New MPC

For what it's worth: my MPC is a lot more stable if I make some changes to my MIDI setup. Most notably, some sysex seems to make the MPC crash much more often. I have a fairly high spec digital mixing desk that sends out a lot of continuous sysex stuff to monitor some things. If I let this data get to the MPC it crashes. Isolating the inputs that are being sent over to the MPC helps out a lot.

Cheers,
Thomas

p.s. Like one of the last posts said: yep, you need to start from a working clean condition and work out what makes it crash more or less.

Livepsy (what does that stand for by the way?)

B,

I hear what your saying and appreciate your suggestions. I am new to the mpc, and definately have a split opinion of it. I see people on here hating it, people hating the people who hate it, and people hating my posts hahaha. Although theyve got better (or worse as the case may be depending on what entertains you ha).

Ive kept everything to the basics so far basically because up to a couple of weeks back i didnt have a working mpc to try anything with. The first problem occured after mixing a song down, following the instructions from the manual but the hardware failed on me and the sound was gone. Cant remember now what the name of the bit hardware was now but the report from the service centre had it on.
The second problem was when i was testing out the effects. I had a sample playing around and was dipping into each effect. The effects created a sound that wouldnt stop, even afer the triple stop button function. Reboted and boom, no sound.

The third machine is so far so good other than a couple of errors that happened whilst creating a basic sequence. The loop was in playback mode, i put it into record mode, to obviously continue adding to my sequnce and the error screen popped up. Hopefully no biggy, Akai hadnt heard of this particular error before, oddly enough but anyway i hope that means its not caused anyone any major problems.

It the downtime of the mpc iv been getting into....dare i say it, software. Been using the ipad and all the various sequencing apps it has. Gotta say, theyre pretty good. Another weapon, and another sound to the arsenal. I was a little concerned that the mpc wouldnt have the same initial appeal to me after dabling with software but aftfer last weeks sampling session it hasnt.
Gonna continue in a mo actually, record over to my BR1600 just to see how some finished tracks sound.

I bought a coxial cable, pretty expensive for the size of it actually so i could record over to the BR1600 at the best quality i could. Still not figured out how to use that. Not that ive tried since. Any ideas on that?
Also, would i be best recording to my DAW out of the 8 outputs at the rear of the mpc or out the headphone line out? I presume the 8 but havent tried this yet and am not sure if the sound automatically is routed out of them or if i have to make changes to any settings.
I suppose the best beat would be to mix down on the mpc itself, transfer to the PC and bobs my uncle.

Ok, gonna make best use of time (away from work) and get making music.

Later mate.

Dave

I completely get what you're saying DaveyP. The thing with the MPC's is that they aren't the best sampler or best sequencer and now with the 5000 the best VA synth or best hard disk recorder. The magic is that they work together in Akai's 1990 OS so that the results come very quickly. They integrate wonderfully but none of them are the best in their class. The MPC's are also performance machines, the mute and next seq modes allow you to perform, even if you just record them into a song in your bedroom.

Definitely check out Maschine and Live as a combo. There's room in the world for both MPC and Maschine+Live.

I bought a coxial cable, pretty expensive for the size of it actually so i could record over to the BR1600 at the best quality i could. Still not figured out how to use that. Not that ive tried since. Any ideas on that?

No ideas, but I do know that the receiving device has to receive word clock Maybe the BR1600 isn't doing that.

Also, would i be best recording to my DAW out of the 8 outputs at the rear of the mpc or out the headphone line out? I presume the 8 but havent tried this yet and am not sure if the sound automatically is routed out of them or if i have to make changes to any settings.
I suppose the best beat would be to mix down on the mpc itself, transfer to the PC and bobs my uncle.

The main out is fine if you like the mix. It has the master eq and compressor. I personally plug 3 stereo pairs from the MPC to mixer: main out, an unprocessed out from 1/2 and reverb from 7/8. The send mixing controls are too coarse to dial in the right amount of reverb inside the MPC IMO. I put reverb on bus 4 and output it to 7/8, then have that level real low in the mix. Works for me. You do need to set the output of every pad in the mixer mode, everything by default goes to main L/R unless you change it.

I wouldn't use the headphone line out for anything like you say in the post. Its not a line out. You should be monitoring on the mixer or the PC when you are recording stuff to PC.

The MPC may not be for you, even if you are having no hardware problems.

B

Hey,

I gathered 8 mini cables last night plugged them all in and then found that i have to change the settings before using those outputs. I changed and simply outputted from the headphone jack- ive never known the exact difference between line outs and headphone jacks on guitar amps as far as the signal difference and the actually sound produced.

Had a good session last night although got a bit mixed up with the samples i had record. Those that were in the program that i had already recorded to the sequences were fine but the other samples that i was yet to record to a sequence were in a bit of a mix. I need to name them more clearly rather than 'sample 1', 'sample 2' etc. I would work better if i could have seperate programs each set to use for the different sets of samples i record. I could have program folders named so they specifically relate to the correct sequnces then theres no confussion if i start making a beat, and dont come back to it for a week. Theres obviously a way to do that but iv not figured it out yet. I cant seem to load a blank folder that i can then choose to save samples in as i record them.

Yeah, the 'next sequence' function screen and the muting of tracks are great features, especially if im not lining all the sequences up in a 'song' and having it play through from start to finish. Theres loads of scope there for 'jamming' in a way.

I noticed you can hook the mpc up to Reason to use as a midi controller. That will be good for using that Kong program without had to tap out the beats on keyboard keys.

After all this delving into electronics and computers of late my finger tips hurt yesterday after finally picking my acoustic up again. Theyve not done that for years. Cant abandom the acoustic, thats where it starts and ends with me.

So how do you use your mpc exactly? Do you samples records, cds, keyboard melodies?
Do you make hip hop? I love wu tang style beats but making them without the raps over them i find a bit pointless so im trying to make drum n bass / hiphop, triphop, ambient style stuff, were anything goes (so long as it pleases my ears of course).

Its interesting listening to how sampled beats were made back in the day. Ad Rock is on some Propellahead Reason youtube vid taking about how they would use old tape recorders, pressing start and stop, rewinding, doing the same again, and so on until the beat was done. And looping reels of tape around the room. Love it. With all the possibilities for creativity i do wonder why there is still so much uninventive crap on the radio.

Dave

All this confusion with folders and programs can be really simple. Divide your work into projects, maybe one song or a bunch of variants of that song. Each project is a folder. Always choose "save entire memory" when saving and put it into a new folder - that folder will contain everything just as you need for that project.

When you want that project back, load an entire folder by highlighting the folder in disk mode, press Do It and select "PGMs, SAMPLES, ALL files". Then press CLEAR, Do It and Do It. This puts the project back in the same state as you saved it. Don't try to grab samples from one location and programs from another, its a waste of time.

You will create a large number of programs called Program 001 and samples with no significant names. But that doesn't matter because they are not used in other projects. You will also create a large number of folders, with older versions. There's plenty of disk space, so use it to create your music!

I personally use the MPC because I don't want to use a computer. I know how, I just don't want to I make acid techno and try to emulate most techno styles from the 90's. Not really interested that its out of fashion. I also use a Voyager and Virus TI and often sample loops from those and will soon start recording to HD tracks on the MPC.

Are you guys penpalls?

Haha. In the digital age i reckon it would be keyboard pals. Usb friends. Intel buddies. All together we are a Chip Click.

I have the flu so im not thinking striaght at all.