Sidechaining Inside MPC 1K?

Pretty sure this has been covered some where around here but figured I'd ask just in the case it hasn't been....

Anyway - I have been working on my first album and, right now, 95% of it is all inside the MPC (including audio track recordings, etc). From the get-go, I have NOT wanted to record this stuff to my DAW. I've been doing that since Logic 8 so this is more an exercise of entropy, in a way.

This is NOT a make-or-break point for me but I'm curious if there is a clever way to get some sidechaining going on between the kick drum and bass line inside the MPC 1K itself. I'm not looking for anything extreme here, just to help the mix out.

I'm going to head up to the studio and experiment a little bit. I think if I setup one of my effects to be a compressor and pipe the kick drum and bass line into it and then crank it (like a limiter) I should get pretty close to what I'm looking for. Then again, in 45 minutes, I'll have a much better idea.

Anyone have any luck achieving this effect inside the MPC alone?

Not really. You can sometimes get sidechain-like effects with if you tune the internal compressor just right (e.g. make the kick louder than everything, and get the comp threshold to only trigger, with a high ratio, at the level of the kick)

But obv much better results can be had with an actual compressor. I have a couple RNCs for compressing stuff.

Those RNCs are really nice to have around. Unfortunately, I no longer have mine!
Actually... right now... I have zero outboard besides guitar pedals that my friend
keeps at the studio. I'm basically workin' with nothing but the instruments (which is a huge relief most the time).


Guess I'll have to toy around with a few things until I find a result that I'm content with.


Peace!

do you guys actually sidechain in the mpc itself with your RNCs?

i never thoght of that, i would think it would have to go to the DAW while its recording wouldnt it?

I suppose you could, but I don't. I just have it going into a mixer though, with my aux send 1 going to the sidechain.

There has been a discussion on what it would happen if you route (*a copy of your) kick and bass from your individual outs back in (physically with a couple of jack-to-jack cables) and compress the signal post summing to mono as opposed to selecting ONLY the bass(*in this case you'll use a copy) - try both options!

JJOSXL allows for that with fine control of your input signal while playing.

For the sake of the discussion, I remember we could not agree if this was really a side-chaining thing or what...

From my experience, in any case, this leads to a very enjoyable pumping effect, once found the right settings (which are a bit dependent on your track... of course).

Unfortunately this also LOAD the MPC processor and gets it hogging. It's a PITA to edit your track while the thing is going on, but once you sequenced and arranged (and saved because IT COULD CRASH) your track you can experiment with it and track it out if you're happy with your results.

Should you want to try something easier play with your bass attack settings: for the notes falling on the kick copy your bass sample and use the attack-softened one. A compressor on the master bus will accentuate the effect, if correctly set.

Should your beat be VERY steady (4 on the floor flava) an LFO on your bass can make it pump if set to open on quarters with a very fast slope.

PEACE

Pardon my ignorance - what the hell are RNCs?

really nice compressor:

They are sexy looking, sexy sounding, easy to use and come at a sexy price.

medearis wrote:sexy looking

well that's pretty subjective... They're just bland IMO. But it's the sound that counts, and they sound really nice for a really nice price.

cool thanks guys

they are dope! you can get a funk logic rack unit to fit a couple, maybe 3 of them in a regular sized rack too.

i have gotten 12db of gain reduction on them when recording vocals and couldnt even hear the compressor, its THAT clean sounding. pretty nice little units. absolutley no character, but if you want clean beliveable compression, this unit is for you.
the only bad thing i have heard about it is sometimes people complain about it "popping" or clicking from the release on basses, but for vocals its golden! the price is good too!

FMR pbc-6a is awesome too, when i had one it was good enough for me to not want a 1176 anymore. i used it on vocals too.

another great thing about these is that you can call the guy who makes them and he will talk to you about them. really nice guy, name is mark if i remember correct.

damien907 wrote:the only bad thing i have heard about it is sometimes people complain about it "popping" or clicking from the release on basses, but for vocals its golden! the price is good too!

yeah, it can distort bass on lower attack/release settings. But it's just doing what it's supposed to do. If you're setting the A/D time faster than the period of the bass frequencies, it's going to distort. It's a clean device that does exactly what it claims to do; many other compressors just have their own character that can lend to better sound in specific audio ranges.

just an idea, have you played with the filter cuttoff / pad velocity? (pad velocity controls filter cutoff)............im just seeing if it can be done..

Maybe if this was set right (im not familiar with it so i dont know too much) so the pad lightly touched triggers a low pass set at say 5, and as you continue upto full pad velocity the filter peels back to like 30. if you set it with a minimal gap (not have a huge difference in your filter cutoff) it might be easy to play your bassline so you hit the bass notes quieter when your kick hits, therefore triggering a almost non existent bass / filtered out bass, but play it normally when you dont need the "sucking" or "dipping" and it will trigger at full volume / normal cutoff.

not sure if completely crazy or not haha .

phx_chronic wrote:really nice compressor:

This is the first time I've heard of this brand. FMR Audio has some nice compressors, after doing some research. The RNLA looks like it would be more suitable for me. The prices are really good for both the RNC and the RNLA.

http://bigcitymusic.com/fmr-audio?zenid=6d8fccd5c34f4550cb8c65cad203187a