Just got my MPC, I need advice on how to fit it in with my w

have you ever been in love

this is probably my favourite thread on this forum.

Listen NinjaBlack I'm going to explain something to you and you can take it however you'd like. This is an MPC forum, we do not like discussing DAWs as it is a waste of our time to do so because we're here to troubleshoot for people referring to problems they're having with their MPCs solely. I am not trying to come off as rude or a snob I am simply telling you why no one really cares about your question.

I will give you some advice though, and a recommendation which you'd probably not buy into.

Stop using your DAWs and VSTs for a while and stick to the program; your MPC500. Learn how to play it, record from main properly, chop up samples, and most importantly RTFM (Read The Fking Manual). If you bought the MPC to trigger samples to transfer into a DAW, that is seriously frowned upon by many members on this forum, because all you need to create music with an MPC is the MPC itself and that's it. I use FL Studio's Edison Plugin to chop samples after marking my chops in Sony SoundForge (It's faster than saving file by file, copying and pasting) and use Sony ACID Pro to record myself rapping over them. I don't go around messing with VSTs or anything of that sort but I have made some good beats slicing chops from Styrus in FL Studio in the past (When I didn't have my EXM128 installed), though that's not my style anymore since I mostly prefer to have 2 pad banks dedicated to drums and 2 pad banks dedicated to samples from songs which I've learned how to trim on the MPC thanks to some folks on this forum recently. I actually flipped Louis Armstrong's What A Wonderful World into a killer beat with that method I recently learned, done the same with some Frank Sinatra songs also. However, let's get back to your situation.

When you record on Main you have to be very precise and on point with the timing of when you hit play and stop, otherwise you'll have blank noise when you trigger it to whatever I/O system you're using. You can use a MIDI keyboard for instance to trigger samples on the MPC, which I've done but I don't know the piano well enough to proceed with making beats like that, plus I love tapping the pads, knaw mean. What I don't understand is why didn't you just buy something like a MPD24. That's what people with DAWs would prefer to use these days, as I used to do since I own a MPD16, which is obsolete now because it doesn't work on Vista/Win7.

You said it yourself, you don't suck at chopping samples; why don't you just make songs on the MPC and slice it up with a Sound Editor like Audacity or SoundForge, Recycle, etc... I think Sony ACID would be great for this for you because it has a beatmapper and times it pretty precisely, so chopping will be easy because the timing is already mapped out for you on visual bars in the program.

Something I read a long time ago however I will give you knowledge of right now which I learned from a reply from a member on this forum years ago. You can't master everything if you want to be the Jack of all trades. When you interpret that quote properly it means, it's better to stick to a certain degree of knowledge in your workflow than move on from instrument to instrument, Hardware to DAW, vice versa, as sticking to one thing and mastering it takes hard work and dedication, and the progress will definitely pay off in the end as you become more experienced with whatever workflow you expand on.

You just got your MPC, that's a great step forward. Other than that I'd like to welcome you to this forum and hope my kindness towards you can rub off on a few people, I will say no names here as I respect every and any contributing member of this forum.

Personally though I think you would have been better off purchasing a Native Instruments' Maschine and posting this question on FutureProducers.com; I hate that site personally, but I think it'd fit your needs perfectly.

My personal opinion, a MPC should not be tortured with VSTs, it has its own brand of special effects for a reason. When being recorded into any recording medium, it should not be altered unless you plan on flipping it somehow and sticking that back onto the MPC. You might think I'm close-minded; I'm not. You might think I limit myself; no way. I enjoy the limits the MPC has because as you progress with it you learn how to break barriers and really feel the music, unlike a DAW where making something sound good takes a good month and about a quarter million left and right clicks on the mouse.

Everyone has their preferences, I prefer Hardware over Software when it comes to creating music, even though I'm good with both.

PS. I wrote this on a Dell Inspiron 1525 running Mac OS X 10.5.6 (Leopard).

The MPC500 is a beast. Your ninja tatics will excell beyond any skill in the music world.

definitely get a compact flash card.
the mpc500 rocks with a compact flash card.

Youll be needing the yellow pads.u can kinda pretend your kneading thru Bart Simpsons hair when your making hits for Wicka Ficka.

the cosmic pimp wrote:Youll be needing the yellow pads.u can kinda pretend your kneading thru Bart Simpsons hair when your making hits for Wicka Ficka.

Word, the yellow pads would give you that Wu-Tang Killa Bee look. RZA would be proud.

Alright Ninja, you've been officially MPCed!

Here's what you do:

Resample all your sequences and songs within the 500, which can be found on p.64 -Recording the Main Out.

Then you save all that data to the memory card and then follow the instructions on Chapter 15 - Connecting the 500 to your computer. Its mostly drag and drop science so it should be easy. (all data in the MPC500 is wav files btw).

When you export the MPC files to your software set the setting to [email protected] and viola, you'll get your wav loops.

Kind of easy huh? And you call yourself a Ninja

But you'll defo need a Akai MPC 500 to get started though cherry drops.

Reading thru posts in between calls at work and I'm in stitches.

detonating wrote: and most importantly RTFM (Read The Fking Manual). (Leopard).

Yeah - to avoid posts like this:

viewtopic.php?f=26&t=136596

MCL wrote:

detonating wrote: and most importantly RTFM (Read The Fking Manual). (Leopard).

Yeah - to avoid posts like this:

viewtopic.php?f=26&t=136596

Ooooh! Got sonned!!!

the cosmic pimp wrote:Do you remember Shinobi in the arcades back in the 80's.That was a real tough game

word

In any case. you can't play pong on the mpc500. You need at least a 1k with jjos.

It's looking like the real question is if I want to stay a software guy or a go into hardware world. I could get recycle I guess and chop my loops or switch to hardware synths/keyboard. I think getting a keyboard sounds like less bullsht to deal with, the only problem is you can't torrent a piece of hardware.

So if I connect a keyboard to the MIDI Input on the 500, does that turn the keyboard into a sample trigger or will the MPC actually import the instruments audio stream? Is there a way the MPC can quantize/time correct keyboard notes?

quote- detonating
PS. I wrote this on a Dell Inspiron 1525 running Mac OS X 10.5.6 (Leopard).



thats some shit... on a dell inspiron 9100 running ubuntu 10.10 while running wine with i.e. as a browser
just to reply...


seriously thats cool shit.


op-look man as an ex sonar user I will say...It can be done easy if you got low...I'm talking ant dick low, latency.

see the thing you need to do is record right into sonar, midi linked with your midi i/o set for sonar to be the master.
chances are , unless you have less than 4ms latency then you are doing to lose your beat one of bar one.
(work around... just record your shit into sonar let the sequence play twice and delete the first one. line up the sequence and your good... if this is a pain in the ass, imagine tape recording.)

any way, good luck ...

Ben

and guys I know this is a daw question, but if you'd ever been to the cakewalk forums, you'd be posting here too.