How to make the most out of 16 MB RAM.

This is a tutorial on an issue that I got plenty of experience in. First some background info. Back in 1995 when I got my first PC it had just 4 MB RAM. That's it. Only 4 MB. It had to hold the MS-DOS and other important files as well. Most where loaded from my 400 MB harddrive, but yet I had to be very careful with what I put my tracker software through. I ran Windows 3.11 and MS-DOS 6.22, and it really buckled down my puter a lot...

The MPC1000 has 16 MB RAM which is pretty much if you learn how to handle it properly. Fyi I'm using JJ OS 4.99L, now here we friggin' go!

1. Sample everything in Stereo. That's right in stereo. The reason is that in JJ OS 4.99 it can convert from L+R stereo to mono. By converting the sounds to mono you're doubling the space available.

2. Don't forget that if you drop the sample quality from 44 kHz to 22 kHz then you're saving another 50% making the sounds 75% smaller than the original 44 kHz stereo sample. All you need to do is to lower the sounds with one octave to get them tuned properly.

3. Next thing to do is to normalize the sample. This is important since it makes it much easier to edit the sound on the MPC. In JJ OS zoom in to really finetune the start and end of the sample. Every byte that you can save counts in more samples.

4. You don't need to sample a full bassline with 8 notes. Sample just one note, and arrange the pads to hold the notes that you need.

5. If you want to sample a chord then you don't need to sample the full chord. Chop the beginning and the end, and make a nice loop of it. The reason why loops knock is that they haven't been proper adjusted. Try to adjust the loop so they're aligned with the middle line (called zero crossing). The same rule regarding basses apply here too. Just sample a few chords to get you going.

6. Instead of sampling a full drumloop extract parts of 'em to new samples and build new kits with 'em. It may not sound as pro as using a full length loop, but then you're losing the creativity if you do.

7. Please note that the MPC cannot use 32 bit .wav files, so make sure to convert them to 16 bit before you use 'em. Should your 22 kHz samples sound fizzly then apply some low pass filter to remove the digital treble noise. A frequency value of 90 ought to do the trick.

That's my 7 cents. Please feel free to add your comments and suggestions as well, since this way it stays alive.

Anyways have a good night my dear MPC fellas!

good thread... also, you can pitch the sample source up if possible (for example flipping the 33/45 switch to 45 so your LPs play fast) and sample that way.. pitch it back down in the machine later.

Your stock 1000 has 11 times more ram than my upgraded 60.

Good point. Now I'd say that in that case this topic deserves a sticky no? So you got a bit more than a floppy disk in RAM? Seriously how do you people manage with so litle RAM?

jobromedia wrote:Good point. Now I'd say that in that case this topic deserves a sticky no? So you got a bit more than a floppy disk in RAM? Seriously how do you people manage with so litle RAM?

first of all, the 60 is a bit different.

You sample in mono... there is only a mono input. You can pan and all that stuff like in newer models but one thing they had back then was a send/return which was mono out but stereo return (which would be needed for example if you were using a slapback delay or something).

secondly, it is a 12 bit sampler, so that adds a bit to the time... I forget the range though, but it is no doubt lower then the later models. It's hard to explain, but it's 12 but no lo-fi like you would think.. stuff still sounds bright and what not.

the 60 has 4 mini output ports.. so if you got a bass synth you dont gotta be sampling that...

lastly, the 60 stock has about 750kb of ram stock, 1.5mb with the expansion... it sounds low but when actually using it.. it winds up being fine actually. You obviously wouldn't wanna for example... sample in a snare with a huge reverb tail, but you create the tail from the external effect send return and also.. you can do tricks with the 16 levels velocity to create decaying delays which is similar to the looping you mentioned above. the machine uses double density floppies, with the way the machine formats them you get around 790kb on each disk. most of my songs only need 1 disk. (yes I use brand new hd 1.44 floppies with the taped hole and it works flawlessly.)

here is a song entirely done on the mpc60 (just for an example of it being done) taking up around 700kb on the floppy or so.. nothing added later on.. straight 2 tracked from the 60 to the computer to save as a wav file:

That doesn't sound that bad at all! Thanks for the explanation!

I could understand a thread about conserving memory if it were in the 60/3000 forum or a discussion on older samplers, but in the 1000 forum?

Thanks for sharing your tips.

I dont understand point 1. Why should I sample in stereo and then convert to mono when I can SAMPLE in mono. I can see no reson for that.

I also dont understand how someone could use more than 16MB for ONE song. I mean 16MB = 1 min 30 sec sampling time in 16bit / 44,1kHz / stereo.

Lets take a 1 bar loop. The tempo of the original music most of us sample is most of the time 85-120 bpm
So the length of a 1 bar 4/4 Loop is in the range of 2.8 sec (at 85 bpm) and 2.0 sec (at 120 bpm)

Whith 16MB your able to sample 32 1bar loops if the original tempo is 85 bpm or 45 1bar loops if the original is 120 bpm. And I'm talking about 16bit / 44,1 / stereo

Usual hihat, snares or kicks (without a long reverb tail) are 0.3 - 0.6 seconds long. Rimshots are shorter. crashes / cymbals or a long 808 style kick reach 1.5 - 3 seconds.

16MB can hold 20 1bar loops (85bpm) , 30 Drumsounds and still got 19 seconds free for other stuff. Maybe a few piano samples from a multisample set or a few chords.

Bass is in many cases near to nothing in sampling time cause you just need the attack and a few cycles after that to easily loop it.(exceptions are complicated modulation of synthbasses or slides on an electric bass)

So I wonder who really fill up 16MB to make a beat (even the so called samplebased). I can understand when someone like to use multisamples at high qualityy (many sampled notes to get an authentic sound) but I guess if someone want that high quality he wouldn't use any tricks that decrease the quality to save memory.

With all that said. I'm totaly with you when we talk about throwing away all unused samples, unneccesery before/after sample parts etc. that is killing the Card/Zip whaterever space.

Little tip: Sometimes it might be that you wanna know if you can sample in mono without any loss of quality (In other words: If the original is mono although it might be a 2channel L+R file).
Use the phase cancellation on this file and if you doesn't hear anything after that you can convert this file to mono cause it IS mono.
I dl samplepacks (especially drumsounds) that came as a stereofile but were truely mono. Thats what I call wasting space.

peace

I think those points are true peter, and I agree too... I have a friend who only has a 500.. no ram upgrade. He was telling me how he was running out of room. I think what he does is.. he boots the machine and it autoloads all his stuff every time and he doesn't start a new project, he just continues with what is already loaded and starts making the new beat without starting fresh... so the current thing he's making is still carrying the already autoloaded material also.

The dude got the mpc but he came from a software background and probably didn't go into that with a background based on the limitations of hardware samplers so he has become accustomed to the limitless amounts of resource or something.. I dont know.

A very good example of "how to get the most out of a single floppy" is Damu. I guess most of you know his stuff.
If not:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mI2n_Ir-CL0

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CyepG-EBH_U

peace

The reason why you should sample in stereo and then convert it to mono (if you use JJOS 4.99L) is because in the sampler setup you can sample in stereo, mono left, and mono right. That's it. No mono left + right.

So say that you sample a 60s track, say "Beatles - Love me do". if you want to sample both left and right track at once and have 'em in one mono track then you need to sample in stereo. You can ofc sample the track two times one per channel, and then merge the files together in your PC, but that is just waste of time since you already have access to a converter in JJOS 4.99L that takes the stereo sample L+R and smacks 'em together to one mono sample.

Ok, I see. I didn't thought of that cause I simply use my mixer for that. DJ mixer out -> 16channel mixer in chn1 and chn2. The MPC is connected to the AUX sends of the mixer. If I want stereo I route chn1 to AUX 1 and chn2 to AUX 2. But I can also route chn1 AND chn2 to AUX 1 and get both channels mixed in one signal.
This can also be done without AUX (MPC connected to main out for example) by using the panpots in the middle instead of chn1 left /chn2 right.

peace