To Quantize or not to Quantize that is the Question..

MAD T wrote:I'll record everything quantized at 1/16 usually, then go back and manually adjust the swing settings. I will always drop the snare on 2 and 4 later about 20 ticks or so to give a slightly lazy feel.

Swing sounds dumb??? c'mon man that one of the best parts of the MPC!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

You just got to make sure you don't over do it. I never adjust the swing past %60. You want it to be subtle. Usually I'm around %55 or so.

exactly what i do!! what's sad is i just recently dicovered the joy of using swing when i quantize. without, sometimes you get that "mechanical" sound, just TOO perfect. the idea is to make it sound human-like.

I don't really use swing that much anymore.... I've learned to play the pads well enough to incorporate my own playing style to the mpc. It was hard at first, because I was used to playing real drums and the pads seemed to respond too fast.. Nowadays I don't even always use the metronome, I just lay down the hihats in the 1/8ths to help me keep in tempo, then turn timing off and just play the beat naturally. I found I can get the best sound like that.. Of course I have to do some step editing every now and then, but mostly I just like it the way I lay it down.

Remember human drummers make mistakes too!

Quantizing is alright for hihats, and snares, that's about it. Hells no on bass lines. Kicks should be felt, not mathematical. The 4000 triplets quantizing setting is pretty good though, that's the most I'll quantize anything.

I think stuff is hot with no quantize, and thats what im goin back to now.

Yo! I'm feelin DH. When you don't use quantize in your beats. You get the most human feel possible. From there if you have a good outline your mixing will do the rest for the song, beat, whatever.

1/4 note resolution on the MPC set at 4/4 equals 1,2,3,4 Kick on the 1 and 4 and the snare on the 2 and 4 beat. Using your T/C resolution at quarter notes you have 2 1/8 notes in a quarter note thats 2 beats, 3 1/8 triplets notes in a quarter note thats 3 beats , 4 1/16 notes in a quarter note thats 4 beats and it goes on and on. Stay on time with the metronome for your tempo set at a slow tempo if you`re having trouble and speed it up later. Now that you have an idea how many notes you can play with the t/C setting you won`t **** up so much and you can have the machine play your drumming inside the scale. If you want to play more notes within the time set the T/C for 1/32 or higher to play and correct as you like. Also you can always go back into Step edit or sequence edit to correct or move the notes to the right time. Good luck and think of how many notes you want to play in a given time 2 bars, 4 bars, 8 bars and build from there.

I wisk the 4k had a function like in software sequencers where you can tighten you notes somewhat to the grid, but not totally to the grid. I think its called "strength"