MPC discussion - love it

djadonis206 · Post by **djadonis206** » Wed Oct 11, 2006 9:00 pm

Curious - what would you say you'd need as a complete outboard solution - based around your MPC as the main sequencer

MPC
Sampler
Synth
outboard mixer
a couple of compressors (one with side chaining)
an efx rack / filter etc

curious

thanks and peace out

ad

knotkranky · Post by **knotkranky** » Wed Oct 11, 2006 9:15 pm

djadonis206 wrote:Curious - what would you say you'd need as a complete outboard solution - based around your MPC as the main sequencer

MPC
Sampler
Synth
outboard mixer
a couple of compressors (one with side chaining)
an efx rack / filter etc

curious

thanks and peace out

ad

MPC's rock. I'm partial to the 5080 and A6 for sounds. That stuff sounds stellar to me. Don't mod the outputs, they are too hot moded. External drive is sweet. Some nice snakes, ummmm...

longjohns · Post by **longjohns** » Thu Oct 12, 2006 1:13 am

also curious -

why do you need a separate sampler?

memory limitation?

it's weird for me - i used to work on a sp-1200 so what's that - 10 seconds of sample time??

then a stock mpc3000 had like 30 seconds stereo (i can't remember) but eventually threw in more RAM so like 2 1/2 minutes which it seemed like i could NEVER use up

now on the computer it's a totally different thing, obviously --- hard to relate back to the other ways

milka · Post by **milka** » Thu Oct 12, 2006 1:28 am

never touched MPC or a hardware sequencer...
but becoming more and more curious..

am i getting sick or is it a normal progression of a pure software guy
who is not happy with to much shoices and the sound quality of a software based approach?

if i were to add an MPC to my studio and LIve setup
witch one i should get?

stale bread · Post by **stale bread** » Thu Oct 12, 2006 3:20 am

without a doubt the mpc 1000, it's the best bang for the buck, if you don't care about the money and are not interested in being portable then imho the 2500 is great. the whole mpc series has it's paticular users though, for instance alot of people will use nothing else other than a 2000xl or a 4000, or a 3000 and some won't even stray from an mpc-60 the original. the samplist in my group won't use anything but his 4000 and people are pretty passionate about their reasons.

me, I don't give a fuck, I had a mpc 2000 years ago when they were the latest of the series but shortly after I went straight software and was like fuck hardware (stupid stupid stupid), I had to go full circle to learn what I call the only real lesson in Life. It really doesn't matter what you're talking about it's all about the mixture of things. so as it turns out the best solution for me was a hybrid system of soft and hard, the mpc and Live which is what I'm doing now.
the reason I got the mpc 1000 is because a coder in japan has published his 3rd party operating system, which has made it a very feature rich and flexible machine far surpassing the os that akai put in it, it's now on par with the 2500
and in some ways better.

I picked up my 1000 from this dude for $350. bucks cause all he wants to do is stop using hardware and get battery

....the same shit i went through along time ago.....but even at whatever the current going rate is for a used one they are a great instrument, you can put a hard drive inside for cheap, and it's a great controller for Live too, not to mention it's small enough to take with you to the coffee shop when you don't feel like looking at a laptop and just want to use your ears.

stale bread · Post by **stale bread** » Thu Oct 12, 2006 3:22 am

Longjohns you wouldn't happen to still have the sp and the 3000 would you?

kuniklo · Post by **kuniklo** » Thu Oct 12, 2006 3:35 am

Keep the computer, just use it for mixing and mastering. The absolute bare minimum would be just an mpc 1000 and a synth. Depending on the synth you might also want another synth or two and an effects processor. You could also spring for a higher-end hardware sampler like an E-Mu 6400 or an Akai, but the MPC can cover a lot of ground on its own.

I've had a bare-bones setup of an MPC 1000 and a TI Polar going here for a while now I feel surprisingly unlimited by it. I'm going to downgrade the TI though because it's not *that* much better than the C for my purposes and it's about a third of the cost. The great thing about the Virus is that the on-board effects are pretty good so you can run the MPC through them and not miss a dedicated effects box that much.

stale bread · Post by **stale bread** » Thu Oct 12, 2006 4:06 am

kuniklo what's your setup/organization method on the mpc-1000 and did you upgrade to the latest os by jj?

i'm looking for different setup methods to try out but not getting responses over at the mpc forums.
looking for suggestions on the best way to save projects sequences samples and programs in an efficient way, where i'm not wasting space and in a way thats easy to keep track of whatever i'm working on?

longjohns · Post by **longjohns** » Thu Oct 12, 2006 4:15 am

stale bread wrote:Longjohns you wouldn't happen to still have the sp and the 3000 would you?

nope. another ex-bandmate got the sp, and i sold the mpc.

i kind of wish i still had it now

kuniklo · Post by **kuniklo** » Thu Oct 12, 2006 4:16 am

Here's the current method:

1. Each song gets saved as an "entire memory" dump to its own folder on the mpc. this wastes a little space but a 2 gig CF card gives you PLENTY of room for this.

2. For each synth track, I just store the midi program change number in the mpc track. I've got to be careful when I'm saving a song to make sure I save all the synth patches and then set the correct program change numbers on the mpc. This is definitely the most painful part but once you get in the habit it's not that bad and I can recall everything from the mpc.

I'm still trying to decide if I want to use a computer with softsynths or just an external hardware synth or two. The computer obviously gives you a lot more options and processing power but, for the stuff I tend to do, a Virus and maybe a Nord Rack can cover most of the synth sounds I want. I like to run stuff back into the mpc and resample it in realtime to make new fodder for beats and effects on the mpc, so a single synth can stretch a lot farther than you think. If only the Nord leads had onboard delay - they'd be perfect for quick-hands on sound design.

stale bread · Post by **stale bread** » Thu Oct 12, 2006 5:11 am

ok, i'm going to try that, I'm always paranoid about diskspace, but i do plan on getting an internal drive, right now the cf card i'm working off of is only 128mbs so...

i don't have to worry about the synths/patches cause i'm using Live strictly for that as well as the final resting place. I'm looking at the mp as more of another creative environment completely/ something to augment Live so half the time i'll use it to make complete compositions and the other half just use it in conjuntion with Live. i'm a sample junkie so i'll use Live to create a bunch of samples export''em and load them up into the mpc.

is there a paticular way that you have your sample banks structured? and do you have a set that autoloads when you boot up

kuniklo · Post by **kuniklo** » Thu Oct 12, 2006 5:16 am

stale bread wrote: is there a paticular way that you have your sample banks structured? and do you have a set that autoloads when you boot up

Right now I've just got them organized by source. I've got Synthetic Drums 1 and 2, some Guru stuff, and some vintage drum machine sounds, all converted to mono/16bit and normalized. I just load up a kit one hit at a time from scratch. I have a minimal autoload set up right now - I'm never quite sure where I want to go with a track so I try to keep it flexible.

I do have a sort of track layout convention though. The basic drum pattern goes on track one and I add extra drum layers on tracks 2-4 that I can bring in and out. Tracks 5-8 go for typical synth parts - bass, lead, string & whatever. The top tracks I just use as necessary and I've never had more than 16 going at once. I usually work out a good four bar part, double it to 8, then start writing variations as new sequences.

milka · Post by **milka** » Thu Oct 12, 2006 10:40 am

sounds interesting

like to give it a try .. but they arent cheap boxes
here in Europe.

was trying to find a used MPC 1000 for max 300 euros on Ebay ...

djadonis206 · Post by **djadonis206** » Thu Oct 12, 2006 3:54 pm

longjohns wrote:also curious -

why do you need a separate sampler?

When I was working with my old MPC's samplers were expensive (believe it or not) but I wanted a seperate loop player - for my loops and sound efx

the MPC was cool for the drums and what not but I always envisioned a seperate loop player and sound efx player

that's why

I always day dream about going back to the days of HW but it's a slow, long drawn out dream I can't seem to wake up from

kuniklo · Post by **kuniklo** » Thu Oct 12, 2006 4:06 pm

The new Korg Kaoss Pad 3 might make a pretty nice hands-on effects box and loop sampler to go with the MPC.

MPC discussion - love it

MPC discussion - love it

Re: MPC discussion - love it