Support and discussion for all of Akai’s modern standalone MPCs including the MPC X / X SE, MPC Live 1, 2 & 3, MPC One / One+, MPC Key 37/61.
By cchimi Sun Mar 12, 2023 3:59 am
I have an MPC Live II. Playing it live with a band, I want to assign several piano notes to the lower eight pads, and several organ notes to the upper eight pads. I'm playing a song in the key of Bb. I know how to assign the samples, but when I do it I end up with three problems:

1. In the list of available notes to assign, some notes are missing. For example, I don't see any A notes, and I need an A.

2. The piano sound, which sounds great in regular pad perform mode, if I add it in CUSTOM mode it sounds WAY too reverby. I haven't added any reverb to the track or the instrument, so I don't understand that.

3. The organ sound needs to be capable of sustain as long as I hold down the pads. In regular pad perform mode, it works like that. But if I assign the samples in CUSTOM mode, the notes decay rapidly.

If it helps, I think I approached this by using a Drum Program. Could that be the problem? Is Pad Perform Custom mode available if I use a MIDI or KEYGROUP program? If so, would that help solve these three problems? I'm not at the machine now, so I can't try that approach.

Any advice would be appreciated.

Carl
By Elijah Sun Mar 12, 2023 5:09 am
I think it would be easy to assign piano and organ samples to the pads in a drum program and transpose them. The combination of key groups, key ranges and custom pad-performance was too complicated for me.
By eLuSiVeMiTe Sun Mar 12, 2023 11:00 am
Use autosampler to sample every note in the range you need from the keygroup or plugin. Then assign them to the drum program. Or duplicate pads and transpose the samples to match

Original keygroup probably sampled every 4th note and pitched the samples.