Autosampling long, evolving pads

anybody have any advice for this? I have some synth patches that are 8-10 secs long and when I try to autosample it, it never sounds proper. Am I doing it wrong by trying to sample the entire pad evolving? Should I just sample it at a point where it's at full amplitude and loop it from there and then handle the envelope from the parameters in the MPC sampler?

I think I answered my question but just want to confirm? lol

Louis St. wrote:Should I just sample it at a point where it's at full amplitude and loop it from there and then handle the envelope from the parameters in the MPC sampler?

^^ THIS ^^

Finding a zero crossing on an evolving pad is almost close to impossible - it's at least a major pain in the ass. I've never had great success. Let us know how yours turns out!

If you are autosampling complex evolving pads then you'll never be able to loop them as there is never a point where a loop is going to sound natural. There's too much going on. Instead, you'll just have to record long samples and leave it at that, accepting you cannot get infinitely playing pads.

For my synth expansions I take a different approach. I will strip down the original patch and remove as much movement as I can (without impacting the inherent characteristics of the sound). I can then, in most cases, comfortably loop each sample (I do NOT use the MPC for this though!). I then use the MPCs own modulation, filters and FX to try to recreate that movement, or at least create an 'MPC version' of the original. This has the added benefit of using velocity sensitive modulations, thus negating the need to multisample multiple velocity layers from the original.

But generally speaking, pads are very hard to multisample, and by stripping away the movement you are often just left with a raw oscillator, so arguably why not just start off with a raw oscillator (which I often do as well, and it means your synth instruments are only a couple of kb in size). Check out the Source for examples of this:

https://www.mpc-samples.com/product.php ... expansion/

You can auto sample long pads... but you need to play with the adsr to get fade ins/outs to sound more natural, between 60-100 is what I play around with. You also want to avoid time stretch as much as possible, so a note step between 1 to 4 is preferable... because stretching fx like delay and reverb will sound very unnatural. I would also suggest sampling 1.5 to 2 times the length you will hold the note.

This is all very memory intensive... so consider only sampling the not range you need... or if you know your scale... or intend to use only 3-4 notes skip the auto sampler and just use the sampler and a drum program to sample what you need.

Ping pong loop helps on drone samples and it’s much easier to find proper loop points

Whenever I autosample longer sounds that are not static tones.. Like certain kinds of pads, then I just set them to oneshot, and adjust the envelope rather than trying to get them to loop in order to be able to sustain the tones.


This way they are sustained by the settings of the synth itself, and I make them longer than they need to be, and then adjust them in the mpc afterwards to have whatever length I'd otherwise try get by having the autosampler set up loop points.

I wonder if and when the features on the force comes to the Mpc how much that will help with sampling possibilities.
Having envelope followers could be a cool way to modulate samples with eachother. I guess there is a world of possibilities if they added mod matrix, more lfo options, etc.

Ibunshi wrote:Whenever I autosample longer sounds that are not static tones.. Like certain kinds of pads, then I just set them to oneshot, and adjust the envelope rather than trying to get them to loop in order to be able to sustain the tones.


This way they are sustained by the settings of the synth itself, and I make them longer than they need to be, and then adjust them in the mpc afterwards to have whatever length I'd otherwise try get by having the autosampler set up loop points.

This is actually the most painless way to do it IMO.

I was pretty excited about the autosampler feature when I bought my Live II but I find it too fussy with getting it to play nice with too many VST's patches.

Cockdiesel wrote:I wonder if and when the features on the force comes to the Mpc how much that will help with sampling possibilities.
Having envelope followers could be a cool way to modulate samples with eachother. I guess there is a world of possibilities if they added mod matrix, more lfo options, etc.

They really should take some cues from plugins like TAL-SAMPLER.

The MPC's sample engine is great for drums and chopping samples but for loading multiple single-cycle waves and programming them like a synth? It just falls really short

Louis St. wrote:I was pretty excited about the autosampler feature when I bought my Live II but I find it too fussy with getting it to play nice with too many VST's patches.

It's not completely a problem with Autosampler (although there's plenty of ways it could be improved). It's mostly down to choice of patch. Patches need to be configured correctly for 'perfect' autosampling, and that takes a lot of time, patience and trial and error. There's rarely a quick fix unless it's something like a simple bass or pulse style patch; this is the same issue with all other autosampling software, while they can automate various tasks, they can't choose and configure the best patches for you.

Some patches (many patches) just don't play nicely, period, so the best option is to just sample several seconds of each note and hope you never need it to play longer. For personal use this isn't a big deal, but it doesn't (shouldn't) work well for professional expansions.

Louis St. wrote:The MPC's sample engine is great for drums and chopping samples but for loading multiple single-cycle waves and programming them like a synth? It just falls really short

That's because the MPC we have now is adapted from MPCs like the MPC1000. You can workaround some of the limitations, I have made plenty of single cycle instruments, but I would love to see them rethink the core sampling and synthesis engines. However I'm not sure the target audience these days is particularly fussed. I'm finding myself using the MPC Software more these days so I can use VST synths and samplers for more complex sound design.

MPC-Tutor wrote:

Louis St. wrote:The MPC's sample engine is great for drums and chopping samples but for loading multiple single-cycle waves and programming them like a synth? It just falls really short

That's because the MPC we have now is adapted from MPCs like the MPC1000. You can workaround some of the limitations, I have made plenty of single cycle instruments, but I would love to see them rethink the core sampling and synthesis engines. However I'm not sure the target audience these days is particularly fussed. I'm finding myself using the MPC Software more these days so I can use VST synths and samplers for more complex sound design.

Yea I'm not a legacy MPC user...so I get the focus on the target market. I will say that I *get* the hype about the MPC workflow now, it's definitely what it is all cracked up to be. In controller mode it's a perfect rig for me.

It's just in standalone mode....I long for my "go to" third party patches..I'm sure I'm not alone. Not a dealbreaker by any means.

Louis St. wrote:Yea I'm not a legacy MPC user...so I get the focus on the target market.

Actually I don't think they particularly target legacy MPC users (who mostly complain about 'missing legacy features!), in fact they haven't done for some time IMO. But they do seem to be favouring people who want a simplistic, stripped down workflow, so I suspect we'll be seeing more features that focus on instant gratification and less that require a degree in sound design or synthesis