Share your knowledge on these two classic MPCs
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By drumat!c Sat Jul 09, 2005 12:31 am
no matter what adjustment i set for each pad i still can't achieve maximum level when i have FULL LEVEL off. Anybody having problems with the responsiveness of their 60 pads? They're causing my fingertips to callus which isn't a bad thing but you know what i'm saying.....it's annoying....Any ideas? Maybe i need to replace the contacts? Thanks.

DRUMZ.1

By debar Sat Jul 09, 2005 3:01 am
yeah, i got the same problem, i gotta bang hard to get 127 vel without full level. my pads also tweak out sometimes and trigger other pads, it's an on and off problem. does anyone know a good place that services mpc60s by chicago?

By drumtrack Sat Jul 09, 2005 11:54 am
now you have mpc4000 pads :lol:

By elmacaco Sat Jul 09, 2005 2:50 pm
or 3000 pads, I rememner those were hard as hell to get full level on.

My 60 just needs a solid touch, no extra effort for 127. I would suspect your pad sensors or ribbon cable, maybe it';s a bit corroded and could use a cleaning, but I'm really not sure what would cause this, so be careful in getting your hopes up on that fixing it. Cleaning the pad sensors might also be a problem, or just aged worn out pad sensors. Or some MPC's might just need a heavier hand.

By peezie Sat Jul 09, 2005 9:44 pm
turn the sample velocity to 200 in the sample edit screen. it ll make the pads more sensitive. yeah its a **** on the 3k, altho new pads helped. i just record full level then freak the velocity with the slider after.
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By drumat!c Sun Jul 10, 2005 4:28 am
hmmmm i don't think i can do that? The mpc-60 only goes down to 0 from 100....at least I thought it did....lemme try it out and get back to you on that!
thanks everybody.

DRUMZ.1
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By djdynasty Sun Jul 10, 2005 5:00 am
I had that same problem. But just like PEEZIE said raise the level of the sample volume to 200% and you should be straight. :wink:

By elmacaco Sun Jul 10, 2005 5:55 pm
Yeah the 60 goes to 200% as well. I always wondered what that was for. I wish it was actually gain and not velocity, but I'll take it.

By peezie Sun Jul 10, 2005 8:32 pm
sorry, i got it mixed up. i meant gain. velocity cant go higher than allowed 127, but boosting the gain would give you a perception of higher velocity.?

By elmacaco Sun Jul 10, 2005 11:33 pm
This is one of the weird things on the 60, the range from 100%-200% doesn't raise the volume of the sample (try it with full level on) I don't think it is gain unless my 60 is broken, I think it does have something to do with velocity, but I am not sure. I just wrote off 100-200 as doing nothing I could figure out and moved on.

It may have something to do with the drum mix screen, but again, I call out to the higher powers for a definitive answer.

here's the bit from the manual:

• The Vol% (volume percentage) field:
This is an initial volume control for the sound, and affects all outputs. The range is 1 to 200% and is initially set to 100%. The intended purpose of this parameter is to adjust the sound’s volume to be roughly equal to the levels of other sounds.

By debar Mon Jul 11, 2005 11:20 am
so about my pads triggering other pads...i finally grew the balls to open up my 60 (i did open it once when i first started having problems, but didn't touch anything inside). i unscrewed the pad sensors, and unscrewed the slider panel, and pulled out the pads. wiped down the sensors with a lint-free cloth, decided to clean the pads too, then put everything back in and closed it up.

i plug the sucker in and turn it on, hoping that it fixes the problem and....the screen is blank! holy sh!t! so i open it back up and notice that the orange wire that connects to the contrast knob got pulled off. so i fish out a soldering iron and some solder, reconnect the sucker, and try again...and everything (pads & screen) is working wonderful now! just like new!

man am i relieved i don't have to ship this thing out to CA!

By elmacaco Mon Jul 11, 2005 2:05 pm
Didn't I say clean the pads and sensors? yup, I did. Glad it worked for ya.
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By drumat!c Mon Jul 11, 2005 2:32 pm
So all i need to do is adjust the samples to 200% and that will allow me to tap my pads with soft to full velocity ranges? I was out in the Bronx on Saturday chillin' with my homey D-Smooth and he uses the Sp1200 and MPC-2000xl and noticed that the pads on the XL are mad softer and allow for full velocity if you strike the pad hard or very subtle playback if you tap it softly....that is what i'm looking to achieve on the 60....minus the soft pads....my fingers are killing me....hahahah Anyway. I spent about 1 hour or so reading through the manual and checking out the sample section. I noticed that there was an older feature from the previous OS which was called Double Play. I can't find that in the new OS. This double play obviously triggers 2 samples simultaneously allowing for layering of kick drums (electronic 909 with acoustic break sample) and snares. Also I noticed that they say that even though you clip your recordings you want to check to see if they distort by pitch adjusting them. If you don't hear any distortion then you're good. If you do you would obviously have to resample. I usually disregard this as I try to stay within the clip range but ELMA had mentioned a month or so ago that you can hit the MPC-60 input pretty hard without actually hearing any distortion unless you pitch down of course.

Thanks guy!

=DRUMZ.1
Last edited by drumat!c on Mon Jul 11, 2005 2:38 pm, edited 2 times in total.

By elmacaco Mon Jul 11, 2005 2:35 pm
yeah you can layer 3 sounds with the simultaeneous feature.
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By drumat!c Mon Jul 11, 2005 2:39 pm
so am i going to enter:

sounds > 6
edit sample and adjust the velocity to 200? And then i'll have a full velocity range?