Michael221 wrote:Run the sound from the MPC Live into the Mixer. The Mixer then runs the sound into the speakers. I'll also have the KP3 plugged into the mixer separately. The Kp3 will also be plugged into the speakers. When I want, I can shift the sound from the mixer into the KP3 to scrub the beat. Then, I'll also have the VoiceLive 3 Extreme plugged into the mixer. From there, I can sing/rap into the Voicelive, and send that to either the speaker or KP3 as I choose.
Does the mixer and right connections make this set-up logically possible?
It all depends what you are trying to accomplish, with one piece of external gear you can do this pretty easily with just the Live itself. You *could* route output 3/4 to your your KP3 IN, then KP3 OUT to your MPC L/R In. From here, you can control what audio goes out from the MPC to either speakers, or to the KP3 by controlling whether the output goes to 1/2 or 3/4.
However, the reason you may not want to do this, and instead add a mixer, needs a bit more explanation. A mixer allows you to actually control the levels that are routed from one channel to another, where they fit within the L/R mix, and a lot of other fun things. There are tons of mixers, so instead of talking about specific mixer configurations, I'm just going to pretend a few things which will help highlight why you'd want a mixer.
So... let's say you have the MPC, KP3, and a mixer. What you could do is take all your outputs from the MPC, and (assuming you have enough inputs) route them all to different channels from the MPC. You'd probably route MPC L to channel 1 on the mixer, and set the mix to hard left , and you'd probably route the MPC R to channel 2 on the mixer, and set the mix to hard right. This will get you stereo separation so as you play stereo sounds from the MPC you can keep them separate. Now, you mentioned you wanted to also manage vocals. Normally you'd record these in as mono since traditionally the microphone is a mono input. Let's say you record vocals as mono, you could then set this as output 3 on your MPC, and then it would come into channel 3 on the mixer. Now, just for stereo separation, you can take your audio of channel 3 and mix it to left, right, center, or anywhere in between. Sure you can do this within the MPC as well, but you need to dig through menus and such. You can do this for each additional output on the MPC as well, so for bass sounds, drum sounds, or whatever, you can then decide which channel on the mixer you want to manage those sounds on.
Enough about mixing the audio straight. The question you had also included adding FX such as your KP3. Many mixers support what I'm familiar with being called an FX loop, which is effective an input/output for external FX gear that you can then manage how wet/dry a channel is on your mixer. Keep in mind, many FX loops are traditionally mono, so if a mixer supports 4 FX, if you want to use a stereo FX then you'll likely be using 2 FX channels. To add your KP3 to the mix, you'll want to connect it to your FX loop 1 (which would likely be mono). Once you have done this, you'll notice on your mixer an FX1 knob, this control how dry/wet each channel is that is sent to the FX1 loop. In the case of your KP3, you may only want one channel, such as vocals sent through the FX, so you'd adjust that up, while making sure the other parts of your mix are dry.
Assuming you have other FX loops, you might set loop 2 as reverb (as mentioned earlier). Often when you are mixing you want everything to sound like it is in the same room, so you may want to send everything, in varying degrees, to your reverb FX. Based on how much reverb each channel gets will change how much it sits within the mix.
Other fun things some mixers will let you do is route a channel to more than just an L/R output. It may have a switch or knob to route output to a different output. This can help make it easier for you to sample back into the MPC by controlling what output(s) you want from the mixer to go back into the MPC for sampling. Depending on the features of the mixer, this can give you some really powerful sampling capabilities, but can also start making things super complicated. You really need good memory, sticky notes, consistent process, etc... in order to keep your sanity if you start going down this way.
Anyways, this is both high level, and just a few examples. You are able to do tons of really fancy things with mixers, and I'm just outlining what is hopefully enough to elaborate what you can do here, which I think is what you are looking to do.
Good luck!