iight so this ISH is pissin me off.

so i got down just one kick, one snare and one hat (no layering done to the drums)

one loop (just simple guitar) - 4 bars long
another 2 bar loop (hi frequency only strings, to go over guitar loop on 1st 2 bars.)

then when i lay the bassline down (sub bass /about 60 hz maybe a bit lowwer/higher give or take)

and distortion commences in the low frequency area once i have all the elements together (but not seperate)

im sure it deals with polyphony, but WTF man, if akai dont fix this, thats just ass...i mean cmon, the 500 is all i really need and wanted then the polyphony ( i believe is my problem) comes and craps it out.

WTF.

if akai dont do shit about this then they just need to stop puttin out product.

pz.

might not be the polyphony. usually when the polyphony starts chokin it will just not play some samples. maybe try to eq and adjust the volume of ur samples a little. just a suggestion, maybe it is the polyphony

will try that tonite.
it just doesnt sound right.
if i was to recreate it in the 2kxl i kno it wouldnt be with this problem.
even without eqin it
its sumthin that must be heard to understand where im comin from.

pz

The bass sample may be to loud, turn it down a little maybe this should solve the problem.

well i have lowered it to say level 60 or so, now u cant barely hear it in the mix.even then it sounnds distorted.
but lo and behold u stop the trak and play the kick and bass and loops, etc, seperately and it sounds perfect.

Contra wrote:well i have lowered it to say level 60 or so, now u cant barely hear it in the mix.even then it sounnds distorted.
but lo and behold u stop the trak and play the kick and bass and loops, etc, seperately and it sounds perfect.

That is weird.

Lampdog wrote:Maybe your lower freq's are fighting for the same space within the mix.

yeah that what I was thinking as well.

Contra wrote:well i have lowered it to say level 60 or so, now u cant barely hear it in the mix.even then it sounnds distorted.
but lo and behold u stop the trak and play the kick and bass and loops, etc, seperately and it sounds perfect.

the sample might be clashing with another sample in the same frequency range. for example if u had a bassline playin together with an 808 kick it would definitly o d on the bass and get distorted

damn thanks for the quik responses yall.

i appreciate.
so one option they could be fightin for frequency space. could another possibility be the voice overlap thing?

i have the FX (EQ) on the kick pad also and was eqin some of the lows out earlier today and it sounded a bit assy. no kick umph there.
i dunno i hope to find away around this.

pz.

Contra wrote:damn thanks for the quik responses yall.

i appreciate.
so one option they could be fightin for frequency space. could another possibility be the voice overlap thing?

i have the FX (EQ) on the kick pad also and was eqin some of the lows out earlier today and it sounded a bit assy. no kick umph there.
i dunno i hope to find away around this.

pz.

im assuming that u got too much bass goin on. i would say try a couple of different kicks and see which one works best and maybe lower the volume a little on everything in the beat. and then just fine tune it from there, im not an audio engineer so i cant pinpoint exactly what frequencies u need to cut on what but usually just poke around until it sounds right

strength wrote:

Contra wrote:damn thanks for the quik responses yall.

i appreciate.
so one option they could be fightin for frequency space. could another possibility be the voice overlap thing?

i have the FX (EQ) on the kick pad also and was eqin some of the lows out earlier today and it sounded a bit assy. no kick umph there.
i dunno i hope to find away around this.

pz.

im assuming that u got too much bass goin on. i would say try a couple of different kicks and see which one works best and maybe lower the volume a little on everything in the beat. and then just fine tune it from there, im not an audio engineer so i cant pinpoint exactly what frequencies u need to cut on what but usually just poke around until it sounds right

Yeah for sure. I hope everything works out for you though.

what is the master level of the mpc500 set to?? cause in the manual it says that sometimes a setting that is too high can cause distortion when playing back too many sounds at once. Try lowering the master level
to -6db

A problem with polyphony will mean that certain sounds will not play, I don't think it would make a sample sound distorted.

Why blame distorted sample playback on polyphony problems?

SimonInAustralia wrote:Why blame distorted sample playback on polyphony problems?

cuz i can do that!


but yea it was what lampdog and others(sorry for not checkin names guys and gals) said, that the lower frequencies were fighting each other.
and also i gotta get used to the sound coming out of the mp and how to mix on there, as opposed to the sound ableton live's puttin out.

so gettin used to the sound as of tonite, mixes are comin out nicer on here.