Audio tracks used for vocals?

MPC-Tutor wrote:I do wonder if anyone at Akai is actually making proper music with these MPCs...
...There's so many workflow oddities, proper head scratching stuff.

OK, so it isn't just me! Although I love aspects to the workflow, many things are quirky and non-intuitive - you're genuinely left wondering what were they thinking?

pulsefrequenz wrote:well... everybody is just talking about vocals?

pulsefrequenz wrote:(uh by the way: songwriting just in MPC? i also will just collect different ideas and then easily "audio drag and drop them into my DAW for real arranging... for my workflow the MPC is more like a ideafinder, than really like a DAW-replacer )

MPC is definitely not a DAW replacement for me but I'm wanting to sort an arrangement before track laying and mixing in a DAW - having the flexibility to change everything from the overall arrangement down to a single sample is powerful and unique in the DAW world (as far as I can see).

And if you're going to have audio tracks, why wouldn't you allow audio along with your song?

And I'm not talking about finished vocal tracks, it's faster/easier to finalise lyrics, vocal lines and arrangement with a recorded guide vocal - global pitch and swing changes from song mode also seem like a no brainer.

Sort the song writing in MPC then move to the next stage in a DAW is where I'm coming from.

I'm an MPC newb, so its terrific when I hear that I'm not alone on certain quirky workflow issues. Overall its great, so it isn't bashing, but some software revisions could go a LONG ways.

BTW this thread reminds me of when I wanted to turn the back of my Murano *right after college* into a recording booth so I could do vocals during lunch at work. I already had deadening materials and the such from the system I built in, but I didn't have a good laptop. Now I have the MPC which looks like it could do it, even if they aren't 5 minute straight vocals, hooks come to me while working - and I could literally just keep a sm58 with me and get a dirty version of the hook together for clean-up when I get home, and do the same with verses - drop 16, listen to it all afternoon at work to see where I could clean things up or spice things up, then actually nail it at the studio.
- Unreall

pulsefrequenz wrote:well... everybody is just talking about vocals? i mean exactly for vocals recording, the MPC is definetly NOT my choice, cause here i need a lot of takes (perfect take with a DAW "take-system" to warm up and find the right timbre. I feel its more a cool tool to catch ideas on the fly...
(uh by the way: songwriting just in MPC? i also will just collect different ideas and then easily "audio drag and drop them into my DAW for real arranging... for my workflow the MPC is more like a ideafinder, than really like a DAW-replacer )

We had a lot of discussion about this a few years ago when people were first demanding the MPC get 'basic audio tracks, nothing fancy'. I wasn't convinced many would be happy with basic features and that it woudln't be long before people were looking for 'just a few more features', then eventually they'd be wanting something on par with Logic.

Obviously audio tracks are a good feature to have, but I personally wish Akai would spend more time perfecting the existing core features. I assume it's been audio tracks that have held up 2.0 development for so long and that's a shame as they could have been working on so many other features during that time.

Right now I have converted all of my tracks in song mode to one seq. Now im trying to add audio tracks across my converted seq. and I can't add any more audio tracks . Any suggestions? I only have one audio track rn .

This is an old post.
What OS are you running ?

In general, you hit the plus button in upper right corner to add another audio track. I believe there is still a 5minute limit