MPC Users..... MPC vs. Live 7 Drumracks/Slicer

longjohns · Post by **longjohns** » Sat Dec 08, 2007 2:56 am

To all who have timing problems with live 7(on pc), please try switching back to MME midi drivers.

I think something could still be screwy with the new DirectMusic implementation, which is also the default now.

T.I.M. · Post by **T.I.M.** » Sat Dec 08, 2007 9:55 am

I use both, but hardly together. I dont have my hands on 7 yet. Cant really tell you about the slicer. One thing I dont like, is mmc or mtc with both units working together .

Dan Dare · Post by **Dan Dare** » Sat Dec 08, 2007 10:33 am

Well for me in theory slicer is awesome,, I really thought it would speed up my work-flow and enable me to do some more creative design with drums. There are still a few things to be ironed out with the drum racks/slicer. The main thing is how it treats Multi pads.

The slice to midi file function is really cool in slicer, I used to do that with recycle and then transfer the midi grooves to the MPC... painfully long task on the 2000.

As far as swing, in Live I will bash it out with whatever is the lowest latency I can and then turn quantize off and manually move the midi around until it swings how I want it.

MPC is still a great machine, it makes you think differently about making beats and I would never sell it.

starving student · Post by **starving student** » Sun Dec 09, 2007 8:08 pm

good tips in here how do you make a thread like this a sticky?

JLaws · Post by **JLaws** » Sun Dec 09, 2007 10:56 pm

What it really comes down to is adapting to change. I have had just about every MPC. But because of Giging and traveling I had to change. I realized I cant luge around my mpc and everything else in a hotel room when I have an idea I want to execute. The best thing to do if you wanna learn it is put your mpc away and force yourself to use live. give it 2-3 weeks and it will all click. Of course its gonna feel weird and different at first but remember how slow everyone was when they first started making beats? You gotta change. I really cant wait till I get down this new slice function its gonna really speed up my production.

jlgrimes · Post by **jlgrimes** » Mon Dec 10, 2007 12:43 am

Yhtomit wrote:The main difference is that (any) MPC has near zero latency when triggering samples but the new ableton live 7 has not!! Minimum latency is ... 512 samples!! Which is too big for triggering drumsamples with pads or drumsticks (e-drum)
... So Live is not a drummachine, yet!!
grtz

I can get Live (or any other software app except fruityloops) down to 128 samples easy.

Some people can even get it down to 64 samples.

Any of these latencies are about the same as hardware (or even better than some hardware).

I have stopped using the mpc for a while. Mpcs are great for creating, but when it is time to hit the studio you can go through lengthy track out sessions which can result in increased studio costs and time. Also saving your beats can be a pain on the MPC with complex setups.

Live 7 comes amazingly close to competing with an mpc. It has even surpassed an mpc in some respects. It has never been easier creating a drum kit and with graphical waveform editing for each sample withing a click's reach, Live has created a hit.

Only gripe with Live is that they still neglect to improve their quantize functions.

We need 1/32 input quantize.

We also need better swing functions.

Abes check out Reason.

They have one of my favorite quantize systems right now.

starving student · Post by **starving student** » Mon Dec 10, 2007 9:36 am

I've been reading everything on this subject on this forum and thats what it seems to come down to, the groove of things. have you guys compared Guru with the L7 drumslicer, I was reading the new features list and i've just never heard of a slicer with all of those features in it, I think L7 and the new guru features are the most astounding featurelist of anything i've ever seen on paper right now. who ever heard of a slicer where you could randomize every parameter

Sleep Tyght · Post by **Sleep Tyght** » Tue Dec 11, 2007 1:16 am

I'm pretty much using an MPC+Battery+Stylus+Drum racks combo.

Live is slaved to the MPC to retain that MPC groove. Hey say what you want, but I've continuously programmed sequences in the MPC...then added a 1/8 quantize with maybe a swing of 60 and there's a particular feel that becomes somewhat robotic and stiff when I slave the MPC to Live afterwards. Maybe it's a placebo effect...maybe not. It's all about what offers comfort as far as I'm concerned so I'll continue to slave Live when programming beats.

I use Battery as my drum/hit/percussion module. Stylus as well. I use drum racks out of sheer laziness when I don't want to convert .wav loops to Rex2 files for Stylus. It's also pretty nice to use Live's arpeggiator and beat machine effects on Battery hits instead of note repeat.

Tone Deft · Post by **Tone Deft** » Tue Dec 11, 2007 1:18 am

starving student wrote:good tips in here how do you make a thread like this a sticky?

post it here
http://www.ableton.com/forum/viewtopic. ... 098#598098

check the first page of that sticky, tons of the good shit.

stale bread · Post by **stale bread** » Tue Dec 11, 2007 3:06 am

post it here

Afro88 · Post by **Afro88** » Wed Dec 12, 2007 11:51 am

With the drum rack, can you set it up so the pads map automatically to the mpc's pads? Or is that just for the korg controllers?

blinkeye · Post by **blinkeye** » Thu Aug 14, 2008 2:49 am

Afro88 wrote:With the drum rack, can you set it up so the pads map automatically to the mpc's pads? Or is that just for the korg controllers?

You can just make a new program on the mpc for the Drum Rack. I think the notes may be different between the MPC and Drum Rack.

as for the pad set selector on the drum rack which chooses which 16 pads you're controlling, you can map the top 4 pads for example, in Live using the pitch plugin. Hold the 1st and 4th pad to map the 4-key range, and set the map range sliders from 0st to +36st. Now you can flip between octaves. The only thing with this is that you now only have 12 pads to play with. It'd be cool if the MPC had extra buttons for midi assigning. Perhaps the Q-link slider could be midi mapped? But if you have another controller next to it with some buttons, you can use those.

Tone Deft · Post by **Tone Deft** » Thu Aug 14, 2008 2:57 am

drum racks default to the midi drum standard
the MPC defaults to the midi drum standard
good times.

Q links can output CC#s and the MPC displays which midi standard CC# you're using.

blinkeye · Post by **blinkeye** » Thu Aug 14, 2008 3:26 am

Tone Deft wrote:drum racks default to the midi drum standard
the MPC defaults to the midi drum standard
good times.

Q links can output CC#s and the MPC displays which midi standard CC# you're using.

Hmm.. Is it possible to convert a CC# to multiple note numbers? I know that you can convert cc to note numbers but I don't know how that works exactly. I was just thinking that since CC# have a range of values like 0 - 127, whether it be possible to convert each value to a different note number...

blinkeye · Post by **blinkeye** » Thu Aug 14, 2008 3:49 am

blinkeye wrote:
Tone Deft wrote:drum racks default to the midi drum standard
the MPC defaults to the midi drum standard
good times.

Q links can output CC#s and the MPC displays which midi standard CC# you're using.
Hmm.. Is it possible to convert a CC# to multiple note numbers? I know that you can convert cc to note numbers but I don't know how that works exactly. I was just thinking that since CC# have a range of values like 0 - 127, whether it be possible to convert each value to a different note number...

On further research, I came across controlAid and found this description which sounds kinda close to what I was imagining:

Code: Select all

#  The velocities/values of noteon/cc messages can be assigned min/max values or inverted. This is useful when used with the one-to-many feature described next.
# allows you to have unlimited "one-to-many" noteOn or cc triggers. When these notes or cc messages are received, controlAid will create unlimited additional cc / note on messages as defined by the user. Examples of use include triggering multiple one-shot clips with a single note, or controlling the cutoff frequency for the filters of all your tracks / instruments with a single knob, slider or pedal. You can use the invert, max and min capabilities of controlAid to setup all kinds of special crossfades between different effects using the one-to-many function. All MIDI messages generated using mouseMode are sent through these transformations.

Anyone have experience with this stuff?