Live and MPC - what's your flow?

Discuss music production with Ableton Live.
Tone Deft
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Post by Tone Deft » Sat Jul 19, 2008 8:16 pm

Sleep Tyght wrote:Nevermind...all talk.
mostly talk, I hear ya... better to be all talk without the hate. ;)


mostly been using Live to prep samples for the mpc and sort my sample library. freezing clips to make wav files of them in the processed directory.
In my life
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At people who I'd much rather kick in the eye?
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logic_user99
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Post by logic_user99 » Sat Jul 19, 2008 10:08 pm

this thread is certainly not helping my MPC-envy!

It's good to hear how you guys are working, though. Gives even me some hope!
Macbook | Live 7.0.18 |

Sleep Tyght
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Post by Sleep Tyght » Sun Jul 20, 2008 3:17 pm

Tone Deft wrote:
Sleep Tyght wrote:Nevermind...all talk.
mostly talk, I hear ya... better to be all talk without the hate. ;)

Yeah I was trippin' there for a minute. No reason to let my frustration with this issue be a cause for such immaturity. Thank God for the edit button. :D




starving student wrote:well i read through that paticular thread, there was a couple of things in there but not much, for all of us talking about sync here's a cross post by Satoyo on how he does it, maybe you've tried it maybe you haven't but here it is.

roll call - nice idea. lets get this thread sticky!!!

here's the full laydown on how to MIDI sync your mpc 1000/2500 with ableton live:

MIDI CONNECTION & SETUP IN THE MPC OS/ABLETON

connect the mpc midi out to the midi in of your interface.
the main outs to your interface's audio input
(not necessesary for syncing, but you'll need it later for finetuning)

go to the SYNC Menu (MODE + PAD 9 then F2)
and set it up like this:

Sync out: A MASTER
Mode: MIDI TIME CLOCK
Framerate: 30
send MMC: ON

your mpc sends out mtc and mmc now

Start Ableton Live and go to
OPTIONS > PREFERENCES > MIDI/SYNC

set the SYNC button of your Midi ports midi input to ON
Set the Type to MIDI TIMECODE
Set the Midi Time code rate to SMPT 30 FPS NON DROP

Activate the EXT button on top, next to the BPM display for setting
Live into External Sync Mode.
Also activate the button with the black and white dot (that's Live's Metronome).

Start your empeecee in Overdub Mode (OVER DUB + PLAY)
The empeecee and Live should now start playing.
If everything is fine, you should hear the two metronomes sound
running

Should you hear the two Metronomes Sounds running not perfectly in Sync,

Try to fine tune that, play around with the MIDI SYNC DELAY until both are in complete Sync. (mine runs at -25.5 ms, for example, but that may differ...)

Another Possibility would be exact setup of your audio latency compensation. there is a lesson in lives help covering correct setup.
do that, if needed.


Congrats, you did it.

Now live is running in sync with your empeecee and you can control Live's
sequencer controls (play, stop, ff,....) with the controls of your mpc.

you can also send midi data from the mpc to virtual instruments loaded up
in live.

All that funky vsti's controlled and sequenced with intuitive"hands on"-style
of the empeecee, isn't this lovely...

From this point on, you might be interested in

CONTROLLING MULTIPLE VSTis IN ABLETON WITH THE MPC

On your mpc, set your TRACK setting from DRUM to MIDI and set your MIDI output from NONE to, e.g. 1A.

I saved a .PGM file where every track uses a different midi channel so i can send 16 (32, if you use your second midi out) channels of midi data.


In Ableton Live, click on the small black button labeled "I.O"
Its next to the Master output fader on the right side.
Now your Input and Output routings appear.

Now, create some midi channels in Live (CTRL+SHIFT+T).
There are four knobs:

MIDI FROM: select the midi interface where you plugged your MPC in.

CHANNEL: select your Desired channel, Either All or 1 to 16

MONITOR:
IN: will playback all the time
AUTO: will playback only if the channel is set to record
OFF: no playback at all

Set your channels correct and then, the mpc will use live as one big rack.
you can push your pads and have the mpc feel and groove, but you will be able to mix down and process nicely in live using plugins & stuff.

have fun with that.


greetz,

satoyo







Man can I just say THANK YOU? Such a great post! :D
Whatever Doesn't Kill You, Only Makes You Stranger.

Tone Deft
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Post by Tone Deft » Sun Jul 20, 2008 10:30 pm

:idea: it finally clicked :idea:

had a start of a song. drums, bass, weird sounds, nothing happening with it.

I froze the drums, used Switch (free for PC, lots of formats like 44.1k 16bit)
http://www.download.com/Switch/3000-214 ... d=10831233
to change it to the right rate and put it onto the mpc. (actually did 2Gb worth at once, Switch is great for batch processing, and MPCs need 44.1k 16bit.) Live's Freeze directory puts out 32 bit floating, MPCs don't like that.

do the whole chop shop thing with the MPC, make a nice bank of Track Mutes.

sync the MPC to Live, give it it's own audio input track.
put the MPC audio in track on Fader A, the other drums in Live on Fader B
with midi assign Live's X-fader to Q-Link 2 on the mpc.


MPC - enable midi out for the Progam for the chopped drums, assign Pad Bank D to the clips in Live. for each Group of sounds (drums, bass, weird shit...) make a scene that turns them off but leave the others on (stop clip button in ones you want to control).

the clips in Live are also put into a little Follow Mode group so I can hit a pad on the MPC Pad Bank D and put the stuff in Live into automatic follow mode and just play on the MPC.

*edit* I left off that the program used for the Live control has to be different than the program playing material on the MPC, otherwise as you're launching Live clips you're interrupting the MPC playing it's stuff.

I have such a hard on right now I'm about to pass out.


btw is (mostly) all stuff you could do with an mpd32 and Live 7.
Last edited by Tone Deft on Sun Jul 20, 2008 11:31 pm, edited 1 time in total.
In my life
Why do I smile
At people who I'd much rather kick in the eye?
-Moz

starving student
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Post by starving student » Sun Jul 20, 2008 11:10 pm

sounds intresting td,, could you groove with the mpd32 too?

timothyallan
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Post by timothyallan » Sun Jul 20, 2008 11:18 pm

Khazul wrote:The sync issue seems to only hit while looping a section. If you just hitting play and letting it run with no arrange loop, then it seems to be ok.

As far a I can tell its skipping some midi tick messges when it loops back.

Unfortunately most of the time I want to tweak stuff, bounce it etc, I want to have loop on - Grrrrrr!!!


Ableton please sort this out!
Have you checked the new 7.09 beta in the bugs forum which seems to have this exact issue as a bug fix??

Tone Deft
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Post by Tone Deft » Sun Jul 20, 2008 11:30 pm

starving student wrote:sounds intresting td,, could you groove with the mpd32 too?
at that point you're arguing Live's groove stuff vs. the MPC's groove stuff and whether it's worth $500+ to get an MPC and experience the mythical, magical mpc swing. you believe that shit or not, it's a neverending argument between fanboys.

and fanboys says...
In my life
Why do I smile
At people who I'd much rather kick in the eye?
-Moz

beats me
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Post by beats me » Mon Jul 21, 2008 1:37 am

Tone Deft wrote:and fanboys says...
...Beatmaker on the iphone pwns both the MPC and Live 7. :D

starving student
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Post by starving student » Mon Jul 21, 2008 1:50 am

Tone Deft wrote:
starving student wrote:sounds intresting td,, could you groove with the mpd32 too?
at that point you're arguing Live's groove stuff vs. the MPC's groove stuff and whether it's worth $500+ to get an MPC and experience the mythical, magical mpc swing. you believe that shit or not, it's a neverending argument between fanboys.

and fanboys says...
actualy i was serious, i read a post that i can't seem to find now where someone said something about the mpd32 having some kind of mpc groove features, i'm planning to get one myself if thats the case. i just assumed you had one

Tone Deft
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Post by Tone Deft » Mon Jul 21, 2008 2:11 am

beats - I'll leave an open input to my studio mixer so we can find out. bring it beyotch!

student - I hadn't heard that, nice overview video here from an Akai gai.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vnAQT64NYoQ

page 25 of the mpd manual (it's online, I can't seem to copy text from it, a pdf thing maybe?)
http://www.akaipro.com/stuff/contentmgr ... _v1_02.pdf
there's swing on the note repeat, changing the swing amount 'changes the delay on every EVEN note' (every other note.) there's also a gate control on the note repeat.

I didn't know it was bus powered, that's cool.
In my life
Why do I smile
At people who I'd much rather kick in the eye?
-Moz

beats me
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Post by beats me » Mon Jul 21, 2008 2:34 am

Tone Deft wrote:beats - I'll leave an open input to my studio mixer so we can find out. bring it beyotch!
Of course Beatmaker isn't anywhere near as sophisticated as Live or the MPC but what it does have over both is the ability to crop the audio file by just dragging your finger across the screen, or maybe the MPC 85000001 does that, dunno.

Where both the MPC and Beatmaker win over Live is that they take the hit off your CPU, and no MIDI controller is going to do that no matter how cool. I'm totally pro-no-cpu-hit.

blinkeye
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Post by blinkeye » Mon Jul 21, 2008 6:05 am

Tone Deft wrote:Live's Freeze directory puts out 32 bit floating, MPCs don't like that.
Really? In what way does the MPC not like 32 bit floating audio?

contakt321
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Post by contakt321 » Mon Jul 21, 2008 2:20 pm

starving student wrote:
Tone Deft wrote:
starving student wrote:sounds intresting td,, could you groove with the mpd32 too?
at that point you're arguing Live's groove stuff vs. the MPC's groove stuff and whether it's worth $500+ to get an MPC and experience the mythical, magical mpc swing. you believe that shit or not, it's a neverending argument between fanboys.

and fanboys says...
actualy i was serious, i read a post that i can't seem to find now where someone said something about the mpd32 having some kind of mpc groove features, i'm planning to get one myself if thats the case. i just assumed you had one
As an MPC2000 owner (10 years experience), and a Live 7 and MPD32 owner, here is my take on the MPD32:

Great drum pad midi controller. Simple, easy to use. Looks and feels awesome.
The swing function = decently executed, but not awesome. I have had sync issues w/ the MPD (I here 7.09 fixes this) so what you do is adjust the MPD's tempo, and swing. Then enable note repeat then line up all of the other hits.

My real advice for getting a heavy swing sound is to just practice recording with quantize off. I think you will get much better results and this is crucial when recording with chopped samples and loops to ensure that it "feels" right. Using your ears as opposed to a forced percentage will always sound better. People like J Dilla, Pete Rock, J-Zone, Madlib, etc are all producers (who I know personally) that don't quantize when they program drums.

That being said - the MPD32 is great and cheap.

starving student
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Post by starving student » Fri Oct 17, 2008 5:52 pm

I'm waiting for Novation to come out with a drumpad controller with 4 knobs 4 faders and banks, 16 lucious pads, a crossfader on the left side of the pads, and 4 bank buttons for the pads as well as 32 scene memory slots

Tone Deft
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Post by Tone Deft » Fri Oct 17, 2008 5:55 pm

mpd 32 is damn close to that.
In my life
Why do I smile
At people who I'd much rather kick in the eye?
-Moz

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