MPC FINGER

I was on the mpc all day yesterday and my finger is sore from beating thoose pads lol i wanted to know if any body else has ever gotten what i call mpc finger lol

This is serious. People tend to consider protecting your health a sign of weakness, we tease people who wear helmets, and tell people with sore fingers to "toughen up" or "take it like a man". But that's just stupidity, and a lack of self-preservation.

The MPC is not designed for longterm use. With the amount of force required to trigger my MPC500 if I tried to make a career out of it I'd have repetitive stress injuries within a relatively short period of time. Those types of injuries aren't like a scrape.

They aren't the type you can walk off, and toughen out. It's because they don't heal the same way, nothing is torn or cut. It's more like an irritation, that pisses off parts of the body, causing inflammation, crazy pains, inability to move, etc.

Think about this, timing is important with music right? Now imagine your hands all messed up so you can't move it fast and with tight timing, and every time you try it's like rubbing an open wound. But it doesn't heal. You can't just take a few days off.

This is repetitive stress injury, it kills careers. It's the secret no one likes to talk about, but hits almost everyone hardcore into their craft. Take it as a sign, do not repeat the same act that caused your soreness. Learn to find other ways or it'll get you.

That's one of the reasons why I took the pads off my MPC. People on here called me derogatory names for not wanting to injure myself by pounding on hard rubber, absorbing the impact in my joints day in and day out. But injury is real, and often permanent.

It's like when we used to try and toughen out way too loud music when we were younger, not wanting to wear ear protection because that was for sissies. What became of that? Tinnitus, ringing in the ears, loss of high frequencies, and muffled hearing.

Appreciate what you've got, don't hurt yourself. Wear helmets, ear plugs, and be gentle with those pads.

Jamon wrote:That's one of the reasons why I took the pads off my MPC.

Would I be able to see a picture of your padless mpc? it seems very pointless to buy something meant for hitting the pads to sample, and ending up removing the pads.

There are some pictures on my site, but maybe you'd prefer to see it in action on a YouTube video.

It does seem pointless, but there's not much of a choice because the MPC is the only real MIDI sequencer / sampler available today. I haven't used the other models, but if I buy a MPC2500 and it requires force to trigger I'll take those pads off too.

If you can feel the shock impact in your finger, wrist, or hand when striking the MPC, you are setting yourself up for injury. It doesn't make you weak, it makes you human. We're designed better for bigger impacts, like punching people, but finger joints aren't fists.

Some day all of this will be irrelevant, because we'll be able to trigger samples with nothing more than a twitch, as sensors detect electromagnetic pulses in our nerve tissue. That'll be the true "MPC Finger". Slip it on, and bang out beats without barely moving.

You listening Akai? Start innovating. If you take too long maybe we'll have to start a company and beat you to it.

Jamon wrote:There are some pictures on my site, but maybe you'd prefer to see it in action on a YouTube video.

Very interesting. The 500 looks so cool naked.

Great Sounds Also.

Peace

Went ova peoples head its all fun and some times you just get into the mood
(if my finger breaks forever i will move to the next finger/hand lol jk)

So you saying taking the pads off and hitting the bare metal is better for your fingers then using a shock-absorbing pad? Damn Jamon, your posts are always funny to read...

Think about what's going on. The sensor surface needs to deform to trigger. When you press down on the pads, there is bone, meat, rubber, then sensor. The bone doesn't deform, it holds the force, the meat squishes up against bone, causing the rubber to squish against sensor, which then deforms.

Those are a lot of layers, which requires more total force applied. If you remove the rubber pads, you still have the shock absorption from your finger pads, but now there's less between bone and sensor, which greatly decreases the required force to trigger.

Tap your desk gently, the force is absorbed by the finger meat, and so does not apply much stress to the bones, joints, and tendons. Rubber pads would be better if they were the sensors, but they are not, they are dead like a thick leather glove.

It is common sense that you get more sensitivity when you remove a thick glove. The same concept applies here. With the MPC500 (and probably 1000) it's even worse, because there is a gap between rubber pads and sensor, and the sensors are 3/4 the size. Less surface area means more force needed to deform with less resolution.

i hope you guys are joking.

Jamon wrote:It does seem pointless, but there's not much of a choice because the MPC is the only real MIDI sequencer / sampler available today.

Well If you are that worried about hurting yourself with an MPC, it seems like software would make a much better solution for you. Almost any software can give you a sampler/sequencer. Any reason you didnt go with software?

damn. hand hurts from hitting the pads too hard? taking off the pads so your fingers don't hurt?

couldn't you just use full level and adjust velocity manually later? or at least rehearse with full level on before you record?

what's that saying? work smarter not harder?

it was a joke theese people are to literal and my finger does hurt from rockin and ill keep doing untill it falls off lol u guys are sensitive shking my head

Software still requires an interface and input. Touchscreen technology isn't quite there yet, so you have to buy a hardware controller anyways. Might as well just get dedicated hardware instead.

There might be something wrong with the MPC500, I've never used any other models to compare it to. I still use full level a lot because the range of sensitivity isn't quite right.

See, there goes, P.B.E.buda playing the cool-guy routine, like he's too tough to care. That's just stupid. Talk to me after you really do lose full use of your hands.

The thing with these kinds of injuries though is you have to have repetitive stress. If this is a weekend hobby, and you only pound all day every Sunday, you're probably okay.

But if you do this every day, for months, years, it becomes different. That's what careers are, routines we get stuck in. That's when people need to take prevention serious.

If you're spending all day working with your hands, pounding fingers into drum pads, twiddling knobs, spinning dials, typing keys, clicking mice, that's when stress adds up.

Keep doing that stuff all the time and what seems like lightweight activity leads to serious injury. If it's your career, you can't stop for 6 months to try to let things heal.

That's when you see people with claw-hands, in braces, unable to do the simplest things without pain. Good luck making music with that, you'll need some foot pads to stomp.

I ain't seen no producers with claw hands

me either post a pic of j.d kanye 9th wonder with broken fingers no photoshop