Share your knowledge on these two classic MPCs
By angus Sat Jan 07, 2006 9:09 am
Greetings all, Angus here again. the newbie who loves bewbies

I originally posted a topic about having trouble loading from a floppy disc to the MPC3000 in the newbie forums, (feel free to check it out if you want a stumper...) after a response from Rohan, and some work on my own with a friend of mine, I ditched the floppy and upgraded my problems to ZIP!

Alright my plight continues......
So.
I have a friend who's a tech at a big studio here in Vancouver. He hooked me up with a "SCSI Iomega 100ZIP drive". Connects to the MPC3000 no problem...
-SCSI ID 5 (done)
-Termination (on)

Problem: I have no SCSI card on my PC.

Solution: I went into my work at OnlineBroadcasting.com and nabbed a 2nd "Parallel Port Iomega 100ZIP drive" from the IT guy...

So.....

-I hooked up the parallel port ZIP drive to my PC.

-downloaded the MPCeditor after almost pulling out my eyes and scrappin with the wife after hour 4 of " What the ***k is wrong with this thing!!!"

-Was the able to finally format the ZIP disc in a way that the MPC recognizes that there is actually a ZIP disc in the drive of the SCSI ZIP attached to the MPC3000. (2 ZIP drives, one for getting samples off the PC, and a SCSI drive for dumping those samples onthe the MPC3k) see what Im doin?

-Now I can load the ZIP disc onto the 3k.

-The .PGM file and all the .SND files I CAN SEE THEM ON THE LCD DISPLAY!!!

-However when I go to load them, I get a "The requested file was not found on the disc" message.

Why would the sample and PGM all show up if they're not actually on the disc?

So to recap...
2 ZIP drives.
1 on PC----load samples to disc. (thanks MPCeditor!)
eject disc.
1 on MPC----load samples to MPC3000
I can see the samples on the LCD screen, they're actually on the disc Im assuming. But I CAN'T load them!

As a side note, because my friend got this MPC for 100 bucks off a crackhead, (it is in MINT cond. though irrespective of what you may logically think about a 100 dollar MPC3000 crackhead purchase...)IM RUNNING OSv3.03 I have not upgraded to v3.10 or higher.....

Im soooooo close to getting this thing to making a sound I can almost taste the bass.....

I can put all the samples onto the ZIP disc, I can get the samples registering on the MPC3000. However, I cannot actually load them into the MPC and map them to the pads.

Anyways, to all you MPC heads out there, any help would be greatly appreciated and if I get this thing working due to your advice I'll twistoneup, puff away, :oops: and think of you most favorably...! Thanks for your time,

Angus

By dfacedxa Sat Jan 07, 2006 12:17 pm
wow 100dollar mpc from a crackhead. i wonder how that crackhead got a mpc 3000... your prob might be your os. good shit gettin a mpc for 100$ tho.

By elmacaco Sat Jan 07, 2006 6:50 pm
Nah, you need to make sure your 3000 zip is working, format a disk in the 3000, then put that disk in the PC and transfer files.

take it slow.
User avatar

By incurablebeatlust Sat Jan 07, 2006 7:17 pm
da/\/\n where are the crackheads w/ those deals around here??

if a crackhead took my 3k id be tracking it down for sure..

By elmacaco Sat Jan 07, 2006 7:17 pm
you ain't catchin no crackhead.
By mpc3000le Sun Jan 08, 2006 6:45 am
angus wrote:I originally posted a topic about having trouble loading from a floppy disc to the MPC3000 in the newbie forums, (feel free to check it out if you want a stumper...) after a response from Rohan, and some work on my own with a friend of mine, I ditched the floppy and upgraded my problems to ZIP!


Ahhh ... that would be this post:

http://www.mpc-forums.com/viewtopic.php?t=39779

:-)

Good route going for some thing a "little" bigger than the floppy.

angus wrote:-Was the able to finally format the ZIP disc in a way that the MPC recognizes that there is actually a ZIP disc in the drive of the SCSI ZIP attached to the MPC3000. (2 ZIP drives, one for getting samples off the PC, and a SCSI drive for dumping those samples onthe the MPC3k) see what Im doin?


A two drive scenario is a good move for moving ZIP disks between a computer and PC/MAC. Saves having to unplug and move drives.

angus wrote:-Now I can load the ZIP disc onto the 3k.
-The .PGM file and all the .SND files I CAN SEE THEM ON THE LCD DISPLAY!!!


Great ... that is one step closer.

angus wrote:-However when I go to load them, I get a "The requested file was not found on the disc" message.


File name conflict.

The MPC3000/60/2000/2000XL use a default file name convention that is in conflict with M$ WINDOWS/DOS and A$ MACOS/MACOSX.

Although the MPCEDITOR tries damn hard to create file rename work arounds for these name convention issues ... problems can some times still happen during file transfer. ( beyond the scope of this reply ).

1: On the PC before creating a program with the MPCEDITOR rename the samples intended for assignment within a PGM into 8.3 format, 12345678.123, so a file name of say BigLongKick.xxx should be renamed to some thing like BigLKick.xxx.

A further example of file name shortening:

TR909-Kick-Hard.xxx > 909KikH.xxx
LinnHandClap.xxx > LinnClap.xxx

2: Import the new shortened named file into the MPCEDITOR and assign it to a pad within a PGM.

3: Export PGM and SND's in 3000 format directly to the ZIP that you previously formatted with the MPCEDITOR.

4: Now try loading the PGM on your MPC3000.

Any joy ?

As for your OS being 3.03 ... That is some what old and, well ... "challenged" in various regards.

You could attempt booting to a newer version of the OS. ( although old OS ROM equipped machines often have trouble booting to any new OS on floppy ).

Download the floppy boot version here:

http://www.mpc3000.com/updated_os.htm

Rohan.

By angus Sun Jan 08, 2006 9:35 am
Rohan, thanks so much for your response...

-I renamed the all the samples from "002_UHI1.snd" to "909Kik.snd"
"003_UHI1.snd" to "909Kik1.snd"
etc....

-Imported them all into MPCeditor.

-Exported them in a named "drum.pgm" onto the ZIP disc directly.

-Loaded them into the MPC3k.

-Again I can see them but cannot load them.

as a side note, the MPC however has renamed the samples from

"909Kik" to "909Kik *+**(4(4.snd"


ummmmmmmm OK. not too sure what this means....?

-I tried renaming them in the MPC itself, but again that damn dirty error
"The requested file was not found on the disc"

- So....now I still don't know. My buddy Josh tells me the way to go is produce out the drum samples I want in Nuendo, and then just record them directly into the MPC3000 and then save the recorded samples onto the ZIP disc attached to the MPC3k itself.

-sounds like extra work as opposed to just putting my samples directly onto a ZIP and then loading them.....

So any other suggestions on how I can work with these proprietary naming conventions between my PC and my MPC?

Rohan, again, thanks for any help. And to everyone else who responded to my topic, Yes, getting a mint 3000 for 100bucks did ****in make my day!!!Still does! That's why I can't sleep until I get this thing makin brown note basslines!

Angus

By angus Sun Jan 08, 2006 9:44 am
Also, in response to elmacaco, I've tried to format tha ZIP disc on the MPC3000 itself. This works. Like the Zip disc formats, but when I try to load that MPCformattedZip into my PC's ZIP drive. The drive won't recognize that there's a disc in the drive. But thanks for the suggestion anyways!

PS the way to catch a crackhead in Vancouver is the
"baitcar program"!

By mpc3000le Sun Jan 08, 2006 12:59 pm
angus wrote:Rohan, thanks so much for your response...

as a side note, the MPC however has renamed the samples from

"909Kik" to "909Kik *+**(4(4.snd"


ummmmmmmm OK. not too sure what this means....?

-I tried renaming them in the MPC itself, but again that damn dirty error
"The requested file was not found on the disc"


Bingo ...

The MPC3000 is seeing the directory entries for the files incorrectly.

Your OS need updating to deal with this issue.

Older versions DID have trouble with file name handling of files dumped to disk from a WIN95 or higher M$ OS.

They would display M$ file attribute bytes and LFN entries as part of the file name viewed within the root directory.

This meant that if a PGM said, load file "909Kik1.SND" and the directory entry on disk said "909Kik1 *+**(4(4.SND" then the chances of the MPC loading this would be difficult.

This issue was mostly fixed as at OS version 3.11.

Fixed by means beyond the scope of explanation here in this forum.

See http://www.mpc3000.com/311_notice.htm for more "sketchy/not so detailed" info about this. ( information as supplied by AKAI )

The bit about WIN95 at the above link extends to WinNT, Win2k, WINXP also.

You're running an OLD OS Angus.

Try booting to a newer version from floppy and see if this helps. ( if you can ).

PM me if you can't boot the floppy OS updates.

Try also this.

Load the SND's one by one into memory.

Then load the PGM into memory, skipping over each sound that can't be found.

Switch to the PGM once loaded.

Does it play ?

Rohan.

By mpc3000le Sun Jan 08, 2006 1:06 pm
angus wrote:Also, in response to elmacaco, I've tried to format tha ZIP disc on the MPC3000 itself. This works. Like the Zip disc formats, but when I try to load that MPCformattedZip into my PC's ZIP drive. The drive won't recognize that there's a disc in the drive.


You need to use the MPCEDITOR to create a "cross platform partition" that can be read by M$ OS's post WINME and also an MPC3000.

A disk formatted by the MPC3000 ( with any current and past OS ) can not be mounted in an M$ OS equipped PC post WINME.

Sorry to steal you answer opportunity Elmacaco :-)

Rohan.

By elmacaco Mon Jan 09, 2006 2:06 am
Are you kidding? I owe you so many beers it's not funny! I'm glad to have someone around who can answer my questions ;)

midicase also has a registry entry to stop P from messing with the floppies, maybe it does something for the zips as well?
By angus Fri Jan 13, 2006 7:19 am
Gentlemen. Thank you for your time. I finally was able to resurrect the beast! I ordered the OS upgrade chip and a stick of RAM from vstservice.com in california, and hooked it up! Now, it all makes sense. This is definetly one badass sampler. I usually sink my cash into synths and things I can make fat ZOOOOOOOOOOOORrrrrnnnnnnnnn's with, thinking why would I want a sampler for? I can do all the sample dropping I want to in Nuendo as regular audio. However, I was wrong. This MPC3k kicks ass and I thank you for the help. worldwide Rheprazent! Anyways, I'm busy with the headphones on, till I get a 1/4" audio cable for mixer hookup, hittin pads like a fingerdrummin fool and it's pretty GD sweet gotta admit.
Anyways, if any of you cats find yourself in Vancouver Canada, MSG me and we can get drunk. Also, do you guys know how to increase the size of the "avatar" I can attach, cause I have this great .gif 50kb I want to use!