Solo'ing tracks throughout a whole song

Whats good fellow MP heads? recently i sold my beloved 4K and bought a 5K for the money i got for it. My first thoughts about this black beast was; "wow, this thing is pretty user friendly". My workflow became alot quicker than on my 4k. However i found out some things that dont work for me that well (on first sight tho), when i want to record my tracks solo (!!not pads, whole tracks throughout the song!!)

I know about the padmixer (which i dont find very handy), but a Trackmixer for the whole song and NOT A TRACKMIXER FOR A SEQUENCE just made more sense to me.

I am talking about the Song Mode, the Mixer mode, and the solo button in Main Mode.

My process on the MPC4000 for tracking audio tracks solo was as follow:

1)solo the track that i wanted to record in the Main Screen (it solo'd the track for the whole song, not just the sequence like on the 5k)

2)Hit the Song Mode, push play..and voila my desired track was recorded solo in my fav daw application.


I was kinda surprised that a simple thing like this didn't work on the 5K or am i wrong? The solo button only works per sequence and not per song. When p.e. the hihats are solo'd in sequence01 they are "un-solo'd" in sequence02.

Muting everything in the trackmixer isnt that great either, since the trackmixer works per sequence, and once again not per song.

Another thing im surprised about is that there isn't a LOOP function in the song mode (handy when ure just vibing to the beat, trying to create extra melodies/harmonies that will work fine with the basic beat.)

All in all, everything comes down to this one question: Is it possible for the 5K to solo a track continuously throughout the whole song when u want to record that track as an audio file in your daw (without having to mess with the padmixer)?

I hope i was clear in what i was lookin for. Thanks in advance.

^^No disrespect but you really need to read the manual first. Because some your question would be answer easilly by the manual.
Once you do that you will have a better understanding off how every thing falls into place ,and then you'll be able to come up with a new workflow with the mp5000

Ofcourse Mr Wise Man, i read the manual (everything is workin great so far...thumbs up on the workflow for Akai) and i understand how the program (padmixer) works. I am not a newbee on MPC's (Been working on the 2kxl & 4K prior to this one) or on music production. What i wanted to say is that i find it unlogical and unhandy how they switched up the mixer. Its like Akai **** with some "general" laws on mixers in workstations.

All workstations & daw software that i know of work with a TRACK mixer (throughout the whole song, not throughout a single pattern or Akai sequence), what would make more sense to me. And since i have more than 8 instruments at a time i dont work with the 8 output, just the stereo out (thats just how i like to work, nuthing wrong with working with the 8 output tho .

I work my way around this by muting every pad in the program except for the one that im recording at that very moment (you can't even solo a pad in the pgmmixer by one buttonpush..wtf is that). Muting and unmuting all the pads for every instrument per program is not the way to go imo, a very cumbersome manner if you ask me. I never had problems with this workflow on any workstation or MPC.

Im kind of surprised nobody else thinks this is kinda awkward

In the mix track hit the shft button it will solo

Yes, but that only works in the sequence trackmixer and not in the pgm mixer. Cmon 5000 heads..is it that hard to easily solo a track during multiple sequences throughout the whole song? It used to be one push of a button.

An idea is to convert the whole song to a sequence..but thats not the way i wanna go (yet)

You whould have to combine all the sequence into one song.
And i am not dutch.

J26 wrote:Yes, but that only works in the sequence trackmixer and not in the pgm mixer. Cmon 5000 heads..is it that hard to easily solo a track during multiple sequences throughout the whole song? It used to be one push of a button.

An idea is to convert the whole song to a sequence..but thats not the way i wanna go (yet)

Well hope someone can help you good to have you aboard

Ur talking about tracking a track solo in to a daw... in a sequence why not just solo 1 track then record it to your daw unsolo it or leave it(your choice) then go to next track u want to track to your daw and then press solo again..

Yeah def feels good DEWYZEMAN, im at comfort with my 5K except for recording my separate tracks (thing is a beast tho). Like i said earlier, working on this thing is just a pleasure.

@ Jaytim...read my post, that was just my point, i dont want to solo a track during one single sequence but throughout a whole song, since the trackmixer in the 5k is a SEQUENCEMIXER and not a songmixer.

If there would be a solo function on the pgm mixer like the one on the trackmixer, life would be a bit easier...but unfortunately that's not the case (the shift function doenst work in the pgm mixer).

Thanks for thinking with me guys..except for the problem i have mentioned above, the 5K kills for me. My homies have the same problem...there should be more people with a similar workflow like ours?

You are just going about it wrong.

You would have to make your sequences then arrange them in song mode as you are doing.
But you then need to convert the song back to a sequence.
Be sure to pay attention to the setting for how the tracks will be referenced.

The problem comes from the fact that there is no real song mode, song mode is simply a point to join/chain sequence together not actually create a song.
On the Roland MV song mode actually has more capabilities than pattern mode and you can create in either mode.

Akai on the other had chose to make sequence mode the mode for creation and control.

@Sovereign thanks for the input..but thats not the way to go imo..although i do it now like being said earlier(because there is simply no other way).

I think it's strange Akai changed up the way how the mixers/song mode works....Like i said, what i want to achieve was easily done in the 2000xl and 4000. The way they changed it up just doenst make sense to me.

Still the biggest drawback of the 5k imo, i just dont understand why they would change a winning formula and mess with the "overall" rules of how a mixer works. But im repeating myself now

Couple of things;

-What do you lose by converting the song to a seq?
If you do this it simply makes the song playable as a seq with all hte available control of the 5k.

-The reason they made the change is because on the 5k song mode is different than on any other MPC. Song mode was changed to accomodate the 8 track recorder, not because they wanted to lose old aspect.

Now since you have the built in individual outs you can also just connect an individual out to your DAW and just assign your track to the individual out thus soloing it to the DAW.

So with that said you're gonna have to change your method and way of thinking or go back to the 4k.
-Convert to Seq
-Use IND outs

This is really similar to the 5k sending the max volume message to external MIDI being a problem until you realize how easily it allows you to automate your external synths and store it within your seq.

Just comes down to why they made certain changes and it typically works out to be to add a bigger feature.

J26 wrote:@Sovereign thanks for the input..but thats not the way to go imo..although i do it now like being said earlier(because there is simply no other way).

I think it's strange Akai changed up the way how the mixers/song mode works....Like i said, what i want to achieve was easily done in the 2000xl and 4000. The way they changed it up just doenst make sense to me.

Still the biggest drawback of the 5k imo, i just dont understand why they would change a winning formula and mess with the "overall" rules of how a mixer works. But im repeating myself now