Live Performance Using an MPC?

Damn. Was that second-hand or brand new? I'm doing a web search on them now and I can't find anywhere that sells the 8000, and the 8800 is like £1900, and both are coming up as discontinued.

I don't want to design new material on the MPC because that severely limits everything I can do, and currently do. I would use the MPC to create music occasionally, but if it can't encompass everything I've already done, it's no use to me.

Man, I still don't completely understand the loading up songs thing. If I dumped all my samples for a whole set into one sequence it would avoid that right? But you don't think I could dump all my samples because of the limited space on the MPC?

Does the MPC not save to an internal hard drive, or does it actually save to RAM? Is it literally only 128MBs or whatever? Why do they have such little RAM anyway? Shit, my phone has like 1GB.

I'm sorry for the onslaught of questions by the way, I'm just worried the MPC wouldn't actually allow for what I want to do, and more than that, that there's nothing in existence that would.

Cheers for clearing up the fat pads/JJ-OS thing anyway. That other forum were throwing around some BS. You've been a massive help.

here is the way it works .. just so you get what "loading" and all that boils down to..

okay, you have your hard drive, memory card, floppy disk, what ever.. the storage where you save projects (or back them up) for later use... you turn the power off and they are stored on there..

RAM is where the song material (samples, settings, etc) is located when using them.. that is where you are loading the saved projects to play them again or to work on them further... BUT, if you turn the power off without saving to your mpc (or mv's.. or PC's) hard drive.. it's gone.. you pull the plug and that is it...


for example, in your DAW on the computer.. you have your song you are working on and if you pull your computer's plug.. that is lost... unless you saved your project to reload later on.


the difference is, on a computer it has it's system ram (likely to be over two gigs, or your phone that has 1 gig) and that ram is used to run the entire system.. it's used for windows or what ever OS you are on... it is used to run your DAW.. everything.

On the mpc, the ram (in the 1000 the max is 128 megs) that is not used for the OS or system etc.. that is entirely reserved for sample time.. IE: the total length of all your samples combined that are loaded up from your storage device in the song or mpc project.

That 128 limit is why you will likely need to load up the next song between songs while playing live... there aint enough room to have everything loaded at once in that 128 megs.

It's just like if you played your fl studio or logic or ableton for your live set.. you load up a song, for the next track the band wants to play you need to go and load that next song up to play it... unless your computer is powerful enough to make a DAW project containing ALL the data from all the songs at once so everything is ready to play... that would be tough and require a beef computer.

Now what I said about the MV-8000 or 8800.. is that because it has more ram than any mpc besides the 4000 (the mpc4000, mv-8000, and mv-8800) all have a max of 512 megs of ram ( four times the max of the 1000) you can load up more to play at once.. meaning you wont need to load between every song.


I suggest looking on ebay.. I know not everyone likes ebay... but take a peak anyways. I know MV-8000 machines do go for like 350-500 bucks USD, so in europe you may need to pay a bit more... none the less, stores will charge you 1700 euros for the 8800, which is a total rip off. You see 8800's going for like 800-900 bucks on ebay... though it has been a couple of months since following ebay listings.

for the track you linked, i would cut things up so that the atmospheric sounds are triggered manually,.... that doesnt mean you have to trigger the sound every 4 or 8 or whatever bars, cos if for example it just loops through out the song, then you just trigger it at the beginning.

then at 15 seconds, with your first loop going, hit the next loop to play on top.

or you can render the audio from the 15 seconds onwards as one sample instead if you want.

then just play drums on top.

then when the other loops kick in, kill the first loops and trigger the others.

if you render elements together, i would bet you wouldnt need to fill even one bank up with samples for birdcry, including drums. meaning, if your other tracks are similar, you could have a song per bank, making it 4 per program, so with 128mb ram, and a bit of cunning, you could load an entire set,... 4 programs x 4 banks = 16 songs.

and PA's are mono so alot of the stereo trickery wont be heard, unless the mixer soundguy has the skills, so stereo samples just eat space.

or

there is also the sp range which stream audio from sd cards,... the sp-404 for example has no ram so there's no loading issue, and the max is limited to the sd card you use which go up to 32gb. on these you can take the whole song, strip the vocals and drums in DAW and then hit one button to play your backing track.

but they're not as easy to play as mpc's, the pads are more like buttons, and are smaller,... one could get used to them though,... i havent yet.

there are dj's who use this thing exclusively, dumping whole tracks into the sp and then triggering them and effecting them.

i have both the 2500 and the sp-404sx, and if you asked me to play birdcry, either one would do a decent job of it. they would both require a certain amount of planning as to how to divide the track up,..... but with the 2500, on the fly rearranging would be easier,... but the sp would be easier to run fx with, and would give me the option of being lazier by being able to assign the whole backing track to one button, but wheres the fun in that

hope that helps some.

mr_debauch wrote:here is the way it works .. just so you get what "loading" and all that boils down to..

okay, you have your hard drive, memory card, floppy disk, what ever.. the storage where you save projects (or back them up) for later use... you turn the power off and they are stored on there..

RAM is where the song material (samples, settings, etc) is located when using them.. that is where you are loading the saved projects to play them again or to work on them further... BUT, if you turn the power off without saving to your mpc (or mv's.. or PC's) hard drive.. it's gone.. you pull the plug and that is it...


for example, in your DAW on the computer.. you have your song you are working on and if you pull your computer's plug.. that is lost... unless you saved your project to reload later on.


the difference is, on a computer it has it's system ram (likely to be over two gigs, or your phone that has 1 gig) and that ram is used to run the entire system.. it's used for windows or what ever OS you are on... it is used to run your DAW.. everything.

On the mpc, the ram (in the 1000 the max is 128 megs) that is not used for the OS or system etc.. that is entirely reserved for sample time.. IE: the total length of all your samples combined that are loaded up from your storage device in the song or mpc project.

That 128 limit is why you will likely need to load up the next song between songs while playing live... there aint enough room to have everything loaded at once in that 128 megs.

It's just like if you played your fl studio or logic or ableton for your live set.. you load up a song, for the next track the band wants to play you need to go and load that next song up to play it... unless your computer is powerful enough to make a DAW project containing ALL the data from all the songs at once so everything is ready to play... that would be tough and require a beef computer.

Now what I said about the MV-8000 or 8800.. is that because it has more ram than any mpc besides the 4000 (the mpc4000, mv-8000, and mv-8800) all have a max of 512 megs of ram ( four times the max of the 1000) you can load up more to play at once.. meaning you wont need to load between every song.


I suggest looking on ebay.. I know not everyone likes ebay... but take a peak anyways. I know MV-8000 machines do go for like 350-500 bucks USD, so in europe you may need to pay a bit more... none the less, stores will charge you 1700 euros for the 8800, which is a total rip off. You see 8800's going for like 800-900 bucks on ebay... though it has been a couple of months since following ebay listings.

Right, that put a lot in perspective. Thanks. It's not so different from PC. The RAM and CPU are managing the process, and the hard-drive is saving the information. The WAVs/samples are saved to the hard-drive, but the RAM manages them as they're being used? So the issue here is the amount of samples being accessed and processed at once by the MPC?

Or does it work differently? Is it the presence of the sample allocated in the track in the MPC itself that causes RAM overloading, or only when the sample is actually being triggered? So say you had like 16 samples in a track, but were only using about 4 at any one time, would the 12 not in use contribute to RAM overloading or not?

Is there any way to tell how many you could run at once through an MPC1000 before it taps out anyway?

I posted on that LivePA forum the other dude linked to as well, and somebody mentioned a trick where you sort of switch out samples from one track, for ones in others and sort of gradually switch tracks as oppose to stopping and waiting out the loading time.

I just went to eBay after reading your post, and there's actually an MV-8000 on there used, for £499. No bids, yet, but there are 28 days left. I'm definitely considering it. I just saw some YouTube videos of it and it looks nice. Kind of unwieldy for something I'd have to lug to shows, but nice.

brucker wrote:for the track you linked, i would cut things up so that the atmospheric sounds are triggered manually,.... that doesnt mean you have to trigger the sound every 4 or 8 or whatever bars, cos if for example it just loops through out the song, then you just trigger it at the beginning.

then at 15 seconds, with your first loop going, hit the next loop to play on top.

or you can render the audio from the 15 seconds onwards as one sample instead if you want.

then just play drums on top.

then when the other loops kick in, kill the first loops and trigger the others.

if you render elements together, i would bet you wouldnt need to fill even one bank up with samples for birdcry, including drums. meaning, if your other tracks are similar, you could have a song per bank, making it 4 per program, so with 128mb ram, and a bit of cunning, you could load an entire set,... 4 programs x 4 banks = 16 songs.

and PA's are mono so alot of the stereo trickery wont be heard, unless the mixer soundguy has the skills, so stereo samples just eat space.

or

there is also the sp range which stream audio from sd cards,... the sp-404 for example has no ram so there's no loading issue, and the max is limited to the sd card you use which go up to 32gb. on these you can take the whole song, strip the vocals and drums in DAW and then hit one button to play your backing track.

but they're not as easy to play as mpc's, the pads are more like buttons, and are smaller,... one could get used to them though,... i havent yet.

there are dj's who use this thing exclusively, dumping whole tracks into the sp and then triggering them and effecting them.

i have both the 2500 and the sp-404sx, and if you asked me to play birdcry, either one would do a decent job of it. they would both require a certain amount of planning as to how to divide the track up,..... but with the 2500, on the fly rearranging would be easier,... but the sp would be easier to run fx with, and would give me the option of being lazier by being able to assign the whole backing track to one button, but wheres the fun in that

hope that helps some.

Yo, it did, thanks. The reason I wanted to split up the four chords that form the basis of Birdcry is because it feels more like a performance, you know? It'd be more like I'm playing it. If the track was maybe a bit more busy, and I had to do other stuff and couldn't juggle them all at once, I'd make the backing sample longer, or the complete track, like you suggested.

Here's an example of what I'm trying to do (only for now, only using one device): http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=twHhcB4D-po. See how he plays everything at once, live? Obviously he's got a different kind of track there, but the principal remains the same.

Also, if the RAM issue on the MPC is based on the length of the samples, wouldn't it all be relative anyway? I'd either have lots of short ones or fewer big ones.

Yeah, I actually really want an SP-404, for effects and stuff. I read Madlib swears by it too.

Je Hones wrote:Also, if the RAM issue on the MPC is based on the length of the samples, wouldn't it all be relative anyway? I'd either have lots of short ones or fewer big ones.

.

EXACTLY! now you got it..

basically.. if you got lets say a single 5 minute stereo track on your computer and you check.. it will be like say 50 megs... now if you had five one minute stereo tracks.. it will be again... 50 megs.

same on the mpc, if your samples total 5 minutes (the addition of all your cymbals, drums, samples, pad sounds, every sample loaded up in ram..) well it will take up however much ram exactly like you said here:

the RAM manages them as they're being used? So the issue here is the amount of samples being accessed and processed at once by the MPC?

except no.. the ram wont hide the samples you currently aren't using ... if it's loaded up, even if you never push that pad during that song... it's still there. (the mpc does not have virtual ram like computers do)



that is why I suggested the other machines with more ram.. because you can load more song's components up at once... meaning less loading.

brucker is on to something though about the managing of sounds for performing.. I dont know if you will fit everything into ram for the whole set with only 128 megs though.. because you want stereo.. which in my experience pretty much every PA system is in stereo (aside from the subwoofers which are almost always recieving a mono signal to avoid phase cancellation) (that is why low frequency bass can be in mono.. and often is best to remain mono)

and yeah true about the sp series like the man mentioned... however I dont know enough about those to go into detail.. I know they have about 8 pad like buttons... and they stream their data right off the memory card (which in other machines are used only for storage like we talked about earlier) the reason that is good is because memory cards can be huge.

lastly, yes the mv is way bigger than the mpc1000 in size.. but you win some you loose some.

mr_debauch wrote:basically.. if you got lets say a single 5 minute stereo track on your computer and you check.. it will be like say 50 megs... now if you had five one minute stereo tracks.. it will be again... 50 megs.

Right, I get that. However, this gives rise to another question. When you say 5 minutes = 50mb (I know you aren't speaking exactly, but for the purpose of example), is that 5 minutes of original sound, or 5 minutes including retriggering of samples? Because if a track was 5 minutes long there would be more than 5 minutes worth of independent audio in it, because most tracks are layered with other instruments. The same would be inversely true if the MPC only has to account for the sample and its length in the RAM once, and not each time it's triggered.

I'm starting to think I might be better off with an SP-404 for the time being. It would allow me to perform live at least. I just kinda wanted to be doing something, you know? I guess I could play the piano in Birdcry and trigger the samples, and the singer could just sing, or use the SP-404 instead, or I guess I could still do what I was planning on doing with an MPC, only with those button things instead of pads. In fact, that seems like a really obvious option. The MPC doesn't seem to be made for what I intended to do with it, but the SP-404 might be. Also, it's £150 less, I can fit it in my backpack, and **** with effects if I so choose. WOO!

I feel like I need to keep saying too, thank you so much for seeing me through this. You've been awesome. I wish I could repay the favour somehow.

well yeah.. like .. it's just the total space all your samples take up..


the mpc can do exactly what you want.. it just takes you using it to develop your workflow and setup... which is hard to describe using text.

That is why I tried explaining the way the system works with the ram and all that... so maybe you can picture it.

it's more than capable... it just takes setup and you practicing on it.


the 404, I cant tell you how that would turn out... however just like the mpc or mv... you will figure out what it can do.. than figure out your own workflow system on that machine, and then make it work for the job you need to get done.

Yeah, sorry, that wasn't meant to disparage the MPC. I'd totally get one if I had the spare money, but my immediate specification is just to adapt my current music for live performance, and it sounds like without spending quite a lot, I wouldn't be able to cram it all in.

I'll keep browsing though, and come back here when I decide on something, and figure it out.

yeah i feel you on that... i am trying to figure something out for live play at the moment as well.. but the mpc part is not really the part we're stuck on...

as for discouraging the mpc, no worries.. I completely agree with using what ever product accomplishes the goal (and within budget) ..

stick around though, because there is a lot of useful stuff in these forums that applies to more than just the mpc line .. sure it caters to it a lot, but when it comes to DAWs, beat machines of all brands like the maschine, the mpc, the mv, the sp series, the asr, you name it.. we got people here who are avid users of all that stuff... especially people who figure out unique and original ways to make it all work together. I know I learned a lot around here... and to be honest, most of my learning was about gear other than mpcs..

check out the DAW section while you are around, it's a new section of the forum.. but it is a sort of sub section.. here is the link http://www.mpc-forums.com/viewforum.php?f=35 (from the main page it is a sub section of the MPC studio environments category)

the 404 does have its limitations as well. chopping can be a **** an a half, pitch shifting as well,.... but if you're doing all that in DAW then it probably wont matter.

it is brilliant for atmospheric sound creaction.

it sucks for playing drums, but you could get used to it, although the big thing is that there's no mute groups,... cept for a ghetto workaround.

GET BOTH!

hehe.

have a look at this guy on the sp404: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I19i-AmYFEY

there's one other woman on youtube that does live stuff as well, cant for the life of me recall what to search for though. she was playing on a glass table is all i can remember.

the great thing is that getting an sp doesnt mean that getting an mpc would be pointless,... i havent tried midi-ing up the mpc and sp but it should be a wicked combination.

I think there is a lot of focus here on the available memory where the focus really should be on workflow, but whatever...

Think of it like this. A kick drum takes up one second of sample memory, and a snare takes up one more. So if you load up individual hits from a drumkit you might use up 10 seconds of sample memory. Now, you can just start bashing away on the pads and write an hour of (possibly interesting) music just using those few samples. It doesnt cost an hour of sample memory.

Even if you sample chords and a beat and a few fx loops, you might use up 1 minute of sample memory, and with that, you can combine them, loop them, filter them, add effects, remix them and so on live, without costing more memory. Apply some creativity and that's enough to stretch out the 1 minute collection of samples into a full song.

Should you run out of memory after a couple of songs, you just need a way to cover while the MPC loads. Have a simple synth or a CD or whatever make some noise while loading.

How long does it take to load a full 128mb?

mr_debauch wrote:stick around though, because there is a lot of useful stuff in these forums that applies to more than just the mpc line .. sure it caters to it a lot, but when it comes to DAWs, beat machines of all brands like the maschine, the mpc, the mv, the sp series, the asr, you name it.. we got people here who are avid users of all that stuff... especially people who figure out unique and original ways to make it all work together. I know I learned a lot around here... and to be honest, most of my learning was about gear other than mpcs..

check out the DAW section while you are around, it's a new section of the forum.. but it is a sort of sub section.. here is the link http://www.mpc-forums.com/viewforum.php?f=35 (from the main page it is a sub section of the MPC studio environments category)

Will do!

brucker wrote:the 404 does have its limitations as well. chopping can be a **** an a half, pitch shifting as well,.... but if you're doing all that in DAW then it probably wont matter.

it is brilliant for atmospheric sound creaction.

it sucks for playing drums, but you could get used to it, although the big thing is that there's no mute groups,... cept for a ghetto workaround.

GET BOTH!

hehe.

have a look at this guy on the sp404: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I19i-AmYFEY

there's one other woman on youtube that does live stuff as well, cant for the life of me recall what to search for though. she was playing on a glass table is all i can remember.

the great thing is that getting an sp doesnt mean that getting an mpc would be pointless,... i havent tried midi-ing up the mpc and sp but it should be a wicked combination.

Yeah, I was going to chop everything in my DAW or in Audition and drop the samples in the 404 if I got it, same with the MPC. I would really like both, actually, but I don't have the money, and my end game here is just to be able to play live, so I'm trying to figure out what might be best for that.

For my intentions, the biggest drawback of the 404 that I can figure out is the buttons. I like pads and if there were sections of songs I wanted to play live rather than just trigger, playing it on those buttons would be awkward. I wanted to do a drum machine cover of 'Flite' by The Cinematic Orchestra once I got the MPC/Maschine/whatever, but that goes out the window with a 404.

innovine wrote:I think there is a lot of focus here on the available memory where the focus really should be on workflow, but whatever...

Think of it like this. A kick drum takes up one second of sample memory, and a snare takes up one more. So if you load up individual hits from a drumkit you might use up 10 seconds of sample memory. Now, you can just start bashing away on the pads and write an hour of (possibly interesting) music just using those few samples. It doesnt cost an hour of sample memory.

Even if you sample chords and a beat and a few fx loops, you might use up 1 minute of sample memory, and with that, you can combine them, loop them, filter them, add effects, remix them and so on live, without costing more memory. Apply some creativity and that's enough to stretch out the 1 minute collection of samples into a full song.

Should you run out of memory after a couple of songs, you just need a way to cover while the MPC loads. Have a simple synth or a CD or whatever make some noise while loading.

How long does it take to load a full 128mb?

Really? So the MPC would only have to account for the sample once, and not each time it's triggered? That changes quite a lot, actually. Is there any way to sort of estimate how many tracks I might be able to get into 128MB before I needed to reload?

I've noticed that the MPC doesn't come with 128MB RAM; I'd have to buy it. Do you have to get the $160 Akai brand one or are there cheaper third party alternatives?

I've just had a thought, and it's pretty stupid I didn't bring it up earlier actually. I didn't think it'd be relevant. Anyway, I have an MPD16 already, and the only drawback of the 404 for my needs is the fact it has buttons instead of pads. Would there be any way I could setup the MPD as a slave to the 404 and play percussion on the MPD, but draw the samples from the 404? Or do MPDs need a PC somewhere in the mix to tell them what to do?

Je Hones wrote:I've just had a thought, and it's pretty stupid I didn't bring it up earlier actually. I didn't think it'd be relevant. Anyway, I have an MPD16 already, and the only drawback of the 404 for my needs is the fact it has buttons instead of pads. Would there be any way I could setup the MPD as a slave to the 404 and play percussion on the MPD, but draw the samples from the 404? Or do MPDs need a PC somewhere in the mix to tell them what to do?

oh that is great that you have that... you can run the mpd midi output to the sp midi input (im assuming the sp has that) and it should be possible to use the mpd as a set of external pads.. in fact, I use my mpd 16 on some of my machines just so I dont need to switch banks.

Ohhh, this is great news. Yeah, the 404 does have MIDI input, and the MPD16 MIDI out. Sweet.

Thanks again man.