Firing off samples and sequences from pad + tap tempo

Hi,

I've had a look around to see if there any similar posts up, but I haven't looked through everything, so forgive me if this has already been discussed..

Basically I would like a machine that I can use to fire off MIDI sequences and audio samples in a quick and easy manner..

Press one pad, sequences starts playing (it needs to be able to go up to 10 bars in length) in a loop. I need to keep in time with a live drummer so tap tempo is important and has to work well. The sequence would need to be able to drive Voyager.

I'd also like to be able to fire off samples at the same time..the samples are just sounds and noises so aren't tempo reliant..

Is there an easy and practical way of getting an MPC to do this? I'd really appreciate any ideas or any experiences from similiar situations..

Thanks,

Tom
Tom

That's basically what an MPC does...

Sorry if the questions seems ignorant, but when I phoned up Akai, I got the following answer - "No, thats not how the MPC works.." (no joke, thats actually what they said)

I just need to know whether the tap tempo is good enough to keep sync with a live drummer, whether it will change the tempo of the sequence that is playing (this was the part that Akai was pretty adamant wouldn't work)

From what I gather, I have my samples assigned to the pads in a Program, then if I want to play a MIDI sequence from my Voyager I press the Next Seq button and just fire off the sequences from there..

The MIDI seq vary from little 1-bar loops to unplayable by hand 10 bar phrases..

So, is it - 'yes, that'll work a treat' or a 'no, it's not really so good at that'

Thanks for your help!

tompostheap wrote:Sorry if the questions seems ignorant, but when I phoned up Akai, I got the following answer - "No, thats not how the MPC works.." (no joke, thats actually what they said)

priceless...

I'm pretty sure you can change the tempo by tapping or dialing it in while the sequence is running, at least on the 2000XL and 2500. If that's a good way to sync to a drummer...I don't know.

You can play sequences with MIDI events controlling external devices and trigger onboard samples at the same time.

You can switch back and forth between several sequences using the pads as well.

Maybe read up in one of the manuals for more, all the MPCs are similar in that respect.

MPC it is then, thanks for the advice..

I've been rooting through the manuals, but sometimes things tend to be left out of the manual when they make a 'fully featured performance tool' look like a 'fully featured performance tool with a basic design flaw' as is the case with the Roland MC-808..

Thanks for the help!

Anyone else have any experience keeping in time with a live drummer with the tap tempo function?

maybe I'll start a different thread about that one..

Well, you could maybe adapt the tempo pretty well to the drummers tempo, but then it will probably still be off-sync, so you would have to temporarily slow the sequence down or speed it up to catch the tempo again.

Could be much easier to let the drummer adapt to the MPC by letting him play to a click track from one of the extra outs.

This is the most sensible idea..especially seeing as I can put it out myself.

Thanks for your help, I'm really excited about getting hold of one now.