Vocals on the 500

Alright.... I searched High and Low and couldn't find this.

Here's what I want to do: I have an acapella, and want to lay it over my beat without using a DAW..... because I don't have one at the moment

Probably time consuming, I was thinking of chopping the vocal up and inserting the correct piece with the correct sequence point in the song, effectively producing the entire song on the mpc.

Some challenges I think I'll run in to are: Not all vocals will sync up with sequences depending on the rhyme style. It's going to be annoying to chop the vocal up- could be a trial and error experiment.

Anybody think of any other challenges this may create? I know this isn't the BEST or even the RIGHT way to get this done, but I'm trying to see if its possible to make it happen with the very limited resources at my disposal. I played my beat and spun the acapella on my decks and it sounded sick. I wanna make it happen.

Chop phrases on the MPC... not a big deal. Don't chop up words/syllables... you'll want to murder somebody afterwards as it'll be hard to get anything useful without a *lot* of practice as well blood sweat and tears.

Play your beats to the vocals, not the vocals to the beats. It may sound stupid to say that... but the vocals are likely to be more difficult to work with until you get some practice.

I mean sure, you can obviously do whatever you want... but if you're just learning how to do it don't make a mountain of work out of something that is really pretty straight forward. Think of how best to optimize your time with what you know how to do... otherwise it's easy to get frustrated and quit.

chop it in 8 bar sections then just be sure to line the phrasing up right when you do your remix


I hear way too many beat makers "remix" accapellas on their own beats that just don't sound right simply because the beat maker does not understand that you gotta do more than just match the bpm of beat and vocal.

you gotta match up the phrasing to make it sound like something a deejay would actually want to play

make it sound like the rapper or singer really was singing to "your" beat

8 bar sections should give you the freedom you need, just adjust your beat as needed


good idea to get the original tracks instrumental and build your new beat around it then take the original beat out of the picture

Thanks guys,

Thas what I figured I just wanted some more input. I chopped them into 8's and 16's and it works alright.

Not something I'd really want to do repeatedly though.

BLiTzZD wrote:Thanks guys,

Thas what I figured I just wanted some more input. I chopped them into 8's and 16's and it works alright.

Not something I'd really want to do repeatedly though.

imagine the dudes that use to have to splice reel 2 reel tape with a bladed and splice it to do remixes then you may feel better about what you just had to do