Audio input routing for live gigs (MPC Live 2.7.2)

Tried a few searches to check but no joy..
Using the OG MPC Live for regular gigs & looking for a possible solution for sending vocals through the MPC in a live situation to add fx, without having to go through all the complications that go with it - creating audio tracks, arming them etc & doing this live without actually recording all the audio in real time.

Mostly gotten pretty comfortable with the Live after a few months intensive deep end use - but this is the one thing that seems to still be a problem to achieve. Something my old 1K could do so easily with minimal confusion, & also SP's seem to do just as easily, still seems to be a ball ache.

I feel like I'm missing something obvious or maybe there's a simple work around that I haven't found yet.. Any suggestions greatly appreciated!

If your not recording the audio why put the vocals on a audio track & not just use the input FX?

Because it appears to be the only way to get audio routing through the MPC as it seems to be purely geared around recording & sampling - I've tried several different ways to try achieve this but still yet to find a practical solution..

*For added clarity - this is aimed at using the MPC as an aux effect unit via external mixer send / return, rather than direct mic input - which is obviously a terrible idea!

I've done some pretty extensive digging for info on this, but it very much seems like I'm a bit if an outlier in this situation - any available info is all based on the studio / production side of things, which doesn't help at all..

Lampdog wrote:Can’t you enable sampler and use the effects slots in sampler.
This makes the inputs constantly active.

That's what I was trying to say.

If you use the sampler, make sure the Monitor tab at the bottom left is turned on so you can hear the incoming audio while they go thru the input FX.

Moot wrote:Because it appears to be the only way to get audio routing through the MPC as it seems to be purely geared around recording & sampling - I've tried several different ways to try achieve this but still yet to find a practical solution..

*For added clarity - this is aimed at using the MPC as an aux effect unit via external mixer send / return, rather than direct mic input - which is obviously a terrible idea!

what exactly have you tried? b/c this really isn't that hard.. are you playing live without using any User Templates? cause that sounds like a ball ache
you just set up your audio tracks with the FX you want and the monitoring choices .. and save it into your templates.
no record arming needed.

are you trying to monitor the audio from the MPC? or are you doing it externally from whatever you're sending the signal to?

I do this on a regular basis. There's no need to arm the tracks, there's no need to use the sampler. You do have to create a dedicated audio track, which makes sense since you've got to put the effect somewhere, right? All you have to do is set the monitor to In.

In fact, we've taken it quite a bit farther. I use two dedicated audio tracks, one for my singer and one for myself. We also use a third audio track for the monitors, with no effects other than a little eq. This way we don't have EQ and Echo changes mucking up our monitor mix. I route all my synthesizer and drum sounds to outputs one and two, my vocal mix to five and six, and then the individual monitors to three and four. And it works beautifully.

OK thanks everybody, much appreciated!

Lampdog - your method sounds perfect, & I didn't even think of using the sampler! I do all my chopping on the studio pc with Cool Edit, (doing it this way for 20 years & it just works well for me) so I've never even used the sampler at all as yet. The audio tracks just seem to too fiddly & awkward to use live, I've got a way of using it live that doesn't involve messing with the touchscreen at all, other than loading the set project, and hoping to keep it that way as much as possible!

Gonna try this sampler option now! Thanks again y'all!

Well... that didn't work!
My singer's gonna have to pony up & get the XLR vocal fx pedal I've recommended to her multiple times.. we do a lot of gigs in badly equipt places with shoddy mixers, & quite often the onboard FX are broken or there are none to begin with. I have a little reverb pedal I use for these situations on a send / return on the mixer, but was hoping to take that out of the equation & use the MPC effects.

I think I may possibly have bigger issues than the the various failed processes I've tried, the previous owner of my MPC Live left a broken tip of a 1/4" jack in one of the main outputs, which I managed to successfully remove, but left that output dead - so the main default 1-2 outs are currently unusable as I only get the right side channel. So I've been using 3+4 for everything from the get go.

So.. I wondering if this is part of the problem, monitor is active (both on sampler & audio track options) & the MPC is getting the mic signal loud & clear, but I'm not hearing any output whatsoever. Every possible mixer setting used is set to output 3-4 too, but maybe the monitor signal is set to 1-2 by default? Can't find any option in the mix settings or preferences to change it..

Not a big deal for me personally, my singer needs to take some responsibility for the sound she demands from me, but that's a whole other thing that's probably more worthy of a reddit beef thread LMAO!

You can try using a Y-cable out of the headphone out to make up for your broken output.

Oh for sure, the 1/4 jacks are always the best bet for stage use though as they're easy to get at 4 or 5 meter lengths!
I will eventually get around to trying to get that broken socket fixed at some stage!