Forum to discuss all matters relating to the MPC1000 and MPC2500 operating systems created by 'JJ' (all versions).
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By Sooty_G Wed Aug 20, 2008 8:21 am
like most of you, when i'm working on a new song i use the SAVE ENTIRE MEMORY option to save all my work into a new folder (one folder per song).

now lets say you're preparing for a live set and you've selected which songs you want to do & what order you want to perform them in. the problem is that each song is in it's own seperate folder & needs to be loaded independently. this gives you two options:

1. you can load each project right before you perform each song.

PROS:
there isn't a lot of prep work or room for error since everything is already organized & kept separate.

CONS: you have to stop your performance in between each song to load your stuff. this breaks up your set & you would need some additional hardware onstage to generate some sound to cover the gaps while you load stuff.

OR...

2. you can put all of your material for the set in one big folder/project & load it ahead of time.

PROS:
everything is set to go. can switch immediately from one song to the next.

CONS:
major prep work required with a lot of room for mixups. all sequences and samples need to be named uniquely.

my question is how do people here set up to load their stuff for live sets? option 2 seems the best from a performance point of view but it seems like a nightmare to set up. for example, what if you use the same sample in 2 different songs but one is looped & the other isn't. wouldn't you need 2 different copies of the same sample since the loop info is stored inside the sample itself? also, how would you go about merging all of your stuff from separate projects into one big folder/project since everytime you load a project in JJ os it clears the entire memory?

are there any other options i'm missing here? i'm curious about what different approaches people use.
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By CommanderRobot Wed Aug 20, 2008 10:10 am
i have one big folder with the entire memory of my live-set. different fx, nearly 100mb of samples and about 30 sequences. i have one pgm for every sequence (which is an entire song) plus a blank pgm i assign to midi-tracks so i can use the q-links to control volume or cutoff of my synthies.
it took me quite some time to name and arrange everything so i don't lose contol over this huge mess. but now it's clean, easy and fun to work with.

for example, i put a white noise sample with lowpass-cutoff assigned to q2 on the same pad on every pgm so i can punsh in a nice crash everytime i want to in every song.
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By Miklo Wed Aug 20, 2008 11:06 pm
I've been poring over this quandry myself lately, and I think what I'm going to do as soon as I have enough MPC material for a decent live set is to go with option #1 and have a turntable set up with a selection of records for transitions between MPC songs to allow for loading times.

-t
By nanoloop Thu Aug 21, 2008 3:20 am
yeh 2 mpc's and a mungo sync.

http://home.netspeed.com.au/aistorm/sync2.html

excerpt " The standard application is to sync a software package to a drum machine or "groovebox" using sync². This way the drum machine can keep the beats flowing while you load up the next track and then you are able to start the new track on the computer without the need to stop the clock source but everything remains in perfect sync. "



i wish jj could incorpate that as software into the mpc, so as it waits for a signal from the master device, the slave can be stopped and started automaticly on the start or close of the beat. hard to explain but he details it well on his site.

the easiest way to get a livee set happnin, is to keep all your projex the same layout. so you can switch between programs, but still retain the momory or what sounds are on what pads.

There are many other applications where a device needs to stop its sequencer (loosing sync) to load new data/tracks, MPC's and other sampling workstaions for instance.
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By Sooty_G Thu Aug 21, 2008 8:28 am
so it seems like to merge your selected songs into one big project for a live set, you need to:

1. make sure each sequence, sample, and program is uniquely named.
2. go thru each folder and load all the samples, sequences, and programs in the order of your set.
3. load each effect setting (tho you will be limited to 20 total effect settings for your entire set)
4. when you got everything set, save everything to a new folder as a new project using SAVE ENTIRE MEMORY.

when you are loading your individual songs you will obviously be skipping each PRJ file, but i'm a little fuzzy on what the .IPT file does. is that just the input settings? if so, i assume you can have only one input setting for your whole set, is that correct?
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By M02 Thu Aug 21, 2008 11:30 am
Yeah I'm just in the process of doing the same thing myself.
I'm going about it in a similar way to Commander Robot, 1 (or maybe 2 or 3 if my RAM fills up) projects for the entire set, and one pgm per song. I might break up each song into a few sequences though so it gives me the opputunity to loop certain parts and improvise and extend them.
One thing I'm going to try is resampling all my samples from my finnished mix sessions in my daw, so they are complete with EQ/Comp/FX. I think i'll render loops containing all the parts I don't want to play or sequence live, then also resample one shots that I want to trigger live or sequence on the fly, then play synth parts live over the top aswell (from my ms2k).
The big CON is its going to take **** forever to set it all up. But it will be worth it, plus it will allow me to sort of re-compose the songs to translate better live. And its somehting I can continually build upon.
Interesting topic, keen to hear what other people are doing.
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By JACOB of DURBAN Thu Aug 21, 2008 2:50 pm
Sooty_G, it is what it is. I have been doing "Option 2" for over a year now and it works.

I just go about making my tracks as usual -but then the tracks that I want to play live I make a separate live version.. and actually enjoy the process. I think of it as all part of the rehearsal process. Like how a band would get together and work an album of work into a live set.

And I usually save a whole new custom live set for every gig.
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By piggyboy420 Thu Oct 02, 2008 9:58 pm
This is how I have always done my live sets...

1st, I loaded up all the sequences and programs and shit I plan on using for the show from scratch. When I load the sequences, I try to keep everything as orderly as possible. For some songs, I just convert ths song into a long as sequence, but other songs I have a string of sequences programmed to be verse1, chorus1, verse2, chorus2, breakdown1 ect...that way I can do a bit of improvising, usually consisting of track mutes and knob tweaking on external synths...so like my right hand is muting and unmuting and my left hand is tweaking at the same time. I also usually add fills and rolls and sweeping FX tracks so that I can add some dramatic changes when I switch sequences. Just leave the roll track muted until its time to change sequences, and unmute that bia when the last pass through the sequence is occuring, again, adding dynamics and complexity to the sequence in the simplest way possible.

Note, I always keep shit simple so if I'm drunk I dont mess things up too bad...

I think the key to live performance, if your running sequences and not just triggering samples, is to do your work ahead of time with all the programming and tricks and sampling, and break down songs into smaller chunks so you can improvise and move more freely from pattern to pattern, and in the same way, from song to song.

So for preparing for this, I try to line up all the patterns so I can switch from verses choruses and such without being confused, and also loading my sequences in a way that the songs are in the order I would like to perform them in...I do gotta say, i repeat my set in the same order a lot, but very honestly, unless thousands of people go to every one of your shows everytime you play, no one is gonna notice your repeating the same set. So once I get the sequences in the right order, have all the fx settings right, especially that master effects, and do some minor tweaks, like adjust programs so that songs are about the same volume as each other so i dont gotta fly the knobs on my mixer whenever i change songs, save it as its own project...I have a couple of different live sets ready to go, each one almost maxing out my memory, and when im down with one set, i take a break and load a second project.

i have been running my shit this way for the past 2 years and its really easy and simple and I know every aspect of every song like the back of my hand...nothing crazy, i know, just really simple and easy...most people don't even know what an mpc is when I bring it on stage, only gearheads know what i'm doing.
I have to reiterate, no matter how u do it, the number one thing I would recommend, and another user said this already, is tailor your stuff for a live set.

and for techno peoples, I like to make a bunch of sequences and put em to the same tempo, and than run independent patterns and songs on my electribe and my futureretro so I can switch the mpc pattern which are running mainly drums and other synths that are running of the mpc's sequencer. This kinda gives a dj beat matching effect cuz the drums and some basic synth parts change up, but the electribe or FR is still running the same sequence. Once the sequences kinda mix together, I change to a new pattern on the electribe that corresponds to the pattern i just switched to on the mpc, and the songs transforms for a 3rd time. In this way, you can do a whole set without ever stopping...pretty much like a house dj or whatever would do with a mix.

Also, for big sweeping buildups, like trance breakdowns for example, I usually program a complex sequence with all the drum changes and tweaks and rolls and buildups and stuff (programming very detailed gating, for example, using CC volume changes, so that the last bar of the synth line gates differently than the rest of the synth line, adding more dynamics). Once I switch to this pattern, i immediately set my shit to the next sequence so I dont get caught up in the music and forget to do it later and have the whole breakdown repeat twice and let the pattern run its course. In the case of a drumnbass or trance for example, the pattern that follows the long build up sequence is usually full blast, all drums, a cymbal crash on the 1 that I mute after it triggers the first time, and lots of intesity. It'll sound just like DJ shit to people cept they see a person doin it with synths and they freak out...I gotta say solid live PA is uncommon, at least in the US, and people are impressed and confused by it, even if what you are doing is fairly simple....that is as long as you have massive amounts of bass moving the air...

im spent! hope that helped somebody and, since this is my first posting on this site, hope i don't sound like an idiot!

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By piggyboy420 Thu Oct 02, 2008 11:57 pm
I don't have any recordings of any live sets, at least not audio, but you can check out my band Zoopy at myspace.com/zoopyfunk I use an MPC and some synths instead of a drummer and keyboard player and play with a guitar player and bass player and some GoGo Dancers...
There are some old videos around too on youtube if your search Zoopy
By tresperros Tue Oct 07, 2008 10:40 am
well, it's my nightmare since day one of MPC
what is a really big problem - that you can't play seq. and download a sample for example, or play sample and download seq. or sample.
I use MPC as a live instrument, but it's not really live, because above issue...
you can't actually jamm with mates if you got MPC, you need have prepared at least programs an loaded into memory...
but lack of separate monitor/headphones for monitoring samples and above issue just kills live/jamm sesion
that's biggest MPC problem, that you can't use it as any other instruments ...
without preaparation MPC is a sh!znitt.
regarding live, I would never play live without backup,
mean other audio source which can play music when sth. happen...
I use mostly traktor dj studio, or ableton sometimes
and this is just perfect option for a 1 minute breaks ( when you load next seq/project)
another good idea to work with is kaoss pad3,
you can sample few bars of your song live and then play them with your one hand, loading project on MPC,
it works very well, plus it's cool FX, plus I use it as an impementation to MPC
mostly as a sample player, when I want to look for some new samples for my project and I don't want music to stop playing, I sample 16 bars of song into kaoss online, loop it, stop mpc and easy going through my sample list finding a proper one ( kp3 plays my 16 bars;)..
that's idea to do not stop sequencer and be able to listen/monitor samples you want to add
it works very well, looking for a proper kick/snare is easy now..


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