Best way to use pad mute across multiple sequences?

Hi there,

I wanted to build up a track by adding different drum voices back in step by step. Now when i mute a few pads in sequence 1 and then unmute them for sequence 2, they also get globally unmuted in all other sequences again.

This to me seems like a very weird bevahiour, because track mutes do not behave this way. No trying to find a workaround i stumbled upon the option to automate the pad mute but that way you have to record automations by hand for each and every sequence, which is cumbersome and brings a lot of risk for small automation mistakes. And it also makes it very hard to make changes later on.

So what I'd like to know is: Is there any better way to do this? Am I overseeing something?
Thanks for all of your tips!

jemabaris wrote:Hi there,

I wanted to build up a track by adding different drum voices back in step by step. Now when i mute a few pads in sequence 1 and then unmute them for sequence 2, they also get globally unmuted in all other sequences again.

This to me seems like a very weird bevahiour, because track mutes do not behave this way. No trying to find a workaround i stumbled upon the option to automate the pad mute but that way you have to record automations by hand for each and every sequence, which is cumbersome and brings a lot of risk for small automation mistakes. And it also makes it very hard to make changes later on.

So what I'd like to know is: Is there any better way to do this? Am I overseeing something?
Thanks for all of your tips!

I don't use pad mute exactly for the reason you talk about.
I put the same drum program in different tracks and record the different pads in different tracks so I can use only Track mute.
If you save the projects, Mpc remembers the track mutes in every sequence and so you can use any sequence as a scene just saving each sequence with its own track mute.
So basically you can skip pad mute for the reasons you explained and just work with track mute to trigger the different pads of a drum program assigning them to different tracks.

+1 Frisbi... seems like a pretty clear design decision on Akai's part... but you've outlined the workflow that answers how I think most folks want to work with it.

Thanks for you input guys. Feels very counterintuitive to me. Why have two very similar features (Track mute and Pad mute) and make them work in different ways. I just think it's confusing and I am not the biggest fan of having each drum part in a seperate track. Takes away from the live feel imho

It is quite easy to explode a single track to multiples... and while it may feel counter intuitive now, it also provides for several different workflows that you otherwise could not do if pad and track mutes worked exactly the same.

Could you elaborate on those workflows a bit? Always interested in new ways to use the MPC.

jemabaris wrote:Thanks for you input guys. Feels very counterintuitive to me. Why have two very similar features (Track mute and Pad mute) and make them work in different ways. I just think it's confusing and I am not the biggest fan of having each drum part in a seperate track. Takes away from the live feel imho

Yeah at the beginning I was also like this.
But trust me, working with assigned and saved track mutes makes your workflow much faster and easy and you get used to it.
Another suggestion is to work with sequences, using them as scenes or also as indipendent sequences, you can put a program just in a sequence for example, transpose it, put different bars length and so on.

I hope I understood correctly, but you could perhaps make a long sequence (via song mode) of all your sequences, and then record the track mutes you want? Or go to grid edit and select and delete notes where you want to make your built up.