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By expremo Fri Jan 07, 2011 5:00 pm
Hello everybody

My question is the following:

Lets say I have a sample and I tune it to +20 in the MPC.

Now, I want to duplicate that effect on my computer using samplitude. Do you know what the +20 stands for? is it 20 Percent? or what exactly does it mean and how can I duplicate the effect on my computer (I guess it has something to do with the bpm)

Thanks in advance.

Greetings from switzerland
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By nogginj Fri Jan 07, 2011 5:25 pm
+/- 10 in an MPC (XL at least) is one note....semitones like homeboy said.

So +20 is a whole-step up (ie. C->D, but NOT E->F).
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By nogginj Fri Jan 07, 2011 7:18 pm
The speed changes in the same ratio as the pitch.

my math is whack...but its ~12% up.

Am I totally wrong?! I must be...just working it out.
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By Pastor-of-Muppets Fri Jan 07, 2011 7:48 pm
just checked the mpc100 manual - if you use the QLinks to tune, then +10 is a semi-tone up, like nogginj says

but if you use the sample edit feature to change the pitch, +1 is a semitone (which means +12 is a whole octave)

so you really need to say what MPC you're using to get a good answer - or read your manual
By Emilie Fri Jan 07, 2011 8:32 pm
nogginj wrote:The speed changes in the same ratio as the pitch.

So, if 120 semitones = 100% pitch increase
100/120 = ~0.83% increase (of original rate) per semitone.
+20 semitones * 0.83% = ~16.7%

So if you set your playback rate to be 116.7% of the original, you should get ~20 semitones up.

Am I totally wrong?!


Not correct. :
If 120 semitones is 100% pitch increase it means that the frequency is doubled

To find the semitone we need to know how this work.

The formula is: 2^(n/12)*44100

The n is the semitone and the 44100 is the samplerate.

The +20 in the MPC is shown in tenth of a semitone.

Now go into trimmode and see how many samples the wave consists of, example 163527.

Now we can do some math: We play 44100 samples per second therefore: 163527/44100=3.7081 seconds
that is 3.7081/60(minutes)=0.061802 minutes per beat.

To reverse that we say 1/0.061802*4(4 beats per bar)=64.7233 beats per minute.

Now we pitch up the samples by 20, and we use the formula: 2^(2/12)*44100=49500.6Hz (imaginary) samplerate.

We then proceed like before:

163527/49500.6 = 3.30354 seconds
3.30354/60 = 0.055059 minutes per beat
1/0.055059*4 = 72.6493 beats per minute

As simple as that ;-)
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By nogginj Sat Jan 08, 2011 12:20 am
Thanks for the calculating elmer...I know my original was incorrect, hence the edit. We both must have been working it out at the same time, cause I got that wrong math off pretty quick after posting it (hey I tried).

~12% up is correct to get a whole step up (your math validates this as well).
By Emilie Sat Jan 08, 2011 10:20 pm
nogginj wrote:Thanks for the calculating elmer...I know my original was incorrect, hence the edit. We both must have been working it out at the same time, cause I got that wrong math off pretty quick after posting it (hey I tried).


Hey, my English/American is not so good so i might have offended you unintentional, sorry if i did.

nogginj wrote:~12% up is correct to get a whole step up (your math validates this as well).


Yes, you are right ;-)