs on 100 Volts which is apparently standard voltage in Japan. If I remember correctly, American power outlets run at 110V. Will I blow out my 60, or some fuse in it, if I plug it in here in the US? UNSYSTEMATIC said he used it here in America after bringing it back from Japan without problems, but I just wanna be safe and not fry my new baby. Hope yall understand. Will it blow anything out if I plug it into a normal US electric outlet?

My 60mkII was a 100v unit with that 2 prong .
The real is that if your habit will be to turn the unit on for prolonged times on a daily or pretty regular schedule then it's gonna build up heat.
That's the real difference the extra voltage causes.
You can buy a step-down converter to change the 120v to 100v or just have a tech (or yourself if you know how) change the transformer in the 60.
Some may say the heat won't be an issue but it's more than just an issue when you take the age of the components that will have to deal with the additional heat.

TicToc

Welcome to OUR world...

Good to have you fam.....

Looks like the other brothers dealt neatly with ur ?uestions!!!

Speak soon!!

H*