Drum program with more than 4 layers possible?

Hey everyone,

Has anyone out there experimented with using simult-pad to make programs that have 4+ layers per pad.

I’m imagining creating a more realistic acoustic drum program which has 8 layers per pad for the different velocities. Pad A1 would have 4 layers with velocities split up 1-17, 18-32, 33-45, and 46-64 and simultaneously-pad F1 which would be assigned to trigger from A1 with 4 layers that also are split up by velocities 65-77, 78-91, 92-104, 105-127.

Is this just a royal pain to pull off, or is it possible. Are there any commercial libraries which do this?

Thanks.

Yes, this works fine, you can use all the simultaneous pad to add even more layers. I'm probably going to release something that uses this at some point this year.

I've just done this with a multi-sample kit I like (16 timbral velocities per pad)
Drum Program > Master > Simultaneous play

It's time-consuming to set up, and a bit of a pain to use as you need to select multiple pads to do edits. Doing it in MPC DAW is a lot easier, copying and pasting pads with velocity preset, and dragging four samples onto a file while holding down the shift key.

I wish there was a separate sampleType (that is multi-samples already grouped), that you could just put on one pad. It is what it is, either you do the time-consuming setup, or buy them prePROGMAM'd for the MPC. I know of no conversion software that would convert soundFonts or Kontact to an MPC program

curious how these are set up: https://www.mpc-samples.com/product.php ... it-bundle/

not quite sure how these are set up.. as it says round robin and 4 levels of articulation. I assume it's either RR or multi-timbral.

Does anyone know of any open-source kits peeps have converted to mpc programs, while I save up to buy a proper one?

I've posted up stuff for free on my website (though you'd have to probably go digging for it)... also posted 4 sample packs from the S950 for free in the thread viewtopic.php?f=48&t=206195&p=1815431&hilit=s950+sample#p1815165

Look for beat camping... there's a pretty big share of content there as well. You can definitely find good stuff that is free if you don't want to (or just not able to afford just yet) some content.

Also... Tutor's expansion packs are top notch... and definitely worth spending on

mrrafs wrote:curious how these are set up: https://www.mpc-samples.com/product.php ... it-bundle/

not quite sure how these are set up.. as it says round robin and 4 levels of articulation. I assume it's either RR or multi-timbral.

Yes, I provide a separate RR and velocity switching (VS) versions of each kit. There's no way to combine these into a single program (it's possible on JJOSXL).

But with many more velocity levels, lack of round robins would be less of an issue unless you are determined to play all your kits with full level turned on. Ideally Akai eventually come up with a way to offer both RR and VS in a single program, but I think it's quite a niche request so it probably won't happen.

Thanks everyone for replying so soon!

I tried it out with MPC Beats and it does work. It would be great if a workaround wasn’t necessary, but if you setup a few pads with the velocity splits ahead of time, it is easy to then copy those pads to new places and just replace the samples.

What I was hoping to get done is with acoustic kits, so once it is set up there isn’t too much need to do “sound design” (aka changing filter settings, etc) but at least there is the multi-pad selection which allows for it. I just need to remember to select them all. Right now I have the A bank as the lowest velocities, the G bank as medium velocities on the same pad number (A1 simultaneously plays G1 &H1) and bank H as the highest velocities.

Sweet. Can’t wait until my MPC One shows up and I can use these kits.

Another watch ya. with this is that, the effects inserts in the drum program don’t apply to multiple pads even if you have all pads selected. The workaround I found so far for this is to use separate submixs for each individual pad.

I have just wrapped my head around this....and eventually will get around to doing it with drum kits. I will probably do this with all my EZdrummer kits for MPC drum programs...when I have a year or so of free time.

I see why Kontakt libraries are so expensive now.

Don't forget that you can also utilise the cycling abilities of other pads assigned to your sim-played pads.. So that yes, maybe you have some set up to trigger at different velocities, you can also have stuff cycle so that it goes through different layers randomly..

I never any of these things to try to simulate realistic drumming.. I do a lot of programming for dnb beats, where I want precise things that can be repeated, so I tend to have set velocity or volume for these things, and rarely randomised patterns..

But since the topic is using sim-play, this is also a great and swift way to program drum rolls, and it work great for stuff like ghost hits and shuffles as well.. So you can set up your initial 4 layers to go through a cycle, and using noterepeat, you can now simply press and hold the pad to have more intricate rolls and shuffles with very little effort..

Now let's say that you want to use sim-play, try setting up that pad to only have 3 layers.. it will play simultaneously, but loop independently from the originals 4 layers of the "master" pad..

Now try effects that allows you to manipulate the timing of how things get processed, like the tremolo included in the akai selection of effects, that allows you to set different timings for how it sweeps.. This way you can have a set timing on the pad, the noterepeat, and yet have the effect do its own thing, so that it will sounds less static than what you'd get with a set velocity and straight noterepeat..

Now try another sim-play pad set up with 4, but one of the 4 is silent.. It plays a pattern of 4, but skips one with a silence.. Or set it so low that it is more of a barely audible tap..

Well, that's some things to do to help speed up the process of programming ghost hits or tom rolls or whatever percussion stuff you want, that takes more time to do one by one..

So if you know what pattern you want, you can do it with cycling or indeed random if you like that more.. And after you've set things up, it's as simple as pressing and holding a pad to fill in the rolls wherever you want.

Actually built a few of these kits now. For me, I built a template project in Logic Pro with 8 individual clips/ midi segments per note at ascending velocities.

In Logic, you can quick export these clips as audio files. I do that, then batch convert them in Audacity to convert to mono and strip silence.

Then I drop them onto the appropriate pads (4 at a time by using the shift key) in MPC Beats. Save and done.

All in all about 15 minutes per kit with 16 drums (w/ 8 velocities each)

Lampdog wrote:Submixes are made to group. It’s normal and not a workaround.
Layers are for sound sources.

What I'm up against is that I've got my samples stacked across multiple pads because each part of the kit has more than four layers of velocity. If I now want to put an effect on one a part of a kit, I need to submix all of the pads for that part of the kit. i.e. all 16 snare samples is four pads to the same submix.

Now how do I submix the whole kit together? The MPC has not been designed to work with more than 4 layers. It feels like a hack to me. And that's fine, it is what it is. Unless someone knows better?

Yea...you may have to create more Programs to get that Flexibility you want to achieve