A free unofficial OS modification by Deep88 with help from ChatGPT
I wanted a Track Mute page on my MPC3000. Nearly twenty years later, I finally made it happen, with ChatGPT's honestly insane help and a whole lot of trial and error.
I first used an MPC3000 back in 2007. Over the years, I started appreciating the newer MPCs, especially for the Track Mute page. I love building a song by muting and unmuting tracks, like on a big mixer, using Track Mute. The first MPC with a Track Mute page was the MPC2000, which got it through an OS update, using a Shift + button shortcut. From the MPC2000XL onward, it became a signature of the MPC family. Naturally, I wanted it on the 3000 too.
A couple of weeks of tinkering, using MAME's MPC3000 emulation for the first tests, and here we are. This update is based on OS 3.12, with Track Mute and a few extra features thrown in.
It's a bootable update only. There won't be an EPROM version, and I will never sell it. I made it as a gift to myself, and I'm sharing it for free with anyone who wants it, in the spirit of the old internet. If you feel like improving it or hacking in more features, grab ChatGPT, or whatever exists by the time you read this, and give it a shot.
Simply insert a floppy with .sys inside or use a gotek floppy emulator with .hfe or .img and turn it on.
Disclaimer: SCSI, particularly Hybrid Mode, has been extensively tested with both 3.11 and Vailixi 3.50, and no issues have been encountered. Nevertheless, always back up your data before using the new OS!
Always back up your data before using this OS, whether you use ZuluSCSI, SCSI2SD, or a SCSI Zip drive.
Use it at your own risk; I accept no responsibility for data loss or corruption.
New features (3.40.0)
TRACK MUTE PAGE
Press SONG to open the Track Mute page. It shows the first 16 tracks. To go to SONG MODE just hold SONG for more than 2 seconds.
TIMING CORRECTION
On the Track Mute page, you can use the TIMING CORRECTION button to trigger Note Repeat. Press a pad to mute or unmute its track, or press TIMING CORRECTION + a pad to trigger Note Repeat.
SAMPLING WHILE THE SEQUENCER IS RUNNING
The sequencer now keeps running when you enter the Sample page, and you can use PLAY or PLAY START from there too. Jam along with real instruments while the sequence plays, sample what you're doing, then load the sample into a program, assign it to a pad, and trigger it in Record mode.
CHOP INCREMENTAL (Chop Incr)
Chop a loop into equal slices just by pressing DO again and again.
In Setup, set Chop Incr to YES. In Edit Sound, choose the start and end of your first slice, then use COPY ZONE -> SND and press DO. The MPC creates a new sample and keeps the original selected.
The old Zone END becomes the new Zone START, and the new END moves forward by the same length. For this, it is important to check the BPM and calculate the slice length correctly. Press DO again for the next slice, and keep going. You can also use Chop Incr with CRUSH ZONE -> SND or NORM ZONE -> SND.
How long should each slice be? How can I check the BPM?
You can work it out from the tempo in BPM. The result is the length of one slice in milliseconds (ms):
1/16 note: 15,000 ÷ BPM
1/8 note: 30,000 ÷ BPM
1/4 note: 60,000 ÷ BPM
One bar in 4/4: 240,000 ÷ BPM
A minute has 60,000 milliseconds, so one beat (a 1/4 note) lasts 60,000 ÷ BPM. A 1/16 note is a quarter of that beat, so divide 15,000 by the BPM.
To find the BPM, I highly recommend the liveBPM app for iOS and Android. It's super precise and works like a dream.
Examples — with the first Zone START at 000.000.00:
100 BPM: 1/16 = 150 ms (000.150.00); 1/8 = 300 ms (000.300.00); 1/4 = 600 ms (000.600.00).
110 BPM: 1/16 ≈ 136.36 ms (000.136.16); 1/8 ≈ 272.73 ms (000.272.32); 1/4 ≈ 545.45 ms (000.545.20).
120 BPM: 1/16 = 125 ms (000.125.00); 1/8 = 250 ms (000.250.00); 1/4 = 500 ms (000.500.00).
The time fields show seconds, milliseconds and samples. The 110 BPM examples use the last field for a closer approximation at 44.1 kHz.
The formula: a minute has 60,000 milliseconds. One 1/16 note is a quarter of a beat, so 60,000 ÷ 4 = 15,000.
To find the length of a 1/16 note, divide 15,000 by the BPM. For example, at 120 BPM: 15,000 ÷ 120 = 125 ms.
There is a video on my website. Go and have a look at https://www.deep88.com/vibecod/
Quick chop
In Edit Sound, trim the loop so it starts on the beat, or set Zone START on the first beat.
Set Zone END to Zone START plus the slice length you calculated.
Choose COPY ZONE -> SND and press DO. Keep pressing DO to create the next slices.
For example, a two-bar loop at 120 BPM is 4,000 ms long. At 125 ms per 1/16 slice, that gives you 32 chops. Happy chopping!
EDIT SOUND
COPY ZONE -> SND now leaves the original sample selected. With Chop Incr set to YES, the zone moves forward by the length of the chop. Just press DO again to make the next chop.
Press and release HELP to copy Soft start and end to Zone start and end. Hold HELP and turn the wheel to move four times faster, as before.
You can now use the slider to change values in Edit Sound. On the start and end fields, ABS lets you move across the whole sample, while REL moves through the milliseconds (000–999) within the current second. On the other fields, the slider covers the full range. Choose ABS or REL on the SETUP page, under the OTHER menu.
In Setup, Zone Play lets you choose how Play X works. CLASSIC works like the original. PLY/STP plays on the first press and stops on the second. RETRIG, the default, plays while you hold the key and starts again each time you press it, without overlapping.
You can now enter Edit Sound and stay there while the sequence plays, including when you press PLAY. Move start and end while you listen; pressing DO stops the sequence first.
CRUSH - a simple and effective bit and sample rate converter to emulate the SP-1200 and other samplers.
CRUSH is a crazy new feature that lets you change the bit depth and sample rate of your sounds!
Choose CRUSH ORIG -> SND for the whole sample or CRUSH ZONE -> SND for just the selected zone.
On the Crush page, press PREVIEW to listen, KEEP to create a new sample named CRUSH1, CRUSH2 and so on, or CANCEL to leave. Your original sample stays unchanged.
These are the crazy settings… take some time to explore the wonderful world of bit reduction.
Bits: Choose 4, 8, 12 or 16 bits. Under Quant, choose ROUND or TRUNC for dirtier tails.
Rate: Choose 11025, 16000, 22050, 26040 (SP-1200), 32000 or 44100 Hz.
Drive: Add soft saturation, from OFF to +12 dB. The result keeps the perceived volume of the original.
Pitch: Choose 0, +3, 33>45, +7 or +12. This is the 45 rpm trick: the sound is sampled faster and played back down, keeping the same pitch and length but with a lower effective sample rate.
Filter: This is an anti-aliasing filter. Choose a 12, 18 or 24 dB/octave low-pass filter to shape the sound. Choose OFF, ON to follow Rate and Pitch, or a fixed cutoff between 2 kHz and 15 kHz at any rate.
Using Filter and Drive makes processing slower.
NORMALIZE
Finally, Normalize is on the MPC3000.
Choose NORM ORIG -> SND to normalize the whole sample or NORM ZONE -> SND for the selected zone.
Both are at the end of the DO list and create a new sample named NORM1, NORM2 and so on. Choose −3 dB or 0 dB in Setup for the peak level. The original stays selected, and with NORM ZONE and Chop Incr on, the zone moves forward.
FILTER LIVE
In ASSIGN, leave Param on TUNING and set Filter live to ON. With AFTER on, use the slider to change the filter cutoff for new notes of the assigned sound. At the very bottom, new notes are silent. The slider movement is not recorded, and Note Variation tuning stays as it was. Set Filter live to OFF to return to the original slider behaviour.
This way you can use Filter Live on a sample already “processed” with 16 Levels values.
SAMPLING
After 30 years, stop sampling is finally here. You no longer have to calculate the sample length in seconds before sampling, and you can save a lot of RAM space this way.
While sampling, press SOFT KEY 3 (STOP) to finish early. Your Length setting stays the same, and new samples use the name chosen in Setup.
COMPATIBILITY
PGM, SEQ and ALL files remain compatible with 3.11 and Vailixi. Mute Groups are simply ignored by the other OSs.
DOUBLE STOP
Press STOP once and the sequence stops, but long samples keep playing. Press STOP again and the samples get cut. Easy.
HYBRID SCSI MODE
Format in hybrid SCSI mode so your Mac or PC can see all partitions, not just partition A. Multi Sector is always OFF to avoid compatibility problems.
GROUP MUTE
Under PROGRAM/SOUNDS and Envelop,veloc,eloc,tune.. one cutoff is now a Mute Group. You can choose one of four Group Mutes for each pad.
EDIT SOUND START AND STOP
You can now advance from 999 to 000 without having to change the seconds or milliseconds. On the same page, pressing HELP lets you scroll five times faster.
On the Edit Sound screen, the TRUNC SFT ST END function lets you truncate both the section before START and the section after END at the same time.
There is also a COPY ZONE -> SND function that lets you create a new sample chop from any selection in EDIT ZONE. The newly created sample is named ZONE, followed by an incrementing number.
On various screens under PROGRAM/SOUNDS and MIXER/EFFECTS, you can press PLAY or PLAY START, and the current screen will remain open instead of switching to MAIN.
SONG MODE
Following user complaints, SONG MODE is back. To enter Song Mode, press and hold the SONG button for more than two seconds. To exit, press MAIN.
RENAME
There is a new, more modern renaming function. You can scroll through letters and numbers using the jog wheel and arrow keys, and switch between uppercase and lowercase using the up and down arrows.
You can still use PLAY to enter a space and PLAY START to switch between uppercase and lowercase.
The new RenameX system is enabled by default. If you prefer the old system, go to Setup under OTHER and set Rename to CLASSIC.
New SETUP menu under OTHER
In OTHER, press SOFT KEY 4 to open Setup, where you can choose the options for this OS:
NAME: Choose a name for new samples, up to 5 characters. A three-digit number is added
automatically: KICK000, KICK001 and so on. Names stay within 8 characters, so they show correctly on Mac and PC.
NEXT NO: Choose the number for the next sample. Set it to 0 to start again.
RENAME: Choose X for RenameX or CLASSIC for the original system.
CHOP INCR: Turn automatic chop advancement on or off. See Chop Incremental above.
ZONE PLAY: Choose how Play X works in Edit Sound. See Edit Sound above.
SLIDER: Choose ABS or REL for the slider in Edit Sound.
NORMALIZE: Choose −3 dB or 0 dB for the NORM functions.
LIVE FILT: Choose the Filter Live curve. AKAI (default) is the original Akai curve. 31Hz extends the low end, so the filter goes down to about 31 Hz with the slider at the bottom.
Press SAVE to save your settings to the boot floppy. The usual system settings are saved in the PARAMS file, which 3.11 and Vailixi can still read. The new Setup options are saved in a separate SETUP file, together with your CRUSH settings (Bits, Quant, Rate, Drive, Filter, slope and Pitch), so they become your defaults. Both files load automatically when you start the MPC. Remember to save your changes, or they will be lost at the next boot.
Press SAVE to save your settings to the active disk (the one selected in DISK). It is best to save them on your OS floppy: select the floppy in DISK, then press SAVE. At startup the MPC looks for them on the boot floppy first, then on SCSI partition A if they are not on the floppy. The floppy must not be write-protected. SAVE does not work while a sequence is playing: stop the sequence first.
MIDI CLOCK TIMING IS STILL PERFECTLY FINE AS U CAN SEE
Project notice
This is an independent educational and cultural project created to learn about the MPC3000 operating system and explore vintage music technology. It is an unofficial modification of the original Akai firmware, not an official release. No affiliation, endorsement or support from Akai, inMusic or Roger Linn Design is claimed.
The modification is shared free of charge and is intended for MPC3000 owners lawfully entitled to use the original OS. No payment or donation is required to download or use it. Any donations are entirely voluntary and do not buy a license to the original firmware.
All rights in the original firmware and related trademarks remain with their respective holders. My contribution to the firmware consists of the modifications only. This notice does not grant rights to the original firmware.
The modification is experimental and provided "as is", without warranties of correct operation, compatibility or fitness for a particular purpose, to the extent permitted by applicable law. Back up your data before use. Installation and use are at your own risk. To the extent permitted by applicable law, I disclaim liability for data loss, equipment damage or other loss resulting from its use. Nothing in this notice excludes or limits liability that cannot lawfully be excluded or limited.
How to install
Using a real floppy
Copy M3K340.SYS onto a floppy formatted on the MPC3000. Leave it in the drive when you boot, and the OS will load automatically on boot.
Using a Gotek or another floppy emulator
Copy OS_3.40.0_Track_Mute_Edition.hfe or OS_3.40.0_Track_Mute_Edition.img into the emulator's folder. Boot with that virtual floppy selected and the OS will load automatically. That's it.
To keep your settings, save them from Setup onto the same floppy or virtual floppy.
Have fun and pass it around
This is what the internet used to be about.
I make house music as Deep88. The '88' is a tribute to the Second Summer of Love. Go dig into the 1988 revolution and you'll see why.
If you'd like to say thanks, you can send a donation via PayPal to info@deep88.com. Even better, buy some of my music at https://deep88.bandcamp.com. I'd really appreciate it.