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

[pribeh_tom]

Jamester,

You have to add that to the latency you hear through a computer system. 6+6 equals 12. And that doesn't even account for other other acoustic anomalies. Then imagine what it's like playing without a monitor during some shows. Headphones do help mediate this and I'm glad I have a good set. Don't get me wrong, I don't want to dis' live 7. Ableton, totally went in the right direction with this program. I'm just saying it doesn't compare to the mpc's timing, feel and groove. I have an amazing workflow between the two and wouldn't dispose of one or the other. I record to MPC, mash, then track to Live and love it. With the jitter virtually gone in Live 7 I'm in heaven. Just need a better interface right now.

To Heinz. My fireface broke - which had really low latency as well. I'm going to get a duet (from Apogee) as soon as I can.

[kuniklo]

I can't really explain why, since Live 7 is about 100x more powerful than my 1k, but the grooves I come up with on the MPC are much better than anything I've done in Live. Might be the interface, might be something about the timing, might just be purely psychological, but there's no question that the beats on the MPC are right in the pocket and my Live beats are both stiff *and* sloppy.

In a lot of ways I'd love to ditch all my hardware for a pure laptop rig but the results aren't the same.

[trumtrum]

Anything less than 20ms is unrecognizable by the human ear.

Yeah right . You can try to increase or decrease one of your tracks by 20ms in a Live set and se if you can hear any difference...

[v00d00ppl]

Anything less than 20ms is unrecognizable by the human ear.

Yeah right . You can try to increase or decrease one of your tracks by 20ms in a Live set and se if you can hear any difference...

we are talking about the main soundcard latency. your ears will automatically adjust itself if the latency is less than 20 ms. Any value above 20ms will feel like you are echoing. for example you can compare asio4all latency when playing with a drum pad controller versus direct x latency at let's say 30 ms, it will be highly noticeable.

the track delay you are talking about is giving it a delay before the clip triggers. That is a mathematical error because at default asio4all would be set at 13ms then you add the 20ms=33ms. There is a lag. Hell, if you added 7ms on a track delay on a sound driver with already 13ms you are already pushing it, i would even say there might be a margin of error of 1-2ms so that is pushing it.

[lukas412]

Anything less than 20ms is unrecognizable by the human ear.

if you cant notice 20ms, there is something wrong with you. More like less than 10ms.

Luke

[Tone Deft]

Anything less than 20ms is unrecognizable by the human ear.

it absolutely is. try playing your keyboard just once. set the latency to 20ms and check the feel of the playing, then lower it to <10mS, whatever you can get, the feel is HIGHLY improved. for playing REAL instruments 20mS is VERY noticeable. I can feel 5mS but it doesn't bother me that much.

[EgAD]

Hey there you guys are just woke up myself, well i know I titled the thread mpc vs. live 7 but I love Live and the mpc as probably most of you, what I wanna know is what you're doing with both, and what you feel is missing in the drumrack slicer, hey and what are you guys doing to swing those beats like you
are used to on your mpc?

[v00d00ppl]

I can't really explain why, since Live 7 is about 100x more powerful than my 1k, but the grooves I come up with on the MPC are much better than anything I've done in Live. Might be the interface, might be something about the timing, might just be purely psychological, but there's no question that the beats on the MPC are right in the pocket and my Live beats are both stiff *and* sloppy.

In a lot of ways I'd love to ditch all my hardware for a pure laptop rig but the results aren't the same.

try going without your mpc for like a week. then try to just apply the same concepts on live only and see if you have trouble on that end.

you can also try to set a loop limit of 2 bars in a clip you are about to record in an impulse or drum rack so it emulates the pattern style of the mpc when you write beats after you finish the 2 bars. I know by default ableton acts more like song mode on the mpc because the loop continues asnd then when you stop the quantizing function will throw some notes off. So if you are used to mpc style pattern sequencing just double click a blank clip and set the loop length to 2 bars max.

another way i have overcome the mpc style sequencing is to turn off quantize and just roll with that. You will really begin to improve yourself rhythmically without relying on the quantize. But of course stick to putting bar limits on your clips before recording into them just to get that pattern sequencing feel. Throwing natural swings will be much easier with your natural playing versus doing it with a midi quantize.

another thing i missed on the mpc was the note repeat function. the way i went around it was just plugging in a midi effect on the sample i wanted to play with. I like the midi effects on ableton versus the 1/8, 1/8 (3), 1/16, etc. on the mpc note repeat. You can not only do some nice note repeats on ableton but with some of the crazier presets/effects you can make some leftfield sounds.

when i have more times i will tyr to rite a guide on how to adjust from something like an mpc 1000 to ableton live.

don't get me wrong, everyone has a different workflow and some people will be fine with an mpc. i think the biggest turn off for me was the old pad design of the mpc 1000 and then akai denying it uses a new pad design on the new 1000. i have really thought about getting another mpc 1000 with the new pad design but there are other things akai needs to fix before i throw more money in their way (f1-f5 keys, selection wheel, using compact flash as a memory stick when they should of stuck with the mcd or even sd card format).

i know that there will always be someone who is skeptical of how to work with software versus a hardware unti so i can't win every battle, but what i learned most about the whole debate is to have fun making music versus worrying about technical specs.

peace

[Tone Deft]

I'm looking forward to your posts on the matter v00d00 sounds like you're pretty wired into the mpc.

I'm moving, my mpc's packed up today, maybe I'll dig it out and try some of your tips.

anyway, if your latency is over 20ms, see if you can lower it, you'll get even tighter beats, especially if you're going w/o quantize.

[kuniklo]

try going without your mpc for like a week. then try to just apply the same concepts on live only and see if you have trouble on that end

I actually started out with software and only started experimenting with hardware fairly recently, so I'm a lot more familiar with Live than anything else. I've tried the things you suggest and I can get pretty close to an MPC workflow with a pad kontrol and some good midi mapping but something about it just isn't quite the same.

My solution is to use both. It's easy enough to record patterns from the MPC as audio clips in Live.

[EgAD]

v00d00ppl great post , let me say i understand the idea of turning off quantize and recording your beats but there is a whole other mpc feel where you want that quantized in the pocket swing, kind of like the same way people sometimes want to get that pumping feel from a compressor, how do you go about getting that nice quantize that you get from the mp, I have tried rewiring reason 4 into Live and using the re-groove tool and I really love what it is capable of, but I hate rewire and any kind of third party hassles (we're so spoiled i know) so i'd like to be able to get the same feel with just the drumrack that you can get with the mpc 1000

[v00d00ppl]

hey, egad can you describe pocket swing more. I still am not comprehending it yet. describe it or show audio examples if you have any. if i know what it is i will try to figure out a way to emulate it in live.

peace

[EgAD]

ok basicly what I mean is how would you go about getting the swing you can get from the mpc time correct function or lets say reasons regroove, i'm just talking about the swing setting feature on the mpc that you apply after you have programed a beat. live has a swing function of course in the upper corner next to the tempo but when i apply lives swing it doesn't sound the same, maybe i'm not using it properly

[v00d00ppl]

ok basicly what I mean is how would you go about getting the swing you can get from the mpc time correct function or lets say reasons regroove, i'm just talking about the swing setting feature on the mpc that you apply after you have programed a beat. live has a swing function of course in the upper corner next to the tempo but when i apply lives swing it doesn't sound the same, maybe i'm not using it properly

my first quick answer would be to not quantize it first (set the swing to straight), record your sequence in a pattern mode. Then set a swing function.

but i would also recommend rendering all the regroove clips you have in reason directly as 2/4/etc bar loops and the n stretch it in live to work with other greooves you are messing with. i think rewire is a double edged sword and to prevent cpu hogging rendring your drump loops/etc in reason 4 then messing with the audio loops in live as audio tracks will give you more sonic possiblities.

but my long answer to your situation would be messing with the new timing signatures feature. this weekedn will be very busy for me, but around wednesday or thursday i will write about how to work around it with the new timing signature feature.

[EgAD]

great thats very kind of you, i'll be looking forward to that.

oh yeah and you other mpc-Live 7-nicians tell us what you think too