MPC Live RAM Capability.

Hello everyone,

Before dropping all my cash on the MPC live i just have a few questions.

In theory it can do everything i want it to do. However after reading multiple problems with the ram i thought i would ask before purchasing and being disappointed with it.

I play in a band and i want to use the MPC for a few different things.

For instance, for a live set up i'll have the MPC hooked up to 2 synths and a drum machine for midi outputs.

Then i want other tracks to be playing audio 'samples' but really they'll be more like backing tracks, my question is, could the MPC do this without struggling?

I could have the names wrong here because i've not had a chance to use this before but i would create my sequences and tracks and then have them in 'song mode' where it would play the entire song from start to end.

Song 1. (4:37)
Track 1 - Midi output to drum machine
Track 2 - Midi output to Synth 1
Track 3 - midi output to synth 2
Track 4 - AUDIO - Background atmosphere noise
Track 5 - AUDIO - Different Drum Audio Samples
Track 6 - AUDIO - Weird sounds.

So if the song was 4 minutes and 37 seconds long and 'Track 4' was a full audio file of 4 minutes and 37 seconds long, lets say a wav at around 40mb, same with track 5 and 6, could the MPC handle this sending out the midi and playing 3 audio tracks for the full duration of the songs?

I would also need to do this for an albums worth of songs.

I would load up different songs after each songs finished, i wouldn't have it all play in 1 long track etc. I'm just skeptical about the ram performance?

Thank you for your time.

There should be no problem with what you're describing, especially as you specified you will be loading each song as needed instead of trying to have your entire setlist resident in RAM.

I would recommend adding an SSD to the Live if you plan on having sets worth of songs, each with multiple audio tracks.

However, note that the MPC Live is a powerful drum machine/drum sequencer itself, so you may find that you don't need to MIDI drive an external drum machine.

Also, your approach to tracks 5 and 6 may not be ideal unless your goal is to simply mute/unmute streaming audio tracks that is already in sync with the MIDI of the songs.

"Different drum audio samples" and "weird noises" seems like something that should be done with small samples assigned to individual pads, either in a drum program or a clips program, depending on whether they should be treated as hits or loops. This will give you a lot more flexibility AND be easy on RAM.

Just my $0.02