How does one use the MPC Renaissance live?

The Ren is my first MPC, so I'm not that skilled with them, but I want to know how I can play my songs live on the MPC. I don't want to just push play and tweak the whole track. I'd like to be able to tweak layers like you would in Ableton Live (which I do not own). Anyway of going about this?

If there's a thread for this already, I apologize.

I know you posted this in the 'live skills' forum but probably best to ask Ren owners and users this one.

Oh, alright.

Well, still... I'd like to know how I could use this thing, live. Maybe triggering some sort of effects or loops, etc.

I'm interested in this too, as I'm trying to decide which tool I'm going to buy (probably out of Ren, Maschine and Push).

A few specific questions:

Can you flow seamlessly from one song to the next, like in a DJ set? If not easily, is there a workaround?

If it's not possible to play seamlessly, what happens when the Ren loads a new program? Ie. does it lose midi sync? Hopefully not, as I could always use an external drum machine for those pesky transitions, but it's not gonna work if midi sync is lost.

How reliable and tight the midi sync is? Or is it even implemented yet?

I understand that the whole machine crashes occasionally. That's bad enough
(and hopefully solved with future updates) already, even worse would be loud horrible noises associated with the crash. Are there such, or does Ren simply go silent when it crashes? I don't want to ruin the PA...

Thanks for the answers!

Bumping this since no one really seemed to give any reply.

Sorry. The only thing I can suggest here is to prepare your sequences accordingly and use NEXT SEQ and PAD / TRACK MUTE where applicable; also, you can route your Q-links to parameters and use those live.

Not much else to say...

Check out Young Guru's video on performance uses. You can do a lot live, you just have to get creative with it.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GHOQ9VjZ ... A&index=14

the master


oh and read comments and see what he says about the pads

I think it really comes down to what you want to do and how much of it you want to be live.

Here are some ideas I thought of on the spot and ones that would allow you to get through multiple tracks in a set.

I think the key here is about preparation.

You could look at each sequence as a section of your song. Export the audio that you wont be performing live (backing tracks) in loops and note the length of the bars. Load they complete files on to the pads in a program (named after your song/section).

Set the sequence up so that it plays those parts each time it loops. Then setup any parts you want to perform live; synths; drums; etc on another program(s). Separate out any parts you want to be able to mute or adjust separately on it's own track/program.

Setup Qlinks to control filters/FX etc.. so you can edit those live from the Qlinks.

Now do this for all of your songs you want to perform so you end up with 2 to 4 programs for each song that allow you to play it how it was intended with the ability to peform live over it to and rearrange/extend sections if you want during the performance.

Once you have all of these loaded you can then play the songs in any order, re-arrange the individual songs themselves, and perform and tweak things over the top.

Mixing between songs will be a little tricky but if you have all your programs setup to trigger the audio file on the first beat then you could use the step sequencer to enter the note manually to play your first melody/kick/drums etc from the song you're mixing into and then slowly mute the parts from the old song using track mute. Then change sequences using next sequence to move into the new song completely.

Just some ideas, I hope they help.

thatvoice wrote:Check out Young Guru's video on performance uses. You can do a lot live, you just have to get creative with it.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GHOQ9VjZ ... A&index=14

DOPE! This vid just gave me alot of idea's.I have a live beat set on june 2nd and i gotta make the decision if im gonna use my Ren or my 1000.I def dont wanna be on stage and the software messes up on me so imma do some testing this weekend.One of the reasons why i got the Ren was for live beat sets so hopefully 1.3.1 along with my super fast/like new laptop will hold up.

Next sequence mode looks like it could be the one for me.If i can switch back and forth btwn that mode,some live drumming than back to that mode with a new batch of seq's than i can be well on my way to a dope set.