Exchange tips and tricks for the Akai MPC4000
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By tsutek Mon Apr 14, 2014 12:30 pm
Hi,

My 4K should reach me this friday or early next week. Have been reading the manuals and researched a bit on forums, and I think I have a pretty good idea on how the 4K works now. But one thing is bothering me, and cannot find any straight answer to this one:

Is it possible to utilize several parts of a multi simultaneously, so that one could send MIDI notes to several MIDI ports & MIDI channels from a single pad bank? ie. pad 01 sends a C3 to out A12, while pad 02 sends a F1 to out B3, while a pad 03 triggers a sample from the 4K? I originally asked this question long before even buying my first MPC and someone told it would be possible.. Well, turned out this was not possible on the 2K5 at least :(

What about the venerable 4K? This would enable some fancy "controllerist" techniques without hooking up with a laptop.. Would this be just a matter of assigning parts in a multi to accept MIDI input from a same input source and defining the active noteranges in the parts correctly?
Last edited by tsutek on Mon Apr 14, 2014 12:40 pm, edited 2 times in total.
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By tsutek Mon Apr 14, 2014 12:46 pm
313, you're referring to the 2 output destinations that are available per track? Afraid that is not enough.. I could just get 2 separate MIDI destinations simultaneously max.

I'd like to be able to get at least 2 MIDI destinations as well as internal sample playback (1 MIDI ch for analog drumsounds, 1 MIDI ch for the moog and internal samples as extra perc/misc sounds). This kind of stuff is trivial to do ITB, bummer..

Anyone know if there's some kind of standalone MIDI processor I could connect the 4K to that could take care of this kind of MIDI processing? Or is there something with multis and parts that I'm not getting (ie. it would be possible after all?)?

EDIT: I'm pretty sure there's a way to do this. What about for ex. loading up programs for each track needed, with "stencilled" keyranges and MIDI out assignments, and inputting notes while track input is in OMNI mode? Theoretically, all tracks should then receive all inputted notes, but each track would only output it's own "stencilled" range/ranges of notes..
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By tsutek Mon Apr 14, 2014 1:12 pm
Hmm.. I will find a solution sooner or later. The 2K5 didn't have keyzones, which was the showtopper in my earlier experiments, but with the Z4 engine supporting keyzones, I'm sure this can be done in some manner.

Maschine is not an option, I'd rather use the 4K as a MIDI seq to Ableton/Max6 if I must use a computer since it would be way more flexible. But thanks for your thoughts 313.
By 313 studio tricks Mon Apr 14, 2014 3:32 pm
i see youre sticking with the internal sample source then? i mean when you talk about doing this...

the 4k does show the sequencer bit and the sound source bit as two separate entities within. im confident you could find a solution youre happy with although i dont have first hand experience with what youre talking about on this machine.

you should check out the iconnectmidi2+... an incredible router/filter in that thing and its only $100, allows connex to ipad etc with audio throughput etc. anyway just a suggestion if you wanted to use something between the computer and mpc or whatevs
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By tsutek Tue Apr 15, 2014 7:43 am
Yes, realtime. For non realtime operation, there would be no need for such a thing as I could just jump from track to track like I always have been doing.

Funny you mention the iConnectMIDI, It's actually on my shopping list already, just waiting for the lighting compatible version to arrive to the shops.. According to the manufacturer, this is supposed to be coming out "soon"

Cheers