CLEAN Basslines

Technical questions for the MPC2000xl and the MPC2000
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CLEAN Basslines

By Scrawny Fri Feb 07, 2020 12:18 pm
I have tried two things in many different occasions and the result is almost always a very unrefined bassline. I tried looping a steady part of a sound, and sampling the noise from plugging the 1/4 RCA input half way in and making that sound a little bit more like a standard bassline. Usually I just roll with it, but yesterday I was making a beat that the bassline would have been really important in. Think Premo's Boom but instead of the guitar, bassline.

What can I do to get a nice clean bassline? I also had to slow down the sample by an entire octave, and I sampled it from a tape so there's some noise in it too. Could that be dirtying up the frequencies my bassline is playing in?
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Re: CLEAN Basslines

By Lampdog Fri Feb 07, 2020 5:54 pm
loop and 1 or 2 cycle wave.

Note on/off, your choice.

Adjust decay, sustain to taste.

Adjust resonance, this has helped me a lot.

I have gotten good with basslines on 2kxl throughout the years.

If you have an effects card put that into use somehow, someway if you like. I used to add just a small amount of reverb.

Re: CLEAN Basslines

By Scrawny Fri Feb 07, 2020 6:05 pm
Lampdog wrote:loop and 1 or 2 cycle wave.



I'm not sure what you mean with that. Also, when I sample sounds in the MPC, on the trim screen, the waveforms aren't that refined either. But the volume is good. Even if I turn it up and sample at an earrape level, when open window on the start point, there's barely 1 pixel width lines on there.
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Re: CLEAN Basslines

By Lampdog Fri Feb 07, 2020 6:13 pm
Check out pg. 121-125. These are the settings I edit after I get a smooth 1 or 2 cycle loop going.
https://www.mpc-tutor.com/files/mpc-manual/MPC2000XL_manual.pdf

I mistyped. Zoom into waveform, loop 1-2 sample points length and follow the rest of the advice.

This is a 1 cycle pic.

Image

2kxl doesn't have full ADSR, there is A, D, in PARAMS that you can manipulate.

Image

Re: CLEAN Basslines

By Scrawny Fri Feb 07, 2020 6:27 pm
Lampdog wrote:I mistyped. Zoom into waveform, loop 1-2 sample points length and follow the rest of the advice.


Wait, do you mean literally set the start point to 1 and end point to 2? I'm really dense lol... What I've been aiming for is a clean loop. The end and start points both at 0... but as far as I know, all that affects is pops/clicks while looping?
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Re: CLEAN Basslines

By Lampdog Fri Feb 07, 2020 6:35 pm
Scrawny wrote:Wait, do you mean literally set the start point to 1 and end point to 2? I'm really dense lol... What I've been aiming for is a clean loop. The end and start points both at 0... but as far as I know, all that affects is pops/clicks while looping?

Not 0 on the sample. Find somewhere in the middle of the sample and loop from any upswing in waveform to the end of the following down swing (1 cycle) just like in the pic. You ever heard of grain samples in synths? Well, this is grains applied in 2kxl for basslines. It's not a quick thing to understand. Do it! Jump into it and see how things work and play out and THEN you will start to understand. Just talking about it gets you nowhere.

Re: CLEAN Basslines

By Scrawny Fri Feb 07, 2020 7:36 pm
Lampdog wrote:
Scrawny wrote:Wait, do you mean literally set the start point to 1 and end point to 2? I'm really dense lol... What I've been aiming for is a clean loop. The end and start points both at 0... but as far as I know, all that affects is pops/clicks while looping?

Not 0 on the sample. Find somewhere in the middle of the sample and loop from any upswing in waveform to the end of the following down swing (1 cycle) just like in the pic. You ever heard of grain samples in synths? Well, this is grains applied in 2kxl for basslines. It's not a quick thing to understand. Do it! Jump into it and see how things work and play out and THEN you will start to understand. Just talking about it gets you nowhere.



I meant 0 as in right in the middle of the middle line, when I hit open window on the start point.
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