unreliable looping in Sample Trim

Am I the only one who find the sample looping on the MPC 1000 a little weird?

When I want to loop a sustained sample or drone in the Sample Trim section I feel that it´s doing a little more clicking than necessary at the loop point. I´ve been using an Akai S 2000 for 7 years and find the MPC 1000 really hard to handle on the looping compared to the S 2000.
Getting a clean loop on a S 2000 or any decent audio editing software I find quite easy, on the MPC 1000 it´s a time consuming and annoying job.

I also get confused sometimes when I play the loop, there´s a difference in volume between the different clicks.
For example, say I press the pad and let the sample run and loop 5 times, 2 of these times the looppoint click is actually quite low and 3 times the click is noticably higher. Doesn´t feel very stable, as if the machine might miss the looppoint with some samples now and then.

Is this all in my head or has anybody else experienced the problem on getting a cleanly cut looppoint?

To avoid any confusion, I´m not talking about looping in the sequencer, it´s looping the sample in Sample Trim that I find rather disturbing.

dusa

never had this problem! its must be the way you are doing it...

I am assuming that to do a sustained loop, the pad must be on NOTE OFF and the Sample must be set to LOOP in the TRIM mode right??

also as you should know the sample can be zoomed in along with the fractions of time you can select by..

The samples in question - were they recorded directly into the MPC or are they taken from an external audio editing application?

Also, have you got the latest OS? Never had this problem with any OS version on the 1K though.

G4s

Nää den är inge vidare asså, man får zooma in jätte långt och pilla länge...

Yeah I was going to ask what are doing to loop. I can get a loop in a few seconds using the pad and to and from button to see when the sound ends and what the next sound will start when you hit it.

I know what your talkin about. I get that click at the loop point in the Trim Mode. I use the play loop pad to play the loop, and sometimes it will click at a variable volume and sometimes it won't click, but I just exract or discard anyway, usually when it gets looped in a sequence the click is gone.

Penfold:
>its must be the way you are doing it...

Yeah, I begin to think so. But honestly I don´t know any other way to go at it. I´ve been looping stuff on the S2000 by ear as you don´t have any graphic represantation of the waveform on that one, and I´ve been looping by both ear and eye in software editors from SoundEdit 16 to Pro Tools. When I take the techniques I´ve gathered from my past experience and put them in use inside the MPC 1000 they fall flat.

>I am assuming that to do a sustained loop, the pad must be on
>NOTE OFF and the Sample must be set to LOOP in the TRIM mode right??

This, I assume is to create a "one touch infinite loop"-sort of thing in main mode, right? That´s not my problem (although I can´t find find any way to put a sample or pad in NOTE OFF althogh I´ve searched the maunal, so I guess it´s a problem after all...), what I don´t think add up is the utter impossibility in getting a loop without a loop point click on some sound material in Trim mode.
Percussive loops are no problem but "fuller" or droney material is so darn tricky.

>also as you should know the sample can be zoomed in along with the >fractions of time you can select by..

Even I couldn´t miss that one...
But again, neither by ear or by ear/eye gives me the smoothness I´m used to.


g4s:
>The samples in question - were they recorded directly into the MPC or >are they taken from an external audio editing application?

Recorded straight into the MPC. Actually bought this unit partly to get my music away from computers for a while, so I keep them well separated.

>Also, have you got the latest OS?

Guess so. Running the 1.07.


soyo:
>Nää den är inge vidare asså, man får zooma in jätte långt och pilla
>länge...

Ja, knepigt är det. Men det knepigaste är att jag inte förstår varför det är så knepigt. Och varför den fladdrar lite grann.
Eller så är det jag som inte fattar grejen med klicks...


bhunt:
>Yeah I was going to ask what are doing to loop. I can get a loop in a
>few seconds using the pad and to and from button to see when the
>sound ends and what the next sound will start when you hit it.

What I´m having problems with are more static and thicker sounds. Drones, sustained strings, pad-like sounds etc. What triggered me to ask this was sampling analogue drones and rumbles from a Pro One today and it took forever to edit and loop them afterwards, and even though I put all this work into it only a third of the loops came out satisfactory.
When I sampled on the S 2000 the same work would have done in a third of the time, with a better result.

The To and From pads are great for figuring out percussive-, melodic- or vocal loops. And I use them for that, and there´s usually no click problems wih those kind of loops (except certain stereosampled drumloops with a lot of ambience or a thick bassline beneath).
But using the To and From function to track the loop points in a static string sound or ambient backdrop is quite in vain.


All above set aside. Can somebody on some concrete and technological basis explain this: the first passing of the loop point is completely silent, it appears as if the loop locks in perfectly.
Kepping the pad pressed and a second passing generates a click. So does the third one.
The clicks usually have slight variations i character. You know the dull, fast little click that appears when to very similar waveforms meet opposed to the loud, sharp and thumpy click indicating a cut or a loop in the middle of a up or down curve in the low frequecies. (The closer a perfect loop the more silent and discrete the click).
Me, without any programming or electronic skills can come to no other conclusion that there is some kind of fluttering in the loop function. The aural variations of the click must come from a slight variation in start and end sample of the loop, or am I a fool? Would appreciate any theories on or explainations of this behaviour.

HAHAH! mate u definetly did not read the manual !!!

press MODE PROGRAM then the PAD u want then press WINDOW, it will give you the options to select NOTE OFF OR ONE SHOT..

now to get a sustained loop EG bassline, you zoom in and make your start point at the start of the SINE Wave to the next start which is the end.

my physics is shit today so i can remember the proper terms

it looks like /\
..................\/

never had the problem

Penfold:
Mate, manual, I read. Yes.

I´m well aware that the samples assigned to eash pad can have different modes of playing depending on if it´s phrase or a one shot/stab/hit.

I presume you should move the marker to the preferred sample assigned to the pad in question and then press WINDOW?
I´ve been there rummaging trying to locate the NOTE OFF function, and I´m sorry to say mate, that no matter how many times I read the manual I only get the alternatives ONE SHOT or NOTE ON.

ONE SHOT, yes. NOTE ON, yes. NOTE OFF, ?.

Now tell me where I can get the OS update that gives a NOTE OFF alternative in the Play Mode window and I´ll quietly and friendly let go of the fact that you shout in my face I don´t bother to or understand how to read the manual.

hey ryssen,
I have experienced this too with certain sounds/samples (both sampled directly into the 1000 and also ones moved over from the computer). Even zooming all the way in with Logarithmic view does not always make a clean cut. It would be nice if the OS had a "snap to zero crossing" to avoid such problems and even make editing a little easier or possibly a Fade out/in process so you could select a few samples and fade.

sorry, my mistake....is NOTE ON, i was getting mixed up with my XL. my bad, its NOTE OFF on the MPC 2000XL and for some reason NOTE ON on the 1000