Post up Your tips, quick key combinations, shortcuts

just got my 500 today coming from a 1000 background, I've upgraded the os to 1.31 and I'm intrested in any shortcuts , button combinations or anything like tips tricks but mainly stuff to streamline the workflow for this machine, I'm excited about it and diving in right now.

thanks in advance for your tips

500s up suckas down

Using the numerical + numbers on pads to enter a BPM instead of spending 30 seconds with the data wheel.

thanks bedouin,

it looks like there is no way to set a track to mono all pads at once, it's only pad by pad right

Yeah, that's annoying. So is changing the pitch on a number of pads at once.

Make a template for sequences and a template for a (instrument) program with all ur favorite presets.

If u have a sample u want to chop up it's better to name and normalise the sample first before u start extracting all the chops. That way u don't have to name and normalise every single chop afterwards.

Use ur tracks. In every seqeunce u can use 64 tracks. U can assign another program to every single track.

Another one would be, if you don't want to reset your MPC every time to start a project from scratch just create an empty program called 'blank 'and erase all memory on load. No need to wait for it to reboot or unnecessarily wear out your power switch.

It also helps to make specific programs for all of your external MIDI devices. Specifically, if you're controlling a synth from the 500 map out all the notes to your liking and then print them out on paper so you can locate them quickly.

If you run out of effects don't forget that you can sample the MPC's output and then free up some of your effects again. It is also useful if you sampled something in stereo and now want a mono version; no need to cue up your source again and sample in mono; just resample the MPC's output again but only from the left channel.

Hitting the stop button twice will stop any samples from playing outside of a sequence (I read the manual front to back but didn't catch this for some reason and had to ask).

As long as you have the latest firmware and format your CF card with FAT32 or with the MPC itself under the latest firmware you can use CF cards larger than 2gb. Theoretically your limit is FAT32's filesystem limit (2 terabytes!)

Resampling is king! As has been said; don't waste effects patches when you can resample.

Shift + Note Repeat = 'Pad Hold' note repeat! (I only jut found this out, and it's a godsend for glitchy beats)

The 'numeric' key is your friend when chopping samples!

what do you mean by the numeric key is your friend when chopping samples, and this is great help all of you thanks alot

Mpc_Monk wrote:what do you mean by the numeric key is your friend when chopping samples, and this is great help all of you thanks alot

By this, I meant that you can set your sample start & end points really quickly by using the numeric key - once you've got a bit of a flow with it, you can chop samples really quickly.

Yeah man... Just listen to ur sample and cout out how many chops u want. If u have a sample which is 24.449 samples long, and if u want to chop it up in 4 slices, u know every chop will be around 6000 samples long.

Menco wrote:Yeah man... Just listen to ur sample and cout out how many chops u want. If u have a sample which is 24.449 samples long, and if u want to chop it up in 4 slices, u know every chop will be around 6000 samples long.

Bingo! It's even better if you don't want even slices, just hits from a break.

I do not think many people now about this one, I accidently discovered it, but you can actually preview samples with the beat running. It is easy, press stop go to load sample, press play and fiddle around with the samples you want to audition

keep'em coming if you got'em these are all great tips

This is probably pretty obvious, but hitting the sequence button is the quickest way to return to the "home" menu from the various submenus like editing, loading, effects, etc.


I've found this to be useful whenever I'm navigating the menus and get tripped up or lost, just hit sequence and then start over.

IE: When in doubt hit sequence.

Try the params button in every window. U might discover some nice submenu's.