Post your views and questions about the Akai MPC2500
By 6/8 Stanley Mon Dec 14, 2020 9:13 pm
I always have T.C. and swing turned off. May want to use grid mode someday but never found a use for it yet. Use clave or something for metronome sound but always turn it off when the basic beat is laid down. Like to hear my finger drumming just like I play it. If I get off the beat I want to hear it so I can fix it.
So I've been wondering why some sample hits seem to be quantized. I don't think it's due to the 2500's internal limits, I don't think I'd notice that. It seems to happen on some samples and not others. All the samples I use, except some I made, are just one hit. Maybe I'm imagining it but I've noticed it a few times.

Anyone know about this? If it's a real thing is there workarounds? Is there more than one place to turn off swing and T.C.? Using JJOS128XL v3.1.
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By peterpiper Mon Dec 14, 2020 10:12 pm
To make sure you don't just imagining it you can use the following steps.

Use a song in which the you think the problem occour.

1. Use a short impulsive sample like a rimshot and create another track in which you record 16th notes WITH quantize ON (but no swing).
2. Pan the sample/track to the left
3. Mute all other tracks but the one with the rimshot and the one you recorded without quatize (but sound like it is quatized)
4. Pan this other sample to the right.
5. record this to your DAW or Audio Editor, zoom in and check if the samples start at the same time

peace
By 6/8 Stanley Tue Dec 15, 2020 4:34 am
Thank you. Haven't used my new DAW for months except to slow down a guitar riff. I should spend a little more time with it so I know what I'm doing.

Most of my samples hit right but sometimes I hit a pad and there's a slight delay as if it was quantized and I hit the pad too soon. Next time I hear it I'm going look at the waveform of that sample. Maybe it needs to be moved a little. A lot of my samples are from the previous owner so I don't know where they came from.

Or maybe its something else.
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By peterpiper Tue Dec 15, 2020 4:39 am
6/8 Stanley wrote: A lot of my samples are from the previous owner so I don't know where they came from.

Or maybe its something else.


:lol: stolen samples :mrgreen:

My 2000 came with a zipdrive and some disks but the when I tried to load it it gots da click of death and died (thats the reason I'm biased now when it comes to zipdrives). Still got the disks and wonder whats on them but I never bought another drive.

peace
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By NearTao Tue Dec 15, 2020 9:12 pm
Assuming 4/4 and 120 beats per minute... that nets you 120 beats divided by 4, or 30 bars per minute.

Assuming the above, with 96 parts per quarter note (or beat), you get 11,520 places that a note could land per minute as the accuracy.

On the MPC, swing is usually from 50 to 75, and is telling you how close the even sixteenth notes are to the odd sixteenth notes. A swing of 50 means that an even note is exactly halfway (50%/50%) between the two odd sixteenth notes. A swing of 75 means that it is closer to the next odd quarter note (75%/25%) ratio.

So I'm not sure that I'd say the amount of quantization depends on BPM and T.C. as much as it is telling you *where* the quantization will move to.

A trick to get more parts per quarter note (and a bit more accuracy) is to double your BPM, because then you getting twice as many places for the notes to land versus your normal BPM. So yes, in the above scenario, a BPM of 240 will net you 23,040 places a note could land per minute. Again, played at 120 BPM this gives you twice as much accuracy per note.

This is also why modern MPC have moved to 960 parts per quarter note, and yes, they are effectively 10 times more accurate for placing quarter notes.

On the flip side though, I would like to point out, that just the act of recording the audio is going to be the most effective at capture whatever swing, groove, or other human imprint you'd like to have, since it is completely devoid of any concept of on beat, off beat, etc...

To that end, I'd say use quantization as it suits you and helps you make sense of the skeleton of a beat, but don't hesitate to just record content as pure audio since you will have far more control, if that is what you are going for.
By 6/8 Stanley Wed Dec 16, 2020 6:26 am
I have some other stuff hooked up so its not a good time to check it but in mpc the beats BPM refer to beats, not "the beat" so if you change a track from 6/4 to 6/8 the BPM is doubled correct? At least that's what I remember happening when I did that. So changing a 6/8 track to 12/16 would double BMP. I think.
Glad MPC shows BPM like that so it's not confusing. Musicians have more complicated ways of describing and writing BPM, so they argue about it. Just came from reading a forum with that argument. 30 minutes I'll never get back. For what it's worth I do 12/8 on mpc as 2 bars in 6/8 just because the bars on screen are closer so helps me see where I am in the beat. Doesn't affect anything.

Anyway it's beer and smoke time. I'll try again tomorrow.
By 6/8 Stanley Wed Dec 16, 2020 8:35 pm
Menco wrote:Are you sure your samples are trimmed correctly?


No. The opposite of sure. I know the some of the samples I made could be trimmed better but I was talking about ones from drum kit programs. Most of them play perfect at least to my ears.

Don't think the slight delay I hear hitting a pad sometimes is because of the 96 parts per quarter note. That's a very tiny gap.
My current stuff is all in 12/8 or 6/8 cause I'm learning about poly rhythms and its easy to put 3 or 4 beats over 12/8. So mpc makes the BPM in 8th notes if that's the t.s. so its a fast BPM. But I think the increase in BPM due to 8th notes instead of quarter notes doesn't change the apparent resolution. I'd have to jack the BMP more to get that effect. Not ready for that.
NearTao makes a good point about the audio. Maybe I'll try looping longer audio samples later.
For now mostly just finger drumming.