My understaning of the MPC 500 so far.

Hey all,

I have now had my MPC 500 for about two weeks now.

Coming from software sequencers this is what I have come to understand about it conceptually.

It is a glorified drum machine with a sequencer that you are NOT able to play samples on that are more than a second(one, one thousand..) long.

Although I Haven't tried it, the internal memory of which I have 128mb is used to record vocal etc and play it back along with the track that you would have made with your one second samples on the drum pads.

Am I close?

are you trying to be funny or something?

why wouldn't samples be able to be over 1 second long?

you just said you could also record vocals onto it... the vocal track would obviously be over a second long... you're answering your own question here. get off the internet and read the damn manual...

far from it..

Ok, so recording vocals aside.


My experience is that I am not able to play two samples together without one cutting out the other because of limit polyphony.

Even if it was a kit playing a basic drum beat with bass drum, snare and open and closed hi hat and then track two is playing a fretless bass. Chokes the sequencer.

crossings: I just burned my manual so I would HAVE TO ask YOU questions for ever and ever.

well thats just tough tittys... shoulda thought before you burned your manual, that it might come in handy somtime

btw.: your question has been answerd many times before on these boards.. do a search

Artistlife wrote:Ok, so recording vocals aside.


My experience is that I am not able to play two samples together without one cutting out the other because of limit polyphony.

Even if it was a kit playing a basic drum beat with bass drum, snare and open and closed hi hat and then track two is playing a fretless bass. Chokes the sequencer.

crossings: I just burned my manual so I would HAVE TO ask YOU questions for ever and ever.

Why did you burn your manual? You can download one on the akaipro site.

No worries everyone, my manual is in good health.

Dude, you see? You looking like a piss puddle. Read the manual and understand its settings. I've made whole songs on the 500 with vocals and all, so I know what it can do.

Your problem is that you're using a preset program and sequence and you're getting dominated by the factory's settings. Open a fresh bag and enjoy nature.

Ill-Green wrote:Dude, you see? You looking like a piss puddle. Read the manual and understand its settings. I've made whole songs on the 500 with vocals and all, so I know what it can do.

Your problem is that you're using a preset program and sequence and you're getting dominated by the factory's settings. Open a fresh bag and enjoy nature.

I think I know what your saying. the factory sounds are "copy protected" or something. I tried to edit the Phat loop from the factory but it wouldn't let me do it.

Is this what you mean?

So the factory sounds are useless?

I have some samples on my card that have some longer samples.

What you said about "factory" gives me another thing to try.
So now I will try making some beats without using a single factory sound.

Wish me luck

Thanks

Once I become proficient at this will I start using terms like "fresh bag"? Hmm..

Dude the only reason a sample will cut another sample off is if that's what the settings are in program mode.

You can have 8 long samples going off at the same time which is really **** annoying.

A fresh bag means start from scratch, don't load up a saved program. If ya samples still cut off, double check your mute groups (found in program mode all the way to the right)

If this is set to 0 for all pads and they still cutting each other up ya machine is bust.

Ok I'm making progress.

I deleted all the factory sounds off of my non-factory CF and left the folder of some
samples that I downloaded. I created a kit, recorded a two measure beat.
So far so good.
Besides the "normal" drum beat which means Bass Drum, hi hat, snare, I added a few sample "hits".
Everything is cool so far.
For the record I have made more progress than before thanks to you guys.

Just as a test I had a longer guitar riff sample.

So with the guitar riff is where I start having problems. It is triggered on beat one and almost plays to the end second measure.

It was cutting off the sample prematurely

All samples are set to mono.

I realize this is part of the learning curve. But if you have a suggestion I would appreciate it.

THANK YOU VERY MUCH.

Should I have a value set on the mute group.
All the way to the right a value of 32?
Or all the way to the left for 0?

Artistlife wrote:All samples are set to mono.

read up on the difference between MONO and POLY... and then create your programs accordingly.

Crap is this thing THAT complex?

I thought that poly took up more polyphony thant mono, that is why everything is set to mono.

I will read. Sheesh!

Artistlife wrote:**** is this thing THAT complex?

I thought that poly took up more polyphony thant mono, that is why everything is set to mono.

I will read. Sheesh!

It's really not. But there is nothing similar in software. Once you wrap your head around it, you'll play it like an instrument without even looking at it.