MPC3K-VST

An independent VST3 / AU audio plugin that emulates the Akai MPC3000 sampling drum machine by booting its original firmware inside an embedded, headless MAME core, wrapped in a JUCE audio-plugin host. Built for personal, nostalgic and preservation use.

Not affiliated with, endorsed by, or sponsored by Akai Professional or inMusic Brands, Inc. "Akai" and "MPC3000" are trademarks of their respective owners and are used here only to identify the hardware that this software emulates (nominative use). This is an independent, non-commercial preservation project and is not an official product.

⚠️ No ROMs included

This repository ships no copyrighted firmware or ROM images, and the plugin is non-functional without them. To run it you must supply your own MPC3000 firmware dump, which you may only obtain and use if you are legally entitled to (for example, from hardware you own). Place the ROM set in:

Documents/MPC3000/ROMs/mpc3000/

What it does

• Boots the real MPC3000 operating system (v3.12) in a headless MAME machine.
• Audio: host / ASIO input and output via the MAME sound sink.
• MIDI: in/out mapped to the emulated UART.
• GUI: the MPC front panel is rendered from the MAME layout; buttons and pads are driven through the layout hit-test into the emulator's input matrix.
• Removable media: floppy and CD images hot-swap at runtime; a SCSI hard-disk image can be mounted at boot.

Building (Windows)

• Toolchain: Visual Studio 2022 Build Tools (MSVC toolset 14.44, x64 host), JUCE, and stock MAME 0.288 source.
• Configure the plugin project (*.jucer) in Projucer, resave, then build MPC3K-VST.sln (Release, x64) — or use the run_msbuild_*.bat helper scripts.
• Emulation-core and migration details are documented in RECIPE-device-swap.md and MIGRATION-0288-notes.md.

This repository holds the port sources (modified plugin Source/, the driver-list override, the click map, build scripts and notes). It does not vendor the full MAME or JUCE trees; clone those separately at the versions noted above.

License

Released under the GNU General Public License, version 3 (see LICENSE). This work derives from and links against components under their own licenses:

• MAME — GPL-2.0-or-later, © MAMEdev and contributors.
• JUCE — used under its GPLv3 open-source terms, © Raw Material Software.

All third-party components remain under their respective licenses.

Authors

• Tuth (Bársony Tamás) — author & maintainer.
• Claude (Anthropic) — AI pair-developer of the MPC3000 port (core swap, GUI hit-test, MAME 0.288 migration, media manager, build & packaging).

See AUTHORS.

Credits

• MAMEdev and contributors — the emulation core and the akai/mpc3000 driver.
• JUCE — the audio-plugin framework.
• The original Sojus Records MAME-VST project, whose headless-MAME host and render pattern this port is built upon.

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This README provides general information, not legal advice.