Working musical samples in the 2kxl.

How do you guys work musical or chord sounds in your 2kxl? I'm having no problems with sampled drums etc, but I am finding it difficult without proper envelopes and other "sampler" tools to work synth sounds with the 2kxl.

Just working completely in the mpc and I hope to stay that way.

Not real keen on adding another sampler and a mixing desk etc.

The limited envelope is a problem, I remember I used to use heavy reverb and/or delay on things like strings and pads to help create more smooth releases, not ideal though. Other sounds are easier to work with like guitar, bass, horns, pianos etc as they don't have much decay upon release. What specific problems are you having?

personally I'm a big fan of 16 levels -> NV/tuning. any short bit of tone can hopefully be looped and used for a melodic bit but you can't have two of the same pad on the same step of the same track, so I like to building the chords note by note on separate tracks. the amp envelope lengths seem to be linked to tuning but the filter envelope times are constant. worth noting, if you have use 16 levels-> tuning for a pad, it will also 16level tuning any pads that are linked for simultaneous playback, so you can thicken up the sound that way.

MPC-Tutor wrote:The limited envelope is a problem, I remember I used to use heavy reverb and/or delay on things like strings and pads to help create more smooth releases, not ideal though. Other sounds are easier to work with like guitar, bass, horns, pianos etc as they don't have much decay upon release. What specific problems are you having?

Yeah I have been baking reverb and delay on synth stabs to help make things sound a little more natural. It's kind of funky that way. I just don't find 16 levels very easy to use, I'm gonna try hook up a midi keyboard and see if that helps. I'm not used to playing melody over pads.

Wallace wrote:I just don't find 16 levels very easy to use, I'm gonna try hook up a midi keyboard and see if that helps. I'm not used to playing melody over pads.

you'll need to create a new program to use a midi keyboard. 16 levels doesn't work with an external keyboard.

personally i find that getting the right loop is a really helpful. barring that, using note repeat creatively does wonders (the killer feature of an mpc).

the samples themselves have a great deal with how it sounds. get some good quality ones and pitch them as little as possible. 2kxl has a tendency to muddy the sound when pitching things, especially if the loop sections are to the longer side.

One thing I also learned is a sample can only have one 'tune' value per tick, so a C Triad would look something like this:

1.1.00 - C
1.1.01 - C +40 (E)
1.1.02 - C +70 (G)

mQueue wrote:One thing I also learned is a sample can only have one 'tune' value per tick, so a C Triad would look something like this:

1.1.00 - C
1.1.01 - C +40 (E)
1.1.02 - C +70 (G)

this is a good way to hack chords out of 16 levels

Cheers for the tips. Will have to try note repeat again. I haven't really used it for anything but 16th high hat patterns. It's pretty groovy with the hold down velocity sensitivity.

mQueue wrote:One thing I also learned is a sample can only have one 'tune' value per tick, so a C Triad would look something like this:

1.1.00 - C
1.1.01 - C +40 (E)
1.1.02 - C +70 (G)

Nice tip! I just gonna do that from now on