Recreating a song on MPC previously recorded on DAW

I previously recorded this song on Cubase and would like to recreate it on the MPC 1000:



Has anyone tried doing something similar and what approach did you take? It obviously doesn't have to be the exact same song, but I want to take elements from it and make a more electro sounding song.

First off I like the track, very nice.

I don't know how you made the track in regards to what's samples and what's possibly VST/AU's being sequenced by MIDI. But generally speaking I'd bounce any MIDI tracks from the Cubase production. Certainly any that triggered drum kits and recreate the same kit in the MPC. (I use the same mappings on all my software and hardware for this reason).

For any MIDI triggering VST's I suppose you could have that MIDI trigger the synths in Cubase from the MPC but that might defeat the purpose if you want the recreation to be standalone in the 1000. In that case I would bounce all the audio from Cubase into neat 1,2,4 bar chunks and load those loops into the MPC. Then of course you could chop those up in the MPC and freak it all further which you implied is part of the goal.

Thanks for the compliment

When I made that song, I did all this tedious chopping and re-arranging. There are no midi triggers or midi whatsoever in my Cubase project.

Man I was working out of Ableton Live for so long, now I'm going into Cubase which I haven't used for two years and am trying to figure everything out again!

I was thinking I may try your approach of just doing 1/2/4 bar samples and just seeing how it goes.

Do you know how I would trigger the mpc to start recording as soon as I hit play on Cubase so the bars line up perfectly?

dajaphonics wrote:Thanks for the compliment

When I made that song, I did all this tedious chopping and re-arranging. There are no midi triggers or midi whatsoever in my Cubase project.

Man I was working out of Ableton Live for so long, now I'm going into Cubase which I haven't used for two years and am trying to figure everything out again!

I was thinking I may try your approach of just doing 1/2/4 bar samples and just seeing how it goes.

Do you know how I would trigger the mpc to start recording as soon as I hit play on Cubase so the bars line up perfectly?

I'm assuming you have the 1000 hooked to the computer for MIDI in and out. On the MPC's MIDI sync menu choose OUT A or B ON, depending on which plug you used. Leave Sync in off, that's if you want the MPC's MIDI clock to be the master. Do the opposite if you want Cubase as the master. I don't use Cubase but I'm sure in a preferences dialogue you may need to activate the MIDI inputs that the MPC is plugged into. Sometimes people will purposefully have a blank bar starting on the one to make lining up tracks later easier and also to give the MIDI sync a few beats to lock in the event of minor drift or deviations.

Honestly though for what you're doing I would just render the parts from Cubase using mutes and loop brackets and load those onto a CF card. You'd avoid having to do any trimming inside the MPC and could get right to chopping and it would be faster overall.