Mapping pads for freestyling live

Just wondering for freestyling drums on the mpc... how do ppl usually map out their pads? e.g.
1/ have separate pads for hats/kicks/snares/crashes etc
2/ map combinations e.g. kicks+hats on the 1 pad, snares + hats on another
3/ map a drum break and just play it in sequence??

...just curious to know what setups ppl use

hey man. Good to see people interested in playing their drums live on the MPC. My answer though probably won't make you too happy though.

And my answer is....

It depends.

I have about twenty tracks that i play 100% live (think jel style) and they all have different pad layouts. You should find what works not only for you, but also for the song that you're trying to play.

as a rough guideline though, my snare is always on pad 4 and kicks reside on pads 2 and 3. hats usually sit on pads 1 and 8 and i'll often have an open hat sitting on 5. pads 6 and 7 are very dependant on the song i am playing and the beat i wanna play.

That's the bottom 8 pads, and i guess that's how i usually have those set up. top 8 pads contain everything else that i'm gonna need for that particular part of the song. Bass notes usually sit somewhere on pads 9, 10 and 13, and the other 5 pads could be just about anything. This is repeated for banks B C and D, with those top 8 changing throughout the song and often drums changing some character too.

Even though that is my basic default layout not one of my tracks is actually exactly like that. some have hats connected to kicks, some have bassnotes connected to kicks, or hats connected to Bassnotes. Mute groups in wierd places to do different things, and sliders connected to do realtime manipulation of whatever pad i feel like messing with. Something i've done once or twice is to put a double hat on a pad so i can play 16th hats much more easily (for my drum and bass tunes)

Ok, that's enough of an essay on that one. I might upload you a program or two if you're interested.

Peace

^^^ Hey man. Just out of interest, do you write your tunes in this way, or compose them more traditionally then translate them?

Also, I just wonder your thoughts on how you think this translates live. Like, and I don't mean this to sound the wrong way, but do you think people care that much? I think people would definitely appreciate it, but then where do you draw the line about how complex you make it? Like, you could just resample the main loop and hit it and the start of every bar, then just play kick and snare over the top, and barely anyone would know the difference. I suppose it comes down to live expression, and communicating with the audience, but how many people appreciate what you are doing, or even understand half of it?

I'm not trying to have a go at the way you do your music, I'm just really interested to hear your thoughts. I'm putting together a live set using a combination of sequenced and live samples and synth. I'm trying to focus the live parts on things that the audience will understand what I'm doing, eg. live drums sometimes, synth sometimes, triggering samples other times. Its easy for the audience to understand when you play guitar but much harder when you play MPC!

Much respect for playing it all live! I'd be one guy in the audience loving every minute.

Eh bruxism thx for the tips (good to c anutha member representing from down under ) - yeah i actually map out my stuff that way as well... but i really lack the co-ordination (not having played drums/piano b4) to play stuff live well...

...but on youtube i noticed some ppl map sections of hi hats / breaks to some of their pads, soo just thinking is that like "cheating" or something...

M02 - im still a noob and generally compose in individual tracks, but am just getting interested in the prospects of playing stuff live e.g. jamming along w/ other instruments etc... as well as the prospects for composing - e.g. recording ur drum playing live may give the track a better feel

I guess w/ playing live vs playing (some) pre-recorded sequences... phaps can think of it like a singer that sings live vs mimes it on the big day... no one knows the difference (u still go thru all the motions etc), but YOU know its fake... soo mebbe is a question of pride in ur skill lvl... and as mentioned, if u wanna jam along w/ other ppl, then of course u'll get shown up if all ur doing is playing loops n watnot...

...of course all this im just dreaming up at the moment, i dont think i'd b ready to play anything live for a very long time

^^^ Oh yeah I totally agree with you there, at the end of the day I've got to be happy with the way I'm doing somthing or I feel like I'm cheating myself, regardless of what other people think. Thats sorta the reason I never sample straight loops, I've gotta do everything from scratch or I'm not really satisfied.
But yeah still keen to hear bruxism's thoughts.

M02 wrote:I just wonder your thoughts on how you think this translates live. Like, and I don't mean this to sound the wrong way, but do you think people care that much?

No offence taken. I guess the big question is "do i care that they care?" The truth is i get bored easily. When i started djing, mixing was BORING, so i had to scratch. When i'm playing music i wanna be involved all the time, like a drummer or a guitarist is. If people couldn't even see what i was doing, i'd still do it the way i do, because i like doing it the way i do.

Work out the funnest way to make music for you, and do it that way. There is no cheating and don't let what a crowd will think let you decide how you play.