MPC for Jazzcore band

Hi there,
Im playing in punk - jazz core band on bass guitar. Me and my guitarist had always problems with the drummer, and we decided that will go automated. I was considering Alesies sr 18 and Boss dr 880 at first, but learned quickly that they have its limitations.

In short, we want to make our own drums trucks and use it in studio. We are not using any synthesisers just bass, guitar and drums. These will be regular drum trucks, like the imitation of real drummer playing.
Im wondering what would be the best choic between MPC. I almost put the trigger on MPC 2000XL but wanned to ask you guys about opinions. I learned that 2000XL might be oldschoolish warmer sounding, which I like. We play on all tube amps only and it should fit more then hi fi newer MPC's.
We would also like to use this beast on the gigs. I mean play to the prefabricated drum lines live, along with the bass and guitar plugged into amplifiers. Do u think it will work???

Thats what MPCs are designed for; providing a drummer for guitarists and keyboardist.

I think the 2000XL would be a good choice for what you described. Its easy to use, pads are excellent, and its swing feature will make it sound like a drummer is inside the box. Of course, its old so floppy disk can be a pain, but you can upgrade it with a compact flash reader. Other limitations you should look into and can be found at the 2000/2000XL forum here, before buying. But its a great machine.

OK
Can you recommend me where I could download/buy some good solid rock drum samples? I mean the best would be to get something signed like Tama, Pearl, Yamaha samples and cymbals like sabian or zijdjan.
Any idea?

Oooh, you want acoustic drum kits As a sample pack, they're hard to come by, you might find a pack here at mpc-samples.com. I suggested acoustic drum packs to Tutor a few months ago, he seems to be working on it but he said its gonna take some money for resources.

In the meantime you can sample drum breaks off records, cds or the web for authentic drums and chop up single hits to the pads, add some reverb and voila. When I was in Music school, I recorded the drummer improvising his kit and walked out with 20 minutes of material to work with. I spent the night chopping it all up and rearranging patterns. When it comes to creativity, sky's the limit with an MPC.

What do u think about this stuff?
http://www.mpc-samples.com/product.php/62/toms/


Do they sound natural? They got also snares, kicks and all other. Tought they sound acoustic.

Or maybe better this one:

http://www.betamonkeymusic.com/GCK.html

You can use it on MPC I believe. Am I wrong?

Do you want it to sound like a drummer with an acoustic kit, or do you want it to sound like samples of an acoustic kit? There is a huge difference. The kind of sampling available on an MPC will not fool anyone into thinking its a live drummer. You cant randomize sample playback even for one thing. Also I've never heard a cymbal wash reproduced with a sampler that sounded anything like the real thing.

You do realise you'll need to learn to play drum beats with your fingers, right, including any fills and rolls...?

Yes I want to sound like a real drummer, sorta like rhythm machines like Alesis SR or Boss 880. Do u think its huge difference to got that on MPC???
I'm not afraid playing fingers, I play bass since years

google Analogue Drums, they do really nice kits recorded thru some very nice vintage gear.

and they're giving away their Big Mono kit for free, which sounds pretty damn awesome.

it would be easier to kick the drummer out, and find a new one than to try and make an mpc sound 100% realistic.

having said that, if you've got someone with drum experience on an mpc, it can be made to sound pretty good.

Thx brucker just downloaded BigMono, sounds huge. I like it very much, thats what I was looking for. Wonder only how it will sound thru 2000XL.

It's worth looking at some software drum programs before you drop cash on the mpc. Take a look at Superior Drummer, or BFD, or EZDrummer. These sounds a lot more like real drums, as they contain thousands of different samples at different velocities and positions that get all layered and faded between all the time so it sounds much better than just the same snare sample over and over. No real drum sounds the same twice. You might still want some kind of pad input to be able to finger-drum sequences into one of these things (and you need a laptop or something in your set too). If you can get away with a little bit more static sounding drums then an MPC is pretty nice. Check out the software stuff at least if realism is an important factor. For live use the MPC might be pretty good anyway.

I already took MPC., now waiting for the shipment. If it will not work I will sell it. You said the same snare over and over, but when u got good sample pack I believe u could get different samples of the same snare. Am I wrong? Also what about droping sample to 16 pads with option of half note differences, wont it sound more real if u hit half o note higher just like hitting a snare in different place, not always the center? And lastly, I hate idea of playing live gigs with the laptop, so wanted to try MPC rather.

Also do I need to chop the samples from analogue drums, or I can drop it directly to MPC2000XL???

bunialski wrote:I already took MPC., now waiting for the shipment. If it will not work I will sell it. You said the same snare over and over, but when u got good sample pack I believe u could get different samples of the same snare. Am I wrong? Also what about droping sample to 16 pads with option of half note differences, wont it sound more real if u hit half o note higher just like hitting a snare in different place, not always the center? And lastly, I hate idea of playing live gigs with the laptop, so wanted to try MPC rather.

Also do I need to chop the samples from analogue drums, or I can drop it directly to MPC2000XL???

If you can find several samples of the same snare, then you can lay these out on different pads. I really wish the MPC would let me assign these to the same pad and randomly pick one, but..

I dont know anything about analogue drums, but if it makes sound you can just sample it, and if you are lucky, you can drag n drop the samples via usb.

innovine wrote:If you can find several samples of the same snare, then you can lay these out on different pads. I really wish the MPC would let me assign these to the same pad and randomly pick one, but..

did you see mikolo's thread on creating a round robin effect using JJOS? it's not random, but it's more variation than just repeating a single sample

and of course you can also put different samples on a pad triggered by different velocities - I assume the mpc2000xl can do that

i dont know about the 2000xl, but i think you can just drop the analogue drums samples in. i think you have to convert them to 44.1/16bit first of course, and maybe rename some names to less than 16 characters,.... or was the 2000xl less than 8?

here are a couple of things i found useful to google:

dbpoweramp can batch convert files.

bulk rename utility,... this is very useful and can make editing names real quick in sample packs.



can the 2000xl do round robin as well?

Haaa. I got my MPC 2000XL in blue colour, with 8 outs, and with 516mb card.
This is fantastic machine. I've done some beats which sound amazing, better than my previous drummer - especially kick. It can do what I want, definitely.
Now I'm learning everything but it gives quick results on the beggining, very intuitive machine.
Thanks guys for helping, especially for brucker who recommended me Analogue Drums Site.
These samples sound fantastic