4000 Live use, automation and effects questions!

Hi

I’ve been considering an MPC 4000. I have a 2500 already and I use it primarily for live performance – mainly electronic music – that includes several synths and an elektron machinedrum all synced/sequenced from it. I have JJOS2XL and it works great – the only downside to it is that as I’m keeping most of my stuff as midi I find that fitting my synths in the mix live a little hard – I would benefit from having more lines pre-recorded in (after they have been through eq, compression and effects etc) – I already have a load of drum breaks chopped up and when I’m starting to record in some of my synth lines I’m finding I’m running out of the 128mb RAM quite quickly. Yes I know 128mb ram is loads but when in comparision with say a ableton user I find it harder to make my live-sets have that polished edge that they get from having pre-recorded/mastered parts…so, I’ve begun looking at Maschine and the MPC4000 to have more space for pre-recorded parts..that got me thinking..

What I like about MPC4000 is obviously the 512mb ram (would be plenty for my live-set) and also the fact it’s a full on sampler – I’ve been getting more into sampling and I find the 2500 is great but what annoys me is the lack of hands-on with the 2500. I can create an instrument patch that uses an LFO to affect the filter for example but then I can’t automate the speed of the LFO by modwheel of Q-Link for example. The 4000’s 64Point mod-patch seems cool.
I also like the idea of more (and most importantly automatable effects) on the 4000 but I have a few questions that I’d really appreciate if people could answer.. I’ve read the manual but it’s hard without having the MPC in front of you!

The 4000 has 6 q-link controllers and they are assigned per-multi not per program correct? I’m worried that I won’t have enough q-links per set for hands on control. Can you set it up so you have a different multi in each sequence? Are the q-links functional when you are in track-mute mode?
Also…you if you assign them to a parameter and then record into a track a movement of that q-link controller does it record just the q-link data or will it record the actual parameter data. Ie. You assign q-link1 to control the lfo-speed for example and record some movement into a sequence. If you then assign q-link to something else will lfo-speed still change or will the new parameter change? If the latter occurs is there a work around for this – Can you use q-link to stack lots of variations up? How does it work for recording midi-cc for sending to external devices?

My second question is regarding the effects.. Are they saved as part of the multi or are they global? If you change to a sequence that loads a new multi (is this even possible?) will the effects change too. If not can you change effects whilst the sequencer is running etc? And with that – what operations can’t be done with the sequencer running?

Sorry for the massive email – I’m trialing Maschine at the weekend and although I don’t really want to use a computer some of the benefits are great (better sample management and effects/ hands-on control). However, if MPC4000 can act very similar I’m tempted to stick in hardware land..if you could answer some of my questions I’d really appreciate.

Thanks
Geoff

Effects settings/routings are stored as part of the a multi.

You can only have one multi in use at any time (with several loaded up in RAM waiting). You can send program change or bank select messages to changes multis during a sequence but as it can take half a second or two to kick in, I would only ever change multis on stage at the beginning of a song.

thanks - information like that is golden and can't be obtained form just reading the manual..

Can you change effects whilst the sequencer is running or does that cause a hiccup too? I'm trying to obtain how much can be done without stopping sequencer basically.

Also..If you assign a Q-link to a control change number, and you assign that control change number to a parameter in the 64point program modulation, I take it you could use q-link to record in movements that get recorded as actual midi-cc (for internal sampler) freeing you to assign another program modulation parameter? ie. can you automate more than 6 of the on-board sampler program mod parameters? I take it the effects settings can't be reached via midi-cc?

thanks for your help - really appreicate it.

Changing the parameters of some effects in real time can cause the machine to slow right down - with some, there is no issue.

I also use the MPC4000 for live use - and I can tell you that the sequencer is as cabable as any for MIDI - rock solid, you can mute / unmute / solo as fast as you like, with very complex tracks and it never suffers from stuck notes or any other nonsense.

gosh wrote:thanks - information like that is golden and can't be obtained form just reading the manual..

Er, yes it can - where do you think I got this info from? A séance?

There are SysEx commands for changing FX parameters; in principle you could embed these in a sequence and get them to happen during a song - I've never actually bothered to do that live to be honest,
as the SysEx was a bit of a pig to construct and it didn't work before OS 1.50 anyway!

Thanks. When I said information like that can't be got from the manual I meant the fact that there is a slight glitch/loading time between changing multi's already within RAM. That is not in the manual and is only gleaned by having it in front of you.

Well it's not as bad as it used to be - there was an improvement in multi loading/switching times in an OS update at some point (I forget which one)...
but I just became acustomed to avoiding it in my workflows so I never re-adopted it!