Forum to discuss all matters relating to the MPC1000 and MPC2500 operating systems created by 'JJ' (all versions).
By dtaa pla muk Mon May 12, 2008 6:42 pm
follow the steps and tell me where you run into trouble:

1- load/record an 8 or 16 bar sample
2- enter it in track 1 as an audiotrack
3- use tap tempo or intuition to get your audiotrack to about the right tempo.
4- turn qlink TEMPO on with a small range: 97%-103% should be more than sufficient for this purpose
5- enter your audio track. look at your sample, observe the first bar
6- move your qlink until the first bar is perfect, ie the first bar of your sample fits the first bar of your sequencer perfectly. often there are transients that will help you do this: a kick drum, for example, will often be on the downbeat, so you can use that as reference.
7- observe the current tempo and write it down.
8- move to the 2nd bar of your sequence and repeat. change the tempo til the 2nd bar fits perfectly. it may be an identical tempo, it may be off by 3/10ths of a bpm. don't worry about having changed the tempo you already found, remember that this is all just for reference. write down the tempo of the 2nd bar.
9- proceed til you're out of bars and have all 8 or 16 tempos written down.
10- enter a drum or midi track. enter step edit. on each corresponding bar, drop your tempos.

the result is a sequence with built-in tempo changes, created to "update" the sequences tempo to fit the human groove of the sample you put in your audio track. now, when you record with TC on, the changing tempo will change the "position" of where your drums are quantized to because of the tempo changes. it will cause your sequencer to speed up/slow down in tiny increments based on the human timing of your audio track.

now, i say every 1 bar, but that's very coarse. note: the more specific you input your range (like every half bar, every quarter note, etc) the more "fitting" your resulting groove will be, and the better results you'll get when using TC values.

this way, your drums can sound natural, human and smooth while still staying "on the grid" since it's your GRID that's moving, not your drums.

it's a complex concept to describe, but it's ridiculously simple in practice.
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By thedvs01 Tue May 13, 2008 2:43 am
I still haven't tried this yet but I can see this being pretty useful. Nice technique, good find.

Would be very useful for replaying a very long drum sample and keeping the feel of the original. Set up your tempo map to the original sample, replay it with your own samples, and then drop the original.
By dtaa pla muk Tue May 13, 2008 4:01 am
yes, man YES. we are all coming to the same conclusions, here.

that's exactly what i thought - get this
you find a sample you like, and you want to cut it up
before you cut it up, put that sucker on an audio track and add a TON of tempo changes to form fit it to the original groove
then slice.

your reprogramming is bound to sound just as good, especially if you either speed up the sample a tiny bit OR tune it down 1 or more semitone

you could then reprogram as necessary, with a groove template that you could at any time turn off completely. also, it will remain appropriate even if you turn up the master "center" tempo around which the tempo changes work by percentage - does that make sense?

this is really, really big, this is a fkin' secret weapon.
see, time stretching is one thing
grid shifting is a lesser explored area in MPC land.
By Rendr Tue May 13, 2008 4:49 am
oh sh!t man, i hadn't thought of drum breaks yet, that would be ill for layering a drum break, could save so much time rather than having to place each drum manually on the original breaks groove or hittin em with quantise off until you get it right
this means you could flip all sorts of different layers to one raw drum break and create a really diverse track in a shorter amount of time!
Also good for those times when that piece of a break just doesn't wanna fit with the rest of the quantised pieces
dudes are gonna flip when i show em this sh!t, i've never even heard of a software program thats able to do this
By dtaa pla muk Tue May 13, 2008 4:59 am
actually, many DAWs do it more smoothly. it's a feature that actually i've been discussing in the Reaper forums. Cubase does it, Reaper does it (apparently arguably, but i pull it off seamlessly using a clicktrack of my tempo changes from the mpc)

however, in the field, i'd say it's a relatively new concept for electronic sequencing. of course, technological development is exponential, so there are HUNDREDS of huge new concepts for electronic musical sequencing. but yeah, this one's especially nice.

but i've found that making a beat from scratch in a DAW program is a pain in the neck.
i'd prefer a more hands on compositional tool like jjos2
unfortunately such machines very rarely have this kind of capacity
or DO, and some of their users are slow on the discovery like i was haha

it's a very simple concept, and truly, finally, an additional good usage for the slept-on, rarely used tempo change function...how many folks use this on the regular? compare to the number of how many folks would love the ability to set quantize grooves...

lo and behold, the function provides the desire.