Drums on mpc 5000

Can somebody tell me how to make drums sound les technical/mechanical(mpc 5000) when I am playing every note by myself i am using T.C(timing correction) 32 maby thats the problem (i fell like I am doing techno not hip hop)
All the best

ssyniu wrote:Can somebody tell me how to make drums sound les technical/mechanical(mpc 5000) when I am playing every note by myself i am using T.C(timing correction) 32 maby thats the problem (i fell like I am doing techno not hip hop)
All the best

Yep you've answered you're own question. You have 32 distinct points a note you trigger can fall on. When the quantize forces your input to "snap" to that particular grid resolution that's what happens.

Either turn it off completely and input your notes "butt naked, no safety net" so to speak. Or find a T.C. resolution that let's you get close to what you want and use the swing/note offsetting to dial in what you want as far as timing on the individual sounds. (The 5000's 960 PPQN [parts per quarter note] allows for putting a hit basically anywhere you want down to the millisecond)

It's a case of likely either taking more tries/practice and entering it all live and getting exactly what you inputted with T.C. off, or a mix of live input and offline editing of your MIDI data.

Thanks for your respond but I dont understand this part ''or a mix of live input and offline editing of your MIDI data.''

You mean real drums recording??

Simply turning off the timing won't really be enough to avoid robotic/stiff drums... You also need to pay attention to the dynamics of the individual drum hits.. Or else it will just be stiff hits with a less tight feel... Doesn't matter much if it suits the style, but not many seem to pay much attention to such details when they program their drums.. Where the aim is to get the timing of a "real" drummer, but instead forget about the dynamics, which is equally if not more important.. It is good to learn if you want to be able to bring out the sweet spots in a groove..

Thanks Ibunshi I thought it will be something else not just timmig correction.

Thanks ibunshi
Thanks metatron
About layering is there any help I can get to know what this is about??

This track sound really good is it done on mpc??Ibunshi?

ssyniu wrote:About layering is there any help I can get to know what this is about??

In addition to the Infinity Kit, we have a lot of tutorial books and videos about layering here:

http://www.mpc-samples.com/section.php/ ... als-books/

And there's also a free tutorial on layering from my MPC5000 book:

http://www.mpc-tutor.com/drum-layering- ... i-mpc5000/

Good practice is finding a funky drum loop (played by a real drummer) stick it in the mpc, turn off quantise, load up a snare, hats and a kick... play along with the loop... if you do that for a few days I'm sure your timing will improve, record your pattern over the loop, mute the loop... does it sound good?
If not put in more practice.

ssyniu wrote:Thanks Ibunshi I thought it will be something else not just timmig correction.

Thanks ibunshi
Thanks metatron
About layering is there any help I can get to know what this is about??

This track sound really good is it done on mpc??Ibunshi?

Hey! thanks.. yes, but i use cubase to record and mix with.... the drums are programmed with oneshots on the mpc4000, and i use very basic features when i program.. pitch and filters to control the tone, and ADSR to control the dynamics of the individual hits.. and the rest is just timing (i very rarely have timing turned off btw)

some guide lines i go on.. the more busy your drums are, the more attention you need to pay to how they are shaped when you are doing rolls and shuffles.. if you for example just take your main snare and use it with the 16 steps function and velocity, then you migth get away with a single hit here and there.. but when you repeat the same hit too often in a roll, your brain will pick up on it sounding too much the same as other hits that are close in the pattern, and it will start to sound static and robotic.. but if you copy that same snare to a new pad, and use ADSR to shorten it a bit and smoothen its attack, then it will stick out less and work better as a ghost hit in a roll/combo than if you were to simply just use a lower velocity version of the main snare.. you can also pitch up this new copy slightly.. you can also make more than one copy and have differnet dynamics to each hit.. i like to sculpt ghost snares and ghost hats out of the main snare and it will not sound static even though it actually is the same sound.. it just has different settings in pitch and adsr and sometimes filtering to make it sound like different hits, and because of this i no longer look for sounds that can be used for ghosthits, i just make them myself out of what i already have

layering is also a great way to have changes in sound with minimal effort.. for example, just something simple you can try very quickly to see its effect: go to the main screen and record a closed hihat, full level, just hold note repeat and record it on every 8th for 2 bars.. it will sound very static, but dont think about that for now.. then do the same with another sound.. maybe something with a little more tone to it, try a short cowbell sound... thats one easy way to layer right on the main screen without having to go into programs... now, go to the mixer and record yourself automating the volume on the hihat, just do some random ups and downs in volume (i assume you can use Q-links on the 5000 to control the internal mixer) ...repeat the same with the cowbell... now you should have a pattern that are much more dynamic and much less static sounding.. if mixed well (usually not too hard to do) you should have a hihat pattern that sounds as one with the cowbell.. and will sound a bite more "live" because of it chnaging its tone with the cowbell fading up and down.. and while youre in the mixer screen you can automate some panning too, to breathe some extra life into the pattern..... but, this was just a test.. now try to make a beat that way, and when you automate, you can try to do it in a way that follows your beat, so to speak.. basically you do your automation tweaks in a way that sounds good and "makes sense".. not just random like in that test..

anyway, thats some simple but very effective methods of layering that you can do right on the main screen without having to dive into programs.. i prefer it this way as it gives me quick and easy acces to mix them individually in the mixer screen (and i go into program for a bit more heavy tweaks).. and its easy to breathe life into drums that are static to begin with if they are just single hits and not multisampled etc.... a main snare, for example, will become less static if it has another sound playing at different velocity/volume beneath it, as it will seem as its not just the same snare hitting each time but will be more dynamic, more like a real drum playing... so, an originally short and snappy drum can have a longer tail with a layer like that, and when you automate it, you can do it in time to your beat and let the longer drum ring out fully whenever it sounds the best, and lower the volume when you only want the more snappy drum to hit, and so on... and its expressiveness you can use to make grooves even better.. and its a method that is useful for most drums, so its easy to just sit and experiment with it

Ibunshi you are the best that will keep me busi(busy for a while

Good idea SZR ill try that Thanks

ibunshi droppin knowledge! thats dope, im always sleeping on the adsr of my drums, never though to use them in rolls and stuff, i only ever used them for layering kicks and snares really.
would you say that with ghost hits for your snare rolls, that you usually just mess with the attack settings mostly?

i know its all about experimentation, but would starting with adjusting the attack is where you usually start? maybe doing this two times so you have one that drags out a bit, then one thats a little longer would give you even more variation, especially in combination with the pitch. i imagine you shouldent go TOO far with the attack settings or it will just sound abnormal.

very informative post thanks man.

For rolls and shuffles i usually start to adjust the decay to the point it starts to have the same length as a standard closed hihat (but it depends on its place in the beat and the bpm etc) sometimes simply adjusting the decay is enough.. But adjust the attack if it is too snappy and you want the rolls to be smoother... You can copy this new drum hit and make a yet another
new version that is slightly higher in pitch (or not, or lower) and use a hipass or bandpass filter to take out most of the more tonal frequencies and it will sound more like a hihat/cabasa type of sound which should fit well in your rolls or shuffles, because unless you overdo the tweaks, it will sound as different hits from the same drum kit and not as the one and same drum that it really is...


If you have a longer snare then only adjusting the attack doesn't always work, but of course depends on the beat and may still be the best method... I usually only adjust the attack when I want to make a longer snare sound brushed, as you can tweak it to only have the tail, and with something like 16th triplets you can trigger it at low volumes with note repeat to add a touch of brushes here and there.. Or use it to prolong the tail of the main snare..

One great way to deal with ghost snares while finger drumming was to utilise the V > Att settings, so the lower the velocity, the more attack was shaved off. Unfortunately this was a complete fail on the 5000 as they messed up the algorithm and put it in reverse, so harder hits shaved off more attack. I reported this direct to Akai but it was never fixed.

It's one of my bug bears

MPC-Tutor wrote:One great way to deal with ghost snares while finger drumming was to utilise the V > Att settings, so the lower the velocity, the more attack was shaved off. Unfortunately this was a complete fail on the 5000 as they messed up the algorithm and put it in reverse, so harder hits shaved off more attack. I reported this direct to Akai but it was never fixed.

It's one of my bug bears

thats really bad they didnt fix that! thanks for your replies guys, i think this is gonna step up my drum game alot.

@ibunshi, if you have an audio example of your snares in a beat where you did some adsr stuff to it, id love to hear it.
it would be especially cool if you had a little description of each different adsr thing you did to each different snare in the roll.
dont spend all day tryin to do this or anything, but if you had an extra beat that you already did this to and can pull up the settings on your mpc, it would be real cool if you could do that.

thanks man.

Also if you're sampling, instead of sampling just 1 snare hit, record ten of them, if possible. That's how you get different dynamics.