Exchange tips and tricks for the Akai MPC4000
By mxbdev Sat Jan 05, 2013 12:22 pm
Hi all,

I read with interest the Let's make a synth thread (among others) as building synth patches from single-cycle waveforms is something that I have been doing for many years in software.

However, I recently aquired an MPC4000 and wished to try this process out on hardware and I have been achieving reasonably good results, which I thought i'd start to share with the rest of the users on this forum, hence this thread:

Synth patches:

  • Driven Synth - A simple synth patch that sounds like it's being driven slightly too hard. The top end is two sawtooth waveforms panned an detuned slightly to emulate a chorus style effect. The low end is provided by a pulse wave at -2 octaves to emulate a suboscillator. This arrangement of saw/pulse high end and pulse sub oscillator was popular with some classic old school analog synths (e.g. SH-101). There is also some low level noise to add something for the filter resonance to work with. LFO1 is routed to pitch to emulate tremelo in small amounts after a short delay for held notes. The program is set to monophonic with legato so the "harsh" filter at the start of each note can be avoided by playing notes which overlap. Mod wheel is assigned to various parameters including resonance, noise level (zone4) and envelope stages to make the sound more "driven". The effect increases as the mod level increases. Best range for this synth program is C2-C5.

Hope these patches with descriptions will assist other users who wish to make their own synth style patches.

I aim to keep updating this thread with more patches as they are created.

If anyone has any questions regarding these patches, feel free to ask.

Enjoy!
User avatar
By Coz Sat Jan 05, 2013 12:28 pm
Nice one... I'll check this out later. :smoker:
By Qual Sun Jan 06, 2013 1:29 pm
Just downloaded. Nice little patch, I liked it. Thanks!
By mxbdev Sun May 12, 2013 2:15 pm
Finally got around to uploading a few more of these. I've decided to start providing them in mini 'packs' of 3-4 sounds with audio previews when I can.

This is pack 1, and contains the following:

  • Synth brass - a sweeping classic synth brass sound
  • Funky stab - A short filtered stab attempting to emulate a classic synth
  • RnB lead - A common monosynth (with portamento) lead used in many rnb tracks

Quick audio demos:



Download this pack here
User avatar
By MPCWeapon1 Sun May 12, 2013 2:48 pm
mxbdev wrote:Hi all,

I read with interest the Let's make a synth thread (among others) as building synth patches from single-cycle waveforms is something that I have been doing for many years in software.

However, I recently aquired an MPC4000 and wished to try this process out on hardware and I have been achieving reasonably good results, which I thought i'd start to share with the rest of the users on this forum, hence this thread:

Synth patches:

  • Driven Synth - A simple synth patch that sounds like it's being driven slightly too hard. The top end is two sawtooth waveforms panned an detuned slightly to emulate a chorus style effect. The low end is provided by a pulse wave at -2 octaves to emulate a suboscillator. This arrangement of saw/pulse high end and pulse sub oscillator was popular with some classic old school analog synths (e.g. SH-101). There is also some low level noise to add something for the filter resonance to work with. LFO1 is routed to pitch to emulate tremelo in small amounts after a short delay for held notes. The program is set to monophonic with legato so the "harsh" filter at the start of each note can be avoided by playing notes which overlap. Mod wheel is assigned to various parameters including resonance, noise level (zone4) and envelope stages to make the sound more "driven". The effect increases as the mod level increases. Best range for this synth program is C2-C5.

Hope these patches with descriptions will assist other users who wish to make their own synth style patches.

I aim to keep updating this thread with more patches as they are created.

If anyone has any questions regarding these patches, feel free to ask.

Enjoy!


Thanks for sharing. This type of information is very useful for 4k users. Need more threads and videos like this.
By labcoats Sun May 12, 2013 11:12 pm
GREAT STUFF! 8)
Really amazing what can be done with single cycle samples.
The driven patch really does have an analog quality about it. Its a sound that really cuts through the mix as well.

Keep em coming!!
User avatar
By MPCWeapon1 Mon May 13, 2013 7:06 pm
mxbdev wrote:Finally got around to uploading a few more of these. I've decided to start providing them in mini 'packs' of 3-4 sounds with audio previews when I can.

This is pack 1, and contains the following:

  • Synth brass - a sweeping classic synth brass sound
  • Funky stab - A short filtered stab attempting to emulate a classic synth
  • RnB lead - A common monosynth (with portamento) lead used in many rnb tracks

Quick audio demos:



Download this pack here


Beautiful sounds