Roland TD and MPC?

Anyone here try or have a Roland TD drum machine? Have you ever tried midi handshaking it to your mpc to trigger your samples.?

I am thinking that on say a hi-hat or a ride cymbal I would actually be able to play faster using a stick instead of tapping on the pads. I am just interested in knowing if they work well together.
A TD12 is for sale near me and I am thinking that it could prove interesting. Let me know if it has the ability to assign midi channels to individual drum parts. For example can I have a kick in the TD on channel 1 snare on 2 and then have the MPC only play those sounds. And vice versa...mpc playing the specific sounds from the individual outputs in the TD. (Looks like it only has four outputs though...bummer) TD 20 has all the outputs.

Peace
Ian

I have a TD12 and an mpc1000. They work just fine together. I dont split my drums onto separate channels direct from the TD12, but you can have the kick as a midi note on channel 1, and the snare on 2, etc. But the way I do it, I have all the notes on the same midi channel (10). This means I can also just go to a new track on the mpc, set it's midi out to 10, and start drumming on the pads, and using the td12 module to generate the sounds. You can also easily scroll through presets on the td12 by changing the PC on that channel/track, I think the td12 will only change preset in response to a pc msg on its 'global' drum channel (not too sure).
IF I wanted to break out the drum track to individual tracks, then it's just a matter of copying the full drum track a couple of times, and on the first copy, delete all but the kick, and on the next, delete all but the snare, and so on.

Although it would be nice with more individual outs, its not all that bad. If you record your performance as midi, you can just mute the voices you are not interested in, and play through your song, recording the td12. You can do this a few times to separate out the audio into several tracks.

I have made some drumkits on the mpc from samples, and played them from the TD12. It works just fine, no real techncal limitations that I've noticed yet, but I have not taken this very far yet. One thing I notice is that it's difficult to take advantage of the TD12's snare possibilities with the mpc, as the positional sensing is ignored, and the td12 velocity layering is much more subtle and advanced. I mean, I can get about 50 different sounds out of the snare on the td12 by hitting it in different ways and strengths, but 3 samples on the mpc isnt much to compare with. So the snare feels quite alive and responsive when playing on the module, but when playing samples in the mpc it feels dead and you immediately notice that it's simply triggering a sample. Sounds fine, but feels sorta weird if you are used to playing a snare. jjos lets you trigger different samples for different velocity, or randomize, but I dont think both. In summary you can get a good sounding snare out of it, but not one that feels anywhere close to how the td12 snare feels.
In a similar way, I have not really gotten sampled hihats to work in a satisfying way. Although you can of course trigger open and closed hihat samples, I dont think you can get the same feel of half-opening the hats, or closing them for that matter. The mpc is quite either-or, but if you slowlylift your foot off the pedal with the td12 (vh11 hihat) you'll hear a range of different sloshy sounds coming out... I think the td12 cosm sounds are good enough with the hats to use it directly on my tracks (I like the feel and you'll get a lot further with grooves than in using mpc samples), but the td12 snare sounds feel a bit limited for me (i like trip hop, downtempo, drum n bass and drumfunk, all of which have heavily distorted and resampled snares). I cant get that direct from the td12...layering noise and sampled snares on the mpc with the td12 direct sound is a good compromise and something I'm still working on). My long term goal is to play my tracks live from the td12 so getting the right sound and feel in realtime is a big thing for me.

Mostly, I think the big advantage with a td12 comes if you can already play drums, or want to learn. If you just want to enter in some hihat grooves, then a percussion pad, something like an octapad, yamaha multi12 or cheaper alesis control/performance pads might be a cheaper and better option. You are still playing with sticks, but the compact layout and price tag might suit you better than a full drumkit. An octapad with a footpedal would get you that excellent hihat feeling (and a ton of decent sounds otherwise)

Feel free to ask any questions about the setup. I have a TD12, an mpc1000 with os2xl, and a yamaha multi-12 I also had an octapad and sold it

You rock! Thanks for such a thorough response. I appreciate the advice on the octapad. Why did yousell it? There is a full td12 kit in good condition for sale in nj. $600 . Seems like a great deal. What you explained is exactly what I wanted to know. Now I need to see the outputs on the octapad and the yamaha dtx pad .
Cheers
Ian

I sold the octapad because its midi integration was not so good... it wont pass midi clock signals through, and it wont do hihat stuff in response to external midi, you need to connect the vh11 or similiar directly to it to get that working. Also, the internal sounds were a bit too like the TD12 to justify the cost. The phrase looper is a bit poor, it'll not loop external midi, only the internal stuff and has a lot of limitations. So, basically I had a hard time integrating it with the rest of my studio. On the plus side, it sounds very nice, has a great feel and easy editing with its big screen. The yamaha multi12 on the other hand feels like shit, is very annoying to edit via the tiny text screen, but is really flexible and has a great midi implementation which works great with the mpc. If you are not a drummer, or play hand drums, then its definitely worth a look as the feel might be more interesting, but as someone who plays with sticks all the time, the pads on it are mushy and soft and just kill the rebound. it's like playing on bread dough. Some people dont mind it, or live with it, but most dislike it. Definitely something to test before you buy. http://www.digitaldrummermag.com did a review and comparison of percussion pads in the issue last month (or two months ago) which you should also check out.

If you think the TD12 is a good price (seems too cheap to be true, probably stolen). But yeah if you have the cash then why not? Learning to play a drumkit is pretty awesome, and can lead you in many directions and styles, and is of course a hobby in itself. I dont feel like producing every day, but I never get tired of sitting at the kit and playing. A drumkit is an instrument, whereas a pad is a controller, it doesn't take you to different places.

so, did you decide to go for the td12?