Am I missing the point of modern MPC's

I started in electronic music when I was 15. Back in 1983 synthesizers did very very little, midi was unheard of and sampling existed only in dream setups.... plus guitarists and drummers hated us because apparently we only pressed a button and everything happened for us... They were the days....

I've been out of it for a while and my reasons for now looking into mpcs is because I just joined a tribute act who use a backing track with their drums on (it's essentially the audio L-R of a video file which is projected during the show). I don't like this too much because you can't sync things to it plus of course your backing is very set in stone.

MPCs as a live solution on the other hand strike me as flexible because they are so powerful that can sequence pretty much entire songs live.... this gives us

1) real time control over filters and it would really open everything out,
2) puts time code onto stage to sync anything else to... Lights, video, whatever.
3) If a band member cant make a gig we just make thier parts live int he sequencer and dont have to reproduce a different backing tape....
4) plus if we want to change something, we just change it.

So I've started trying tot achieve this in an affordable way... I bought three e-mu E4 samplers and am looking at a couple of rack synths (novation, proteus, Roland JV)

And of course I'm loooking at a 2500 or 5000 MPC...

This plus my live keyboards (virus TI and an emu longboard) and the other band members live synths etc and we should be set.

This is the way I understand things get done because of when I started in this... if notes get played, not loops...

I remember the MPC-60 being the answer to a lot of peoples prayers when it was announced.... meaning you could take a great deal of your studio sound into the live environment, and quite robustly, because you could use drum samples (actual hits not other peoples loops) program your patterns with them and program your synth sequences to all your other gear through midi. And you had the faders (q-link now I think) and pads could repeat notes .... Also very cool because linn was a name with a lot of cache because of the Linn Drums Mk1 and 2.

Just to make it more accessible as a solution, for those of us who didn't need akai's sampling because we had emulators or alsready had S900's or S612's Akai made the asq-10 sequencer as an option which I always understood as the sequencing guts of the MPC. The idea being that we could still take our synths and sequence parts live and not use pc's or laptops.

This is the way I always viewed the MPC, but these days the MPC seems to be viewed very very differently.

I read on here people asking what's best for "laying down beats" , what's best "for drums". but "not sequencing"... What is "laying down beats" !!! Is this programming you kick , hihat, snare etc patterns.... Or is it using what we used to call 'loops' ..... What do these expressions mean?

It seems the mpc has grown from being a sampler and sequencer into something more like a DAW, especially now with this cd recording and even 8 track recording...... Which is cool....

But with this emphasis on chopping up sections of other peoples music and re-interpreting it in your own piece, the MPC seems to be more of a dance music or hip-hop production tool rather than a sequencer / sampler for musicians. Massively powerful etc.....

Or is it that now they are so powerful, comparatively to what was possible at the time the IDEA of an MPC was born, that they can be used in entirely different ways.

I'm wondering if I need a modern mpc at all.

Bigmojo wrote:I read on here people asking what's best for "laying down beats" , what's best "for drums". but "not sequencing"... What is "laying down beats" !!! Is this programming you kick , hihat, snare etc patterns.... Or is it using what we used to call 'loops' ..... What do these expressions mean?

It seems the mpc has grown from being a sampler and sequencer into something more like a DAW, especially now with this cd recording and even 8 track recording...... Which is cool....

But with this emphasis on chopping up sections of other peoples music and re-interpreting it in your own piece, the MPC seems to be more of a dance music or hip-hop production tool rather than a sequencer / sampler for musicians. Massively powerful etc.....

Or is it that now they are so powerful, comparatively to what was possible at the time the IDEA of an MPC was born, that they can be used in entirely different ways.

I'm wondering if I need a modern mpc at all.

Yeah, it's an entirely different ball game these days. Yes, I think at the time you were getting to know about this stuff I was probably in the military back then and wasn't quite into much of what was offered like an echoplex or any of the new gear that was on the landscape back then.

Well the deal with the mpc was that it had to evolve with the times in order to keep up with technology, our culture, and the competition.

If there would be any time to get involved with an mpc, this would be the time. You can do so much with them that it's almost insane to think of all the possibilities.

But if you do decide to go old school with a mpc, you're going to miss out on a ton of features and abilities that you would otherwise get with any of the newer models.

I personally use my 4k in conjunction with my daw and it's been mind blowing with what I'm capable of doing with so much power at my fingertips.

The ballgame is not THAT different. MPC just has more memory and more/different storage space.

The MPC is still the sequencer to beat. Working within a DAW is much much faster, but less fun. For post production it's perfect.

People use either hardware or software or both. Some go from soft to hardware(Like me; working with a mouse and staring at a computer screen got boring) or the other way around.

You really don't miss out on much. Hell! The MPC60 is still popular.

CoinUp! wrote:The ballgame is not THAT different. MPC just has more memory and more/different storage space.

You really don't miss out on much. Hell! The MPC60 is still popular.

IDK about that Coin. With what you can do with these newer mpc's, the same can't be said about our first generation mpc.

I mean, we're doing HD recording on these things now and running racks and racks of midi gear without midi overloads and whatnot.

It's just that the technological advancements are way ahead of the curve from what was offered in the 80's.

The 5k which is what I use.. will Polly not be fully realized for 10 years. I believe the only limitation it has are those set by the creative restrictions of the user.

dabmeister wrote:

CoinUp! wrote:The ballgame is not THAT different. MPC just has more memory and more/different storage space.

You really don't miss out on much. Hell! The MPC60 is still popular.

IDK about that Coin. With what you can do with these newer mpc's, the same can't be said about our first generation mpc.

I mean, we're doing HD recording on these things now and running racks and racks of midi gear without midi overloads and whatnot.

It's just that the technological advancements are way ahead of the curve from what was offered in the 80's.

True! But like I said more memory, more storage. But the basic principle of the MPC, making music/beats, hasn't changed much.

Thanks for the replies. Nice to see a properly interested community.

Apologies if I come across as cynical but the new terminology confuses me. I dont know if it actually means something new or if its just new words to describe something old that you can do easier these days... ("laying down some beats" etc...) What does that mean? is it programming a drum pattern or is it using loops? Is it sampling an entire 4 bar phrase and using that?... Is it fundamentally the same as what the great electronic acts of the 70's and 80's were doing... Or is it just people being cool? I have no way of knowing unless I ask and I do need to know or I'm never going to understand the functions of a 5000 or a 2500 when I actually get one (I'm ebaying and programming sounds at the moment so its not imperative)

To my mind the MPC is an enormously powerful sequencer and equally enormously powerful drum and phrase sampler..... I used to have to manage with 1/2 meg per song. now you get 128 meg plus... So all the drums hits would take up practically nothing for a 25 track set. The rest of the memory could be used for longer phrases or samples, either freeing up equipment or even saving ourselves from having it on stage at all.

In this respect the MPC is without doubt the best thing since sliced bread.

What I am interested in however is how the MPC helps with post production... I mean how?

Im also interested to lknow how you can use a DAW and an MPC together.... I would have thought that the MPC became little more that sample player which the DAW played all the sequences? (unless you're using your DAW as a sounf production tool and bouncing down/capturing the phrases in your MPC..... But seeing them complement each other seamlessly I cant get my head around.

I have Cubase (SX3) and used to have an MPC1000 a few years ago which I liked a great deal but it stepped between sequences when playing in song mode. When I put these two beasts together the MPC was just overshadowed by the DAW.... but then again I didnt ever sample other peoples musical phrases... Although Im going to now as im now part of a tribute act.

Maybe I just need to get my finger ourt of my arse and do one of the MPC tutorials

So with that in mind.... live set, 25 tracks. MPC playing drum sounds and phrases, driving a few hardware samplers and a couple of synths, and being able to use pads and keyboards to play some of the sounds on reseverd midi channels which the MPC plays say 1-10.. using midi thru?..... MPC capable of this? I remember my 1000 used to switch which midi thru channel I was on depending upon which sequence was playing...

2500 a good bet or the 5000?

^^^ I probably have your dream setup. I like running a bunch of sound modules and a piece of a sample or two straight from my daw too (cubase sx & nuendo 3).

Everything works flawlessly...no hang ups/lock ups, can keep the daw running 24/7 if I had to, which tells you I have that much confidence in my setup.

It also gives me a good feeling to know that if something technical is needed, I can handle that as well.

So I always try to pass on the lil' knowledge I have so that others can enjoy making music rather than scratching their heads and whatnot.

well I suggest checking out youtube... not saying you haven't... but some people post the entire procedure of modern mpc "beat building" on there.... that might familiarize you with what newer generation mpc users (then yourself) are using the machine to accomplish. It for sure is not the same kind of tasks you were using it for i bet...


it would be cool though to see your perspective of mpc usage for that tribute project and seeing the technicals on how you set up your rig once you sort that out.

mr_debauch wrote:well I suggest checking out youtube... not saying you haven't... but some people post the entire procedure of modern mpc "beat building" on there.... that might familiarize you with what newer generation mpc users (then yourself) are using the machine to accomplish. It for sure is not the same kind of tasks you were using it for i bet...


it would be cool though to see your perspective of mpc usage for that tribute project and seeing the technicals on how you set up your rig once you sort that out.

Any good ones you recommend? All I see is salesy types of stuff.

I kinda like boon doc' s YouTube bids. He is very goof at playing freestyle and he will reply to email questions, tho it might take a day or 2.

Bigmojo wrote:

mr_debauch wrote:well I suggest checking out youtube... not saying you haven't... but some people post the entire procedure of modern mpc "beat building" on there.... that might familiarize you with what newer generation mpc users (then yourself) are using the machine to accomplish. It for sure is not the same kind of tasks you were using it for i bet...


it would be cool though to see your perspective of mpc usage for that tribute project and seeing the technicals on how you set up your rig once you sort that out.

Any good ones you recommend? All I see is salesy types of stuff.

off the top of my head I couldn't think of any, however here on the forums there is a thread called "mpc tv" I think in the thread title it also says something like "home of the beat making videos" or something like that... maybe do a search for it because there must of over a dozen pages of user submitted recommendations for youtube beat making vids... one of the thread rules I believe is no videos of people simply pushing play on the mpc so you hear the completed song, the video must include the making of the track.

Bigmojo wrote:I dont know if it actually means something new or if its just new words to describe something old that you can do easier these days... ("laying down some beats" etc...) What does that mean?

it just means making some music, it's just slang

a lot of people use their MPC to make hiphop, which is often predominantly drum-based, hence "beats" - but it could be individually programmed drums, or looped samples, or whatever. don't get hung up on the term, I don't think it's specific to a certain technique