n00b question

i'm trying to understand how an mpc works


if i had a synth and an mpc would i


a. use the midi out of mpc to control synth

b. play synth pattern into mpc and record whole pattern as audio

c. record one note of the synth and pitch shift it onto pads to create pattern

or all of the above?

a. use the midi out of mpc to control synth
Yes

b. play synth pattern into mpc and record whole pattern as midi

c. record one note of the synth and pitch shift it onto pads to create pattern
Keygroup on 4k, chromatically on 2kxl.

mpc's are not time based recorders.

so c. is possible with that jjos? could i use a midi keyboard?


what do you mean by mpc's are not time based recorders?

There's nothing wrong with lamp's answer but I think you're looking for more clarity on what a MPC can do.

A - YES: of course, assuming the synth has a MIDI IN jack. It won't control something that's only CV based (if you don't know what that means don't even worry about it).

B - YES: Standalone MPCs are samplers that have some sort of audio input. Whatever audio you feed it, it can sample. That audio could be you playing your synth, in a pattern. That's a big chunk of audio locked to the tempo you used when recording. If you change the tempo the pitch will also change.

If you hooked your synth up through MIDI, then you record a track on the MPC and the MIDI notes get sent to that synth. The audio in that case is actually still coming from the synth, which is fine if that's what you want. That's Lamp's reply, but technically, you can do both.

You probably want to learn how to do both these things so you can do whatever you want when you want it instead of being stuck with only one workflow.

C - YES: if the MPC supports it you can usually assign a sample to a pad and then do some sort of 16 Step mode on that sample. If that sample is a single note being played off the synth, then you can spread it over the 16 pads, each step being a chromatic note. Then you can play the notes back as a 'pattern' and record that pattern into a sequence.


YouTube is your friend, go look at some basic workflow tutorials for the MPC you are interested in to get a better idea of what they are capable of.

electric dragon wrote:There's nothing wrong with lamp's answer but I think you're looking for more clarity on what a MPC can do.

A - YES: of course, assuming the synth has a MIDI IN jack. It won't control something that's only CV based (if you don't know what that means don't even worry about it).

B - YES: Standalone MPCs are samplers that have some sort of audio input. Whatever audio you feed it, it can sample. That audio could be you playing your synth, in a pattern. That's a big chunk of audio locked to the tempo you used when recording. If you change the tempo the pitch will also change.

If you hooked your synth up through MIDI, then you record a track on the MPC and the MIDI notes get sent to that synth. The audio in that case is actually still coming from the synth, which is fine if that's what you want. That's Lamp's reply, but technically, you can do both.

You probably want to learn how to do both these things so you can do whatever you want when you want it instead of being stuck with only one workflow.

C - YES: if the MPC supports it you can usually assign a sample to a pad and then do some sort of 16 Step mode on that sample. If that sample is a single note being played off the synth, then you can spread it over the 16 pads, each step being a chromatic note. Then you can play the notes back as a 'pattern' and record that pattern into a sequence.


YouTube is your friend, go look at some basic workflow tutorials for the MPC you are interested in to get a better idea of what they are capable of.

thanks so much. the final question is in C - can i use a midi keyboard to do this rather than the pads?

Technically, yes.

When you assign the 16 step function you can choose to do so by pitch, on my MPC it then figures out how to adjust the tuning on the sample and assign it to each pad so it ascends chromatically from Pad 4 and descends on 3,2 and 1. It's a nice little feature to grab a full scale of notes from one sample.

When you create your own pad you can easily assign the same sample to to each MIDI note and change the pitch of the sample to match the note you're assigning it to. If you also have your synth's MIDI out hooked to the MPC MIDI in then you could use it to control the Program on the MPC and playback the notes using your keys instead of pads. Ideally you would just sample each note from the instrument since after a while adjusting the tuning or pitch will dramatically shorten or lengthen the timing of the sample and it'll stop sounding like the original instrument quickly.

It depends on the MPC but most of the newer ones have USB ports which allows you to access the memory card from your computer. It would probably be a lot easier to build a Program like the one described above with some sort of utility program but it's not required. The MPC is totally stand alone.

There's tons of videos and articles out there on how to do this stuff.