What DAW-like tasks are you using the MPC for?

what's up crew?

I'm feeling inspired to do a mixtape with a bunch of acapellas from the golden era MC's over my beats, any advice on syncing the acapellas up on the MPC by loading them up on an audio track? I was thinking I'll just figure out the BPM of the acapella then in the timestretch screen set the original tempo to 100BPM (regardless of what it really is) and adjust up or down from there so it's done in percentages just like a turntable. Actually maybe that's stupid, if I already knew the original tempo, I could just dial that in and then set the destination tempo to the same as my sequence. Duh, sometimes I need to think out loud on forums to answer my own questions...

Any other suggestions? I mean, I can just use software to stretch the vocal to my desired tempo, but I'm trying to do as much inside the MP as possible.


P.S. does anyone actually track vocals inside the MP with the audio tracks? So Far I've done live bass and guitar, also external synths, but never actually tried vocals yet, I don't see why not. Who's using the MP as a DAW ? I want to!!!! When I get stuck over my GF's house watching her kids I only bring the MPC1000 and my headphones. I've got enough samples and loops on the internal hard drive to keep me busy forever, I'm just not used to being able to do all these extra tricks, coming off of the 2000 classic less than a month ago. JJOS is a beast! I think I'm stickin' with OS1 for a while because I've barely scratched at the surface. Autochromatic programs and grid edit are sooooooo dope, like, who would ever need fruity loops now? I haven't foxed with FL for years. I was mostly on ableton with the MPD24 for the last 2-3 years, then I borrowed an XL, then the screen died, then I got a classic, then I got the 1000. It's a beast for sure. This little box can do so much magic, it amazes me. Crazy though, that in ten years 96' (2000 classic) to 2006 (1000) not much changed about the MPC and it's basic operations, just the storage mediums. Then in the last 3 years JJ made it capable of being a viable alternative to any modern DAW/Sequencing software. I love it! Thanks for listening to my rant

anyways, I guess the input I'm looking for is what DAW-like functions are you doing on the MPC now? Can you describe your process? Maybe this belongs in the production techniques thread, but this is specific to JJOS1 on the 1000.

~J

If you want my advice do that in the PC. The MPC is not designed for that and you'll have a bad time.

First and main reason is the internal timestrech of the MPC is very wack.
I sometimes do remixes and my process is adapting the accapella on a beat with a close BPM. I'm cutting it in different parts (verses and chorus) and also use timestrech. Of course I'm adapting the beat structure if needed.

In my opinion forget about the MPC for that purpose.
PEAce

Yeah, but I've been doing it on my pc for years..... I just wanna learn new ways to do it with my new toy!

i don't use a DAW. but i also don't use vocals, except for the odd 'ah-ha', 'life is special' etc. that suit classic-style house music.

process: make an 8 bar loop, make a 16 bar loop, make a 2 bar intro/fill.

make a few variations of each. put them together in song mode. convert to a new sequence, then use trackmutes and some step editing to finish up.

I agree with lampdog.
Mixtapes need a lot of space, 128mb of ram will not do at all.
Plus mixing vocals & beats all in the mpc will be a nightmare... even though a mixtape doesent need to have the best quality in terms of mixing.
You really need a daw for that. You will need to use diferent compressions, eq's, copy and paste chorus, each diferent for every track, every mc, every beat, impossible to do in a MPC.

beach_break wrote:i don't use a DAW. but i also don't use vocals, except for the odd 'ah-ha', 'life is special' etc. that suit classic-style house music.

"Life is SPecial??"

Personally I'd say why not give it a try? Nothing ventured nothing gained right?

Take a lot of time to prepare your vocals and chop them into phrases. Timestretch is garbage unless you invest the time in it. If you're willing you might as well play around. You'll quickly figure out which phrases you can/cannot use.

128mb is kind of short for this kind of work now-a-days, but don't forget you can double your recording memory by converting to mono.... extend it a bit further by recording samples pitched up and play them slower, etc....

Quick Question,


when I use "convert sample rate" in the trim screen and I convert to a lower bit rate, does this free up memory? Or is it just applying a bit-crusher effect to a 16-bit sample?

djjonnyjams wrote:Quick Question,


when I use "convert sample rate" in the trim screen and I convert to a lower bit rate, does this free up memory? Or is it just applying a bit-crusher effect to a 16-bit sample?

This is only an effect. THe sample is still 16bit.

Ahhh, I had a feeling that was the case, ok, here's another one.....

I had an akai S-20 that only sampled 16-bit 32k and on every other sampler the sound is pitched way up when I play those old samples back, (S3000XL, 2000 classic, etc...) but the MPC 1000 seems to know what sample rate those old samples were recorded at and it plays them back properly without me having to convert them. Is it converting them to 44k automatically and also creating a bigger file, or is it actuallly doing the bit-rate conversion in realtime? I guess another way of wording that is..... When I save my project using these old 32k samples, is it saving the samples as 44k?

Thanks for answering all my unimportant technical questions and satisfying my curiosity!


BTW, played around with chords on JJ2XL last night and that feature aon is enough to make me want to upgrade. Just thought I'd comment that this feature is DOPE!!!!

use ableton live slaved in midi clock with mpc as a master
works perfect

psoul wrote:use ableton live slaved in midi clock with mpc as a master
works perfect

Thats right

Been doing a lot of that, also been using the midi beat clock feature in "Torq" to send tempo information to the MPC and I can now control the tempo pf the MPC with the pitch fader on my turntable. CHeck this:

http://www.youtube.com/user/djjonnyjams ... jfg-2ENCx4

personally i'd use something like ableton live and warp my accapella clips and arrange in session window, receive sync, then press play and away you go everything is warped to your sync bpm..