How to route MPC sounds as mono to your DAW.

You can make the Ren outs mono by routing the sounds to mono tracks in your DAW and then panning the sounds hard left or right. So for example, if I want my kick going out of 7 and my snare going out of 8, I would first set both sounds to outs 7+8. Pan the kick hard left, pan the snare hard right. Go to the DAW, create two mono tracks. Set one track input to MPC output 7 and name it KICK, set the other track input to MPC output 8 and name it SNARE. Record. Done.

However, I've noticed with the MPC Ren, when doing this, panning the sounds hard seems to make sounds not hit with the same "power" so to speak, which should not happen. Doesn't happen with my XL, Maschine, or Reason. Panning a mono sound hard left or right should make that sound slightly louder and shouldn't change the sounds characteristic. Ren seems to make the sounds weak when panning.

But I have to look more into it and do some more tests. If one of you guys wanna give it a try and tell me what you think, that'll be great! Of course, you first want to make sure that the sounds your are doing this with are in fact mono sounds. Just keep that in mind!

DAWs/mixers can use different "panning-laws". This setting is often adjustable in DAWs. Panning-laws affects volume, which could be the reason your audio gets less "power"?

I think you lose 3db by cutting the stereo signal in half.

aaonli wrote:DAWs/mixers can use different "panning-laws". This setting is often adjustable in DAWs. Panning-laws affects volume, which could be the reason your audio gets less "power"?

All I know is I've done this for years with my XL, Maschine, and Reason with Pro Tools and the MPC Ren is the only one to exhibit different gain/volume/sound behavior than the other 3 pieces of gear when panning.

But like I said, I've only played with it for a few minutes. Maybe someone else should check it out and see what they find.

What are mono sounds? Do you mean percussions sounds like kick drums, snares hi-hats..? I'm going to see if I can create a Aux Output track in Logic. One wil be with a mono and stereo track. I know for sure the stereo Aux Outputs will be paired but if there was a way to create an external mono click track like with Reason it would be dope, but we shall see later. I will mos def create 14 Aux outputs 3-4,5-6....15-16 and pan each sound hard left or right and see what type of sound I get. Good looking out Hellfire. Real talk! I just wish there was way I could possibly aux more sounds into Logic instead of just 16 max. There has to be a different way to add more sounds into your DAW from the MPC Ren without having to create and export from the Ren.

Anything can be a mono sound. Mono samples are just samples that only had one channel (either left or right) recorded, or samples that were stereo and split into mono. Most drums are usually mono but can sometimes be stereo depending on what type of effects are layered on it. So it varies. Depending on how the sample was recorded or edited.

Old MPCs have a little (ST) next to stereo samples and samples without this were mono. The Ren doesn't have this, nor does maschine or even my 2500 with JJOS. There are 3 ways i check to see if a sample is stereo or mono. First way to tell if a sample is stereo or not is to just look at the stereo waveform. If both channels are identical looking in the peaks and length, then it's most likely mono. If the waveform of one channel is taller or longer than the other channel, then it's stereo, or the weaker channel had a poor signal during recording, but more than likely its stereo. Secondly is to observer how the sound looks on the gain meter of a stereo track in your daw. If the two channels are metering at the exact same heights 100% of the time, it's most likely mono. If one channel is higher or lower than the other at anytime, then it's most likely stereo. Lastly, listen. Play the sound and see if you notice any difference in the stereo field from left to right. If the sound sounds the exact same out of both speakers then its likely mono. If you can hear any type of stereo effect or difference in sound or volume from left to right, it's likely stereo.

Also, I HIGHLY agree that there needs to be more than 16 virtual outs. It makes no sense that this is limited to only 16 channels.

Bet that! Good looking out for the knowledge. I will mos def listen for those. I have to find a way to get more outs in Logic since I have it synced with Logic and my MPK49. I want to get Reason to go with Logic because of the easy eternal click tracks feature also but I will need more Aux tracks. I'm going to see what a bus is.

I tried to pan hard left or right but it doesn't sound right to me. Maybe I'm tripping but the sounds are coming out one side only because of the panning. Is that normal?

You want to make sure you're panning the sounds in the MPC, not panning the track in logic. Logic should send mono tracks out both speakers as long as the track pan is centered.

wait...the new "flagship" "mpc" can not assign samples/pads/etc. to mono outputs??

WTF??

all of my samplers can do this...

DJ Hellfire wrote:You want to make sure you're panning the sounds in the MPC, not panning the track in logic. Logic should send mono tracks out both speakers as long as the track pan is centered.

Bet!Thanks! Let me try that out and see whats up.

**** wrote:wait...the new "flagship" "mpc" can not assign samples/pads/etc. to mono outputs??

WTF??

all of my samplers can do this...

Maschine is the same way tho! Can only route sounds out a pair of outs. Have to split to mono in the DAW using the method I explained in the OP. The thing is on Maschine, when you take the right channel and move it all the way to the left side by panning the sound hard left, the sound get's a bit louder on the mono track in your DAW, being that your combining two channels into one. I don't know what it was with the Ren, maybe it was phasing itself out or something, but the sound seemed to get noticeable weaker.

Another thing I just realized is that the Ren displays mono sounds as a single waveform in the sample editor. So an even quicker way to tell if a sound is mono or stereo is to peak at waveform.

Mono:


Stereo:



Quick heads up though, on the stereo sounds, you still have to observe the waveform and listen, because depending on where you got your sounds from or how it was sampled, it could have been a mono sound sampled in stereo, which would give two identical left and right channels. In this case, you can still bounce these types of sounds as mono. Just use your judgment!

The panning didn't work for me. Maybe I did something incorrectly but it doesn't work for me.

How is anyone coping with this? I notice this as well. We need to be able to assign to mono outputs I guess.