cut time/half time on the mpc with MIDI

Hi everybody. I know I can do this by sampling a loop, but i want to know if there is a way do make my MIDI data playback in cut time, or half time in relationship to the other parts in a sequence.

Say I program a sequence @100bpm. Now I want my bassline, keys, and melody to play back in half time -but keep the drums playing back @100bpm. I can change the BPM of the sequence to 50 -so I can get the desired effect for the bassline, keys, and melody... but now I have to either re-record my drum parts (hard to reproduce something I improvised in my original sequence) or I have to move things one by one...

My MC-909 has a feature called "Reclock" that can make MIDI data playback in cut/or half time, but I can't find thing in my MPC that will allow me to do the same thing. I'm hoping there is a way I can do this inside the MPC with out having boucing things around.

I can sample my drum loop... but I use the Track Mute screen to compose the actual song, so I loose flexiblity because I can't cut audio in and out like I can with MIDI, unless I do all kinds of chopping... and by that time, I'm not feeling it anymore... ;p

hmmm my old RM1X got that too, called MIDI stretch or something, it can be controlled real time with a knob, nice stuff... But 4000 doesn't have that feature I guess
What about this tricky way? export and load MIDI file of your melodic stuff to your 909, then connect 909's MIDI out to 4000's MIDI in, assign 909's midi out channels to your melodic parts in 4000, try to sync both machines then do that reclock thing... You can record incoming midi data of those tracks one by one in the 4000.
This way you can use 909 as a real sick controller to trigger your 4000's samples. You can experiment and use 909's arpeggiator too. Damn, I got to test this with my RM1x


Hope this helps, and sorry for my bad english...

I used to have a MIDI loop set up between the MPC and MC-909 where I can program a chord progression with the MPC and make the MC-909 arpegiate the chords, and have the MPC record the arpeggio in one shot. I used to use the MC-909 to to play things in half or cut time... I bought another keyboard so I don't have room for the MC-909 anymore.

Haci es la vida cuando solamente tienes un cuarto solamente... y ese cuarto tiene que ser dormitorio, dj room, etc, etc, etc... ya sabes... voy a dejar el MC-909 en el piso abajo de mi escritorio para poder usarlo. :(

simult seq?

copy seq 1 @100bmp to seq 2

Double bars of seq 1 so it is 8 instead of 4


set seq 2 to 50 bpm


set simultaneous seq to play

bluempc4k wrote:Haci es la vida cuando solamente tienes un cuarto solamente... y ese cuarto tiene que ser dormitorio, dj room, etc, etc, etc... ya sabes... voy a dejar el MC-909 en el piso abajo de mi escritorio para poder usarlo.

Ya te digo, me he pasado años durmiendo rodeado de cacharros tambien, cables hasta debajo de la almohada

The Grublet wrote:simult seq?

copy seq 1 @100bmp to seq 2

Double bars of seq 1 so it is 8 instead of 4


set seq 2 to 50 bpm


set simultaneous seq to play

yup, nice one

never tried it, but thought that might work. #Iprogramdrummachines

I totally forgot about the sim sequence...

But no, things did not go as planned. The sequence playing in 1/2 BPM will not play my parts right... and in some cases some parts will not play at all. Also, the whole song played back at the original BPM. Not one sequence playing in the original BPM, and the sequence selected in the SimSeq playing at 1/2BPM. If I do it the other way around, play the 50 BPM sequence, and have the 100BPM seq selected in the Sim Seq, everything plays back @ 50BPM.

Also, there doesn't seem to be a way to record all of this stuff either...

Oh well, we tried. Thanks everybody...

If you want everything to be 50 bpm except the drums, why not just resample your drum parts in sample record mode as one big audio file?

Play the original sequence at 100 bpm and mute all parts except the drums. Record the drum parts in sample record mode and then in your 50 bpm sequence place the newly recorded drum sample at 1:1:000 and trigger that, so that you have something proper to jam to while you are adding new parts at 50 bpm.

Of course, this all depends on the length of the song and the size of the drum sample that you will record.

just a thought.

But no, things did not go as planned. The sequence playing in 1/2 BPM will not play my parts right... and in some cases some parts will not play at all.

1. you probably are off on one or two spots on the original (fast, normal) one... try re-quantizing to 1/8th after slowing down the second one.

2. if all of your samples are not "one shots" then, no, it wouuld not play back correctly.

probably easier to retap something like you want, but obviously, if you have a bass note that lasts a 1/4 bar on your normal speed then when you copy it, it will actually only play for a 1/8 bar.

also,

if you have a sample (loop) that is playing (looping) in time with the original... when you do half time, it will play in double speed as compared to the way it should play.


for the actual sequencing it works, for sample playback it may not (unless everything is a one shot)