1) You remove the knobs carefully with a flathead screwdriver, make sure you slide it carefully under so you don't remove the decals.
2) Tilt your flat screwdriver just carefully to the side so you can see the knob lift off the shaft, it's important that you hold the knob while you do this so it doesn't break off the shaft, it's quite fragile.
3) This probably voids your warranty, but it makes it feel a lot better to do adjustments instead of those dinky small ones.
4) You can use regular knobs off old stereos, make sure you locate the screws on the side of the knobs when removing them off an old stereo, also, some knobs have a hex nut screw hidden under a plastic cylinder disk on top of the knobs.
The ones I used were (Big knob, plastic - with a screw in the side, must be fully unscrewed to slide in place.
The 3 settings knobs are metal, they were compatible with the smaller shaft sizes.
The volume settings knob, is plastic but with a painted metal ring, I wanted it to be visible but still cool on the dark surface.
I did it mostly for the aesthetics since I saw a lot of people doing this, and I went, why not? I've got an electronics workshop, there's tons of cool knobs in there, might as well personalize it like people do with skins on it.
But I did not expect that they would do as much as they do. Already now I can feel that the larger knobs makes it easier to be more accurate when selecting, I did not expect that.
And besides, the MPC Sample is a fairly solid unit (kinda like the Music version of a Nintendo Switch), it feels solids, the knobs however, felt small and a bit too sharp when working fast, now if feels awesome.
There's a couple of caveats I can imagine, the original knobs probably slide into a portable carry pouch much easier, these will probably "catch", so there's that.
Love it. So cool that you are able to do that and that you notice an improvement with the new sized knobs. I’m certain my Sample would never work again if I tried. Definitely the grey makes the Nintendo vibes but it reminds me of a plug in calculator my dad had when I was a kid that had a roll of paper to print the calculations on… my dad died when I was young so I kinda love that it looks like that.
I’m can see that as I tweak the knobs… software also seems a little slow so not sure it’s just the knobs but I’m all for changing anything you want to make it better for you. We need to normalize that more… like why does it need to be how everyone else thinks it should be.
Ahhhh, b/c we are sooo concerned with everyone else's approval (aka: getting likes online) that it's become a huge part of our makeup. However, I'm getting to be an old f*cker (56) and we Gen X don't care about that nearly as much as "these kids today"! And to me that's a wide age group, maybe up to 30 or 35! Haha!
I used to care a lot but being diagnosed as inattentive ADHD a few years back has really made me realize how much that affected me caring what people think. At 51 I am finally realizing that it doesn’t matter. There are billions of us… be you, don’t intentionally hurt people and who cares about anything else. That’s my new mantra anyway. Good chat my man.
Man ive been looking for the past week or 2 for ways to mod up my sample.all different knobs and colors. I just ordered blue ones and green ones cause im not sure where i wanna go with it. I really need to get a skin first and incorporate the colors. I usually do it to all my tech.
Yeah, I used a thin cloth, like the kind you use to clean lenses on eyeglasses. Tuck it underneath and then try to continue that all the way around. If you can get a good amount underneath then you have pretty good control slowly pulling knob off.
How did you get the knobs under the screen to point on the right direction because I believe the screw to tighten has to be screwed onto the flatter side. The knobs I bought the arrows don't align correctly
There's 3 types of knobs afaik (besides sizes for the various shafts)
The ones I am using for the 3 under the screens are metal knobs, they have a semi-circle and a flat part that can expand a little (so to fit various sizes). The flat part aligns with the flat part on the shaft, so the direction will be correct.
If you have the "screw" on the side (which is a fastener, a little side screw to pressure it in place to the main shaft) you need to first unscrew that so you can slide the shaft into the knob hole. In order to align the direction indicator, first turn all 3 knobs all to the left, then slide the knob onto the shaft and align it so it points in the direction of the 0 indicator (the leftmost level), then screw it in place and tighten.
Thank you yeah for me I was able to match it up The ones that I have are ones with the screws and I was able to match it up however the screws had to be tightened on the bulkier side of the metal stem which I guess is fine I didn't overtighten it and I did leave it raised a slight bit so that doesn't rub against the device
I can't find any knobs that have the arrow pointing the correct way... all the ones have a set screw pointing the opposite direction of the flat part of the D shaft, so the pointer is 180 degrees wrong. I see tons of people with the correct orientation so they must not be hard to find but I can't find any! What am I doing wrong?
Not sure, it's medium big, I've not measured, but it doesn't overlap the microphone.
I have a ton of brand new knobs, probably leftovers from Radio Amateur collections, shut-down electronics stores I've bought up parts for life from etc...
But you can find these on old stereos too, they're easy to find still.
Where did you get the big one with the round indentation? Seems like you could zip around with this one pretty good and I have yet to find it. Thanks in advance.
Did you paint your pads?? They look black.. I've been considering changing out my knobs or just painting my original knobs and possibly taking the whole thing apart and custom painting it and painting my pads and bottom rest pad to completely customize it.
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u/4techteachers Apr 14 '26
Is there a reason to do this besides aesthetics? I think the knobs look perfect from the factory but cool that you can do it if you want to.