Sampling - Select exactly n bars

Hello,

I have two noobs question, I did not find the information on the official manual.

First : I would like to sample breaks I know the BPM of, and I want to get a sample of them of exactly two bars. I tried with the Looper, but there's always a click. When Sampling, I realized I have to manually derive from the BPM the right amount of samples equals to two bars. How do YOU do it ? Do you have any tips ?

Second : I used to own a 2500. If I remember correctly, there was a shortcut to play the pattern only once (was it Shift + Play Start ?). Or was it JJ only ?

And the last one : are those questions I could have found answers to in the MPC Bible ?

Thank you ! It feels weird to be back after all these years !

my workflow:
-load up the sample
-sample edit mode: edit start and end points so it loops correctly (if it wasnt already)
-verify its correct looping by hitting pad 16 in the sample edit mode (looping) and adjust start\end if needed, you can do it while the sample loops, so very seamless workflow here
-once it loops ok hit on the bpm detect, put in the number of beats your loop is (2 bars = 8 ) and it will show you the actual true bpms of your loop
-now you can do two things: hit TO SEQUENCE and the mpc will adjust your sequence BPM to match exactly the tempo of the loop OR hit MATCH and the mpc will tune your loop to match exactly the tempo of your actual sequence. Keep in mind that in this way your loop will play at a different tuning, sometimes totally off scale by cents or semitones. if you only use the sample as melodic material you can ignore it and proceed, if you have to keep it in a correct tuning you either use the original tempo of the sample OR use the warp funcion (no pitch change but you'll have artifacts in your sound, and it will smear your transients, i personally try to stay away from warp as much as i can).
or another alternative is to use the TIME STRETCH function which is actually a bit different from the warp (but with the WARP if you change bpm the sample will always fit accordingly without changing pitch, not the same with the offline Timestretch.)

i use below calculators to have the exact nr of samples in a given sample
in that optic, i cannot understand why the discard/cut/sample time... (or the start/end etc) entries cannot be expressed as samples (or bars/beats/ticks for that matter!)

http://mp3.deepsound.net/eng/samples_calculs.php

Thank you for your answers ! So I will stick to my little script I made, very much like the calculator you use @wavejockey - in my workflow it should be the quickest way around this.

After sampling and assigning to pad ,you can go to sample edit ,press the gear icon and switch "timeline units" from 'time' or 'samples' to 'Beats'.

indeed you can, but why all fields related to this (start/stop/loop etc) are not expressed in the same unit (if you switch to samples or beats), riddles me

wavejockey wrote:indeed you can, but why all fields related to this (start/stop/loop etc) are not expressed in the same unit (if you switch to samples or beats), riddles me

Indeed, that is why I came to this forum. The timeline display is in beats, the editing is in samples, and no magnetism available...

The more I'm using the One, the more I am confused. When I find a good loop inside a sample, and then extract the selection to a new sample or discard the audio outside the selection : the loop clicks !!! It doesn't cut on the exact selection

I'm disappointed. It seems it has been coded by engineers without knowledge of audio editing, MIDI arranging, or basic pitfalls of audio manipulation. For example, to display MIDI Control Changes by their full name instead of their number is beyond me, or simple bugs in audio extraction as stated before. I got played by my 2500 nostalgia, or was it a JJ nostalgia ?