How to chop in the mic 4000?

Always did my sampled beats in maschine but sold that recently and now wanting to do some 4000 sampled stuff but this machine is some what confusing. Ive seen some tutorials on the 4000 but nothing really in depth on how to chop step by step and put your programs together. The whole trim and regions tabs got me confused on which do i use and playing the sample with pads is even more confusing. Why do the pads trigger different parts of the sample instead of whats selected? Can someone please do a video or two of showing what to do?

This cat has some pretty good 4000 videos. There's a few of them too. Should at least cover the basics of your questions.

http://www.ehow.com/video_4437996_progr ... -4000.html

I've see these tutorials it does kinda help but i know he's skipping out on a lot of stuff

The 4000 never sold as well as most other MPC's. There's really not a lot out there. Probably the best thing to do is just load with some sounds and just experiment on the various screens and modes. Then when you hit a specific "how the f** do I...) hit up the archives here.

I lurked here for about 4 years before I even said anything just looking up various stuff. I haven't used the 4000 in a long time so I'll be refreshing it all the way I mentioned myself.

Chopping is simple in the 4K.

This is a rough guide because I worked it out through playing around with the machine and not reading the manual. There may be more streamlined ways of doing it...


- Go into Trim and work out how many chops you need
- Hit Region and press the window button where it says 'Region:1'
- Enter the number of chops. If you roughly need 10 I would advise to add a few extra because if you run out of regions you can't add any more without going back to square 1. Chopping a cleanly looped break is much easier.
- Chopping is destructive so you only need to be concerned with adjusting the start point of each chop, if that makes sense? The original file is left untouched once sliced.
- Pads 14,15 and 16 are used to audition each chop, with each one having a slightly different function. Play around with it.
- When you're happy with your chops go into Edit: Slice Samples, drop the End Margin to 0 and hit Do It.
- You can also create a new program in the Slice Samples screen, which automates the process of assigning the chops to pads.
- Alternatively you can manually assign the chops which is painless because each subsequent chop will be assigned by hitting a pad and turning the data wheel one click.


Hope that helps.

Coz wrote:Chopping is simple in the 4K.

This is a rough guide because I worked it out through playing around with the machine and not reading the manual. There may be more streamlined ways of doing it...


- Go into Trim and work out how many chops you need
- Hit Region and press the window button where it says 'Region:1'
- Enter the number of chops. If you roughly need 10 I would advise to add a few extra because if you run out of regions you can't add any more without going back to square 1. Chopping a cleanly looped break is much easier.
- Chopping is destructive so you only need to be concerned with adjusting the start point of each chop, if that makes sense? The original file is left untouched once sliced.
- Pads 14,15 and 16 are used to audition each chop, with each one having a slightly different function. Play around with it.
- When you're happy with your chops go into Edit: Slice Samples, drop the End Margin to 0 and hit Do It.
- You can also create a new program in the Slice Samples screen, which automates the process of assigning the chops to pads.
- Alternatively you can manually assign the chops which is painless because each subsequent chop will be assigned by hitting a pad and turning the data wheel one click.


Hope that helps.

So the trim has nothing to do with your chops then and its more for trmming dwn the loop your working On or for breaks? Why is it when your in regions That your constrained yo only working in a limited amount of space per slice? Like ya.cant move you region 1 way dwn at e end of a loop and chop 2 way in front of the loop

i dont know an answr to your question becuase i only had a 4k very breifly, but if your used to the style of chopping of the 1k, or any other mpc where you can see the waveform all at once, im positive there is a mode that shows it like that instead of a dual waveform view.

I have not found a function That shows the whole wav form yet.

Coz wrote:Chopping is simple in the 4K.

Putting in some RTFM time and practice is the key.

Arkyve posted some YouTube tutorials, this one is on chopping.



And yes, you can view the whole waveform, zoom in, zoom out etc...

dmajor100 wrote:Why is it when your in regions That your constrained yo only working in a limited amount of space per slice? Like ya.cant move you region 1 way dwn at e end of a loop and chop 2 way in front of the loop

The 4K doesn't have non-destructive chop like Maschine or JJOS, if that's what you're getting at? The start and end points of each region can't overlap, so it's logical that region 1 is at the start of the sample and subsequent regions follow on sequentially.

The number and size of each chop is entirely on you to set.

I cant make the.chops as Long as i want cause there either srt in 1/4 note or 1/8 note chops and set only in That section. I dnt think the 2500 orginal os even had this, if i remember ya could make 16 chops and set each chop to ur liking.

dmajor100 wrote:ya could make 16 chops and set each chop to ur liking.

What makes you think you can't do this on the 4K?

You're slicing up your sample like you'd slice a cake. Slice points or regions can't overlap, so all you need to do is set your region start points. As previously mentioned, the start point of chop 2 dictates the end point of chop 1, and so on.

It sounds like you're navigating to the region 'END' and changing it 'BEAT'. Don't do this. Keep it as it is.

If you want 8 chops the 4K will assume you want 8 equal chops, much like the 2500. Adjust the start of each chop and you should end up with a sample divided up how you want it. Zoom into each chop on the lower waveform with SHIFT+BLOCK CURSOR buttons to make things easier.

If you've got a sample that you want to have 20 chops in the first half and 3 in the second half, there's better ways of going about it than chopping by region. Namely, extracting the parts you need first, then chopping by regions.

You could have sussed all this out in the time it has taken me to respond, so put the advice to the test and get back with your findings. There's very few older 4K heads who will give you the time of day, so the ball is in your court at this point to either learn the machine or sell it on to someone who will.

Get busy.