anyone use Akai MPD32?

[benjamingordon]

Hello!

Im wondering how you all use your MPD32?

What do you have assigned?

Can you freely assign the LED 'S' buttons underneath the top faders?

[loydb]

I just got one plugged in yesterday and managed to get it working a drum kit and controlling the transport in Live. More experimentations asap.

[Seppe]

You might want to check this:

http://forum.ableton.com/viewtopic.php? ... t#p1197464

I plan to do an update in the coming weeks. Eventually, I would like to use the MPD in this way:
- controls and pads A: Ableton Live control (with red box)
- controls and pads B: DJ-effects
- controls C and pads C and D: drums and samples

Seppe

[darkmelody]

I use it differently for different jobs.

For a recent live set I had 12 pads mapped to trigger scenes and 4 to a mini drum rack because I wanted to be able to "drum" and trigger clips without changing banks.

Rotaries were assigned to control various FX parameters and to change "loop start" positions.

The vertical faders were controlling channel levels.


For dj'ing I have the pads mapped in vertical rows.
Starting from the top
STOP
VIEW WAVEFORM
VIEW EQ
PLAY

Other pads (i.e row 3 and 4) control various things like "follow" and I keep my mini drum rack on 7,8, 11,12 to minimise the chance of hitting play or stop on a channel by mistake. (rack is a snare, 909handclap, open hihat, closed hi hat).

The vertical faders control the level.

Rotaries are Lo/Mid/hi/send

Other vertical faders control FX on the send channel.
The LED under channel 1 is "loop on/off" which works for whatever waveform is in "focus" (to borrow some traktor ternminology)

I recently got a soundcard with 4 outs so I will be able to send the channels independently to my mixer, thus freeing up rotaries for other jobs.

I don't know if my mapping is even logical, but the brilliant thing is that Live's MIDI map mode makes it so easy to change depending on your project.

[Seppe]

I've updated my script:

http://forum.ableton.com/viewtopic.php? ... t#p1197464

Comments and requests are welcome.


Seppe

[rbmonosylabik]

Having the red box on the MPD32 is great. It's the first thing I did to mine and makes working with it so much fun.

Another thing I did for production is use MidiPipe to have a pad bank control the Browser. What I did is in OSX, add key commands to the browser's buttons (Live Devices, Plug Ins, user folders and hot swap) and 5 buttons for the arrow keys and enter.

That way I can load, for example, a bunch of empty Simplers in a Drum Rack, then if I want to look for a kick sample, hit the Hot Swap button in a simpler, select my samples user folder with the MPD, browse it with the pads mapped to arrows and quickly load it with the Enter pad.

[loydb]

Speaking of these, I sensitized my pads following the YouTube directions, it made a huge difference as to how well it plays.

[dentaku]

I did it to my MPK49 pads. It's worth doing.
http://img192.imageshack.us/img192/2337/20100912004.jpg

Speaking of these, I sensitized my pads following the YouTube directions, it made a huge difference as to how well it plays.

[loydb]

Hah, yours are way neater than mine. I just layered electrical tape 2-3 layers deep.

[rbmonosylabik]

I did it to my MPK49 pads. It's worth doing.
http://img192.imageshack.us/img192/2337/20100912004.jpg

Speaking of these, I sensitized my pads following the YouTube directions, it made a huge difference as to how well it plays.

Those look good, what did you use for it?

[dentaku]

It's just four layers of blue electrical tape and when I ran out of blue I used red. I snipped off the corners just to make it look better.

[benjamingordon]

youve sensitised your pads?

can you please post the link to that video.

i use a 2000xl in the studio and the pads are much softer and nicer that the new 1000s or MPD range..

[dentaku]

This is how it worked for my MPK49. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_mI4SutQJpQ
For the MPD32 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_mI4SutQJpQ
MPCSTUFF.COM even sells kits for all kinds of AKAI stuff http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ck1nk1xBTfU

youve sensitised your pads?

can you please post the link to that video.

i use a 2000xl in the studio and the pads are much softer and nicer that the new 1000s or MPD range..

[loydb]

It's pretty straightforward on the MPD32. Take it apart gently, though, there's a ribbon cable that you don't want to rip.