First impressions and questions!

Straker wrote:It's quite crazy that Mpc has reached this very high level of quality but still we cannot reorder tracks and fx.
We still have to play some sort of Tetris, copy the track or insert fx somewhere else, delete, move, replace.
Maybe Akai wants to keep an old school vibe on Mpc.

Since all these new folks weren't here for the discussions a year or two ago.. It has to do with the way the sequencer is written. They need to rewrite it from scratch if they are ever going to fix it. Its supposedly being worked on, and once we get this 'Force Arrangement' view (if ever) its supposed to happen then. Until then, you gotta put in some effort yourself and keep on top of your organization.

Monotremata wrote:

Straker wrote:It's quite crazy that Mpc has reached this very high level of quality but still we cannot reorder tracks and fx.
We still have to play some sort of Tetris, copy the track or insert fx somewhere else, delete, move, replace.
Maybe Akai wants to keep an old school vibe on Mpc.

Since all these new folks weren't here for the discussions a year or two ago.. It has to do with the way the sequencer is written. They need to rewrite it from scratch if they are ever going to fix it. Its supposedly being worked on, and once we get this 'Force Arrangement' view (if ever) its supposed to happen then. Until then, you gotta put in some effort yourself and keep on top of your organization.

I didn't imagine that for such a basic feature like that, you have to rewrite the sequencer.
Yep. This would explain why they didn't make it in 3 years.
Thanks for explanation.
I am ok to play Tetris when I have to change track/fx order anyway.

Day 3 update:

Running into some annoying issues when trying to convert a simple loop into a song. The sequence is an 8 bar loop, but some of its tracks only have 2 bar sequences. It works great when playing the sequence itself, but when converting it into a longer sequence copy, it doesn’t copy the note events of the first 2 bars into the other bars 3-8 (though automation events are there, maybe that's related). I miss the Digitakt’s ability to easily go from a 1 bar to a 4 bar pattern with the press of a button (but I don’t miss the 4 bar limit).

Another mystery is how track automations work. Somehow, I can’t remove some pad mutes by going to the sequence, selecting the drum track and then Delete > Automations > pad mutes. Sometimes, the Delete dialog doesn’t show Pad Mutes, suggesting that there are no such events recorded, but if I go into the assembler-like list view, the pad mutes show up on that same sequence and track. Very annoying to have to manually erase events by scrolling through an endless list. There’s of course the option of deleting ALL automations in a track, but then you lose those deliberate automations on the drums that you didn’t want to erase. I’m guessing this is a bug.

djst wrote:Most surprising discovery: the very powerful arpeggiator. Is there a faster button shortcut to enable/disable it without fiddling with the touch screen?!

Not in front of the MPC ATM but I believe you can hold down the note repeat button to reveal an ARP button on screen. You can also use this to quickly change T.C. value. This did involve the touchscreen, but no menu diving

Btw, you can reorder FX inserts in the MPC software so perhaps it will come at some point to standalone

Monotremata wrote:

EnochLight wrote:Slightly related - don't forget that your MPC One also has retroactive MIDI recording on at all times. If you're ever messing around with an idea that you forget to record, hold Shift+Record to print all of your past noodling into the grid.

Holy shit how did I not know this?? Was this always there?

Hahah - yeah it's handy for sure. I think it was introduced back in 2.8...

Hello wonderful forum. I'm a week in with the MPC Live mk1. Great machine, and I'm already flying around on it. I've been scouring this forum as much as possible when something gives me a hiccup. Anyways, my background with sequencers goes back quite a ways, but I've been out of the box for several years. Most recently I was predominantly using the Ensoniq ASR for songwriting and sampling. The ASR has begun to die on me, and I can't rely on it like the past. So the LIVE was the logical modern step for me.

Here's some things I'm immediately missing on the Live. Several searches and manual reads haven't answered them.

• I'm only interested in using keygroups, as that's how the ASR worked. I create polyphonic sampled sounds and write with them. Is there a way to clone a keygroup page? Say I have a program that was only 1 KG initially, but I decide I want another, I can find no way to quickly copy all the parameter settings to a new KG. I know you can edit them all in the "ALL" setting, but that wouldn't help here. Also, how can you erase a KG?

• I'm using the forward looping on most of the instruments, and find it pretty confusing how there is sample edit looping, but also program edit looping, both seem to be separate. I found that hitting assign to pad will align the program, but what is the point of this feature?

• Is there no way to have say Sequence 1 playing, then click to next sequence with record mode staying active on the switch? It helps alot to hear one sequence play and record onto the next sequence rather then stopping and setting it to Sequence 2, and recording with no reference to a follow sequence. Am I missing something to be able to do this?

• Having little sense of the program sizes, and the ram usage since they neglect to give you actual numbers like they should. In the ASR if i have a program that is "800 blocks" it takes up "800 blocks" of the available memory. Makes no sense for something with finite memory to be unclear on this.

jabberwalky wrote:• I'm only interested in using keygroups, as that's how the ASR worked. I create polyphonic sampled sounds and write with them. Is there a way to clone a keygroup page? Say I have a program that was only 1 KG initially, but I decide I want another, I can find no way to quickly copy all the parameter settings to a new KG. I know you can edit them all in the "ALL" setting, but that wouldn't help here. Also, how can you erase a KG?

From MAIN, go to the Program section and touch the <Pencil> icon, then touch DUPLICATE (top row of buttons).

This will copy whatever your current Program is, whether it is a key group, drum kit, or something else. From there you can replace samples or make other types of changes.

jabberwalky wrote:• I'm using the forward looping on most of the instruments, and find it pretty confusing how there is sample edit looping, but also program edit looping, both seem to be separate. I found that hitting assign to pad will align the program, but what is the point of this feature?

There's usually multiple ways to do things in the MPC space. While I couldn't give you a "what were the developers thinking" response, I'd imagine it largely has to do with the fact that you may want to use whatever looping is defined for the sample in some cases, but in other cases you want to do something different/custom in the program or multiple programs using the same sample.

jabberwalky wrote:• Is there no way to have say Sequence 1 playing, then click to next sequence with record mode staying active on the switch? It helps alot to hear one sequence play and record onto the next sequence rather then stopping and setting it to Sequence 2, and recording with no reference to a follow sequence. Am I missing something to be able to do this?

I thought I had figured out a workaround for this a while ago... but it's not coming to mind. Not what you're looking for but you can just tap overdub at the sequence transition to re-engage recording...

Barring that, the MPC does record midi notes in the buffer so you can just play the sequence without REC/OVERDUB, and then press SHIFT and REC to drop the notes to the track... this is called Retrospective Record.

jabberwalky wrote:• Having little sense of the program sizes, and the ram usage since they neglect to give you actual numbers like they should. In the ASR if i have a program that is "800 blocks" it takes up "800 blocks" of the available memory. Makes no sense for something with finite memory to be unclear on this.

Well, it is around 60 minutes of audio sample time. So figure every 10% is about 6 minutes of recording time or each 1% works out to about 36 seconds of sample time.

The separation of sequences is a bizarre system. Maybe someone can use it for something, but the system's quirks are bound to have a big effect on the outcome.

If the linear timeline "arranger" system from Force comes to the MPC, then it might be useful for song-like working. But if the sequences are completely separate, then the only way to build from "patterns" is to maybe build the basic structure in song mode, render it to a big long sequence and add boundary-crossing things etc. there. Which is a destructive process - if you decide to change something in a pattern, you'll have to either make the change manually to every occurrence, or re-render the song to a new sequence again and then re-do your additions and changes.

HouseWithoutMouse wrote:The separation of sequences is a bizarre system. Maybe someone can use it for something, but the system's quirks are bound to have a big effect on the outcome.

If the linear timeline "arranger" system from Force comes to the MPC, then it might be useful for song-like working. But if the sequences are completely separate, then the only way to build from "patterns" is to maybe build the basic structure in song mode, render it to a big long sequence and add boundary-crossing things etc. there. Which is a destructive process - if you decide to change something in a pattern, you'll have to either make the change manually to every occurrence, or re-render the song to a new sequence again and then re-do your additions and changes.

Yeah thats the general idea of 'Song Mode', thats how the MPC has always been. It does get kind of irritating at times when you want to make sure the transitions are good, but at the same time its so you can use them in multiple ways too. Some folks build songs by chaining sequences together, some folks actually build an entire song in one sequence, and can make a single project 4 or 5 songs by using a sequence/song. They gave you the freedom to do it your way, but at the same time that freedom seems to inhibit other workflows..

This is why the pattern and clips of the Maschine are superior in every way. Basically, the way FL studio and Cakewalk Project 5 used to work. It's the best of both worlds.

IMO the single-sequence method is the only sensible way, but it's missing proper song parts and an overview etc. that there is in the Force sequencer. Not really knowing how proper it is, just seen a few videos.

Actually, I don't recall ever seeing a really good song support in any sequencer, software or hardware, notation program or anything. They're always based on song parts starting razor-sharp from one atomic point, when in reality, there are anticipating changes, transitions, sort of like pick-up bars (not meaning the sort where you pick up women). The same with melodies. The only thing that comes close is some arranger keyboards that have "fill-in and move to variation X", which have transitions to a certain rhythm variation. And so there could be different transitions from verse to chorus, from chorus to chorus, from chorus to verse, from bridge to chorus, etc. In a sequencer, this would require support for overlapping blocks. Or like, if the lead vocal of the chorus starts one single 1/8th note before the first beat, you have to dedicate an entire bar for that. When it should overlap, like negative time, pre-roll bar -1 that the sequencer would play when receiving the "switch to chorus" instruction, if it has enough time. If it's too late, then at least play as much of the pre-roll bar as possible - but only on those instruments that have that pre-roll.

Non-destructive pattern changes would be good as well, for example change kick/snare pattern to half-time or double time, but keep hi-hat/ride the same. The software should be open source, so I would code my own features.

HouseWithoutMouse wrote:IMO the single-sequence method is the only sensible way, but it's missing proper song parts and an overview etc. that there is in the Force sequencer. Not really knowing how proper it is, just seen a few videos.

Actually, I don't recall ever seeing a really good song support in any sequencer, software or hardware, notation program or anything. They're always based on song parts starting razor-sharp from one atomic point, when in reality, there are anticipating changes, transitions, sort of like pick-up bars (not meaning the sort where you pick up women). The same with melodies. The only thing that comes close is some arranger keyboards that have "fill-in and move to variation X", which have transitions to a certain rhythm variation. And so there could be different transitions from verse to chorus, from chorus to chorus, from chorus to verse, from bridge to chorus, etc. In a sequencer, this would require support for overlapping blocks. Non-destructive pattern changes would be good as well, for example change kick/snare pattern to half-time or double time, but keep hi-hat/ride the same. The software should be open source, so I would code my own features.

Single sequence works but the main draw back is the way drums work. You have to explode the drum tracks to get a correct export, so it makes the whole thing so much shittier. If you have two drum parts with kick, hi hat, clap and snare you'll have 8 extra tracks. I don't know what stuff they were smoking when they thought this was a good way to make music. Compare that to Maschine. Surely they could have improved it after 40 years.

What do you mean, correct export?

HouseWithoutMouse wrote:What do you mean, correct export?

Well, you have to explode drum tracks to get every sound separate.