Tracking and Recording MPC 1000

What's good? Could someone shed some advice on an issue I've always had with recording beats?

Since I bought the MPC in 08 I have recorded through two quarter inch cables into a m-audio fast track pro into Ableton live. I recently began tracking out my beats via midi sync into Ableton and regardless of cables used I still get a very dull flat sound. I am no audio engineer but even without mastering the difference between the sound in the MPC and Ableton is very noticeable. I try to do a bit of my own half assed mastering with plugins etc but it's helps very little. My questions are 1) Does the MPC itself just have a non wide dull output and most beats should be professionally mastered? 2) Is the Fast Track just a lousy sound interface? (It's definitely not the best, I get that) 3) Does Ableton automatically turn recorded audio flat and dull. 4) Does anyone have a solid idea what to set the EQ settings in the MPC? 5) Lastly (I know this sounds idiotic) but up until a month or so ago I have been recording tracks/stems in stereo, when most tracks i.e. bass, kick, midrange(samples) should be in mono. I noticed a bit of an improvement when I recorded mono but nothing game changing. Please help. I am in the market for a new USB interface, was thinking the Focusrite.. but am open to any suggestions. Thanks!!

def

what's your price range as far as USB interfaces go? i have an RME babyface and absolutely love the sound quality i get from my various mixers and sampling interfaces.

do you have a sample of one of your beats online that you've outputted from your MPC to ableton? i wouldn't mind taking a listen to hear what you're hearing and give you some feedback.

Try recording into another audio application, other than Ableton Live, to compare how it sounds.

There have been reports in the past of Ableton not having the best sound quality, maybe something to do with internal sample rate conversion due to it's real-time time stretching functionality.

Is is Ableton Live 9 that you are using? Sound quality was apparently improved in Live 9.

Thanks for the feedback, I don't want to venture too far away from $500 for a new USB box. I plan on getting the Renaissance (ultimately fixing my audio quality problem).

Also maybe I can just grab cool edit pro or adobe and then dump my stems into Ableton post recording. I am currently running Live 8 suite. I had Live 9 for a bit but It crashed on me before I could record a beat.

Here's a few samples of my beats.. I have used some mastering steps such as eq, compression and Izotope ozone. But I think the poor quality will still be apparent.

These two were recorded without tracking them out. I used the maximizer in Cuebase on the "Tin Can" beat so it sounds somewhat decent.. I don't have Cuebase anymore so I'm using Izotope Ozone.

https://soundcloud.com/dustindef/folivora
https://soundcloud.com/dustindef/tin-can-instrumental

This one was tracked out and still sounds awful lol...

https://soundcloud.com/dustindef/folivora-slumber

Try recording into another application first, something you can get going for free like Reaper maybe, if you don't have something else to record into on your computer, just to make sure the problem is actually your interface, and not Live 8.

....yesh, the fast track is a lousy interface indeed....

and well, ableton is anything else but no first choice in recording, either...

but some bumm and tschack should be fine....

if you wanna get serious, make sure you track out single elements for sure...

you can treat a kik in ableton if you can't get hold of it on a single, solo track....

and check your gainstaging....

how hot are your samples in the mpc.....how much headroom is left on your stereo outs......what gain boost is on the input of the interface....

and if you got single tracks, with at least a separate bass, kik, snare, rest of rhythmgroup, melodic instruemnts, special elements, all vocals....

you can achieve any level of loudness and punchyness in the final mix in ableton...

if you're on jjos you could also give internal mpc mixdowns a try by resampling those stems straight in the box and transfer these diles to the computer and put them back together there....

then you don't have to use that piece of crap of an audiointerface at all and ypu don't have to slave the mpc, which always keeps the groove a tick more alive....

reeloy wrote:you could also give internal mpc mixdowns a try by resampling those stems straight in the box and transfer these diles to the computer and put them back together there....

That would be worth a try.

Awesome, thanks again for the input dudes!

When recording into the mbox I have the left and right 1/4" cables going into the front inputs of the mbox with both left and right gains (on mbox) at about two notches higher past center.. I do this because i've read how bad the gain is on the mbox.

As for the MPC.. I have the output as loud as I can get it into Ableton's without redlining. I audition the entire track/beat while watching Ableton's master track peak indicator. After that I begin my multi-tracking.

Should I be lowering the output of the MPC a bit more and deal with post production touch ups afterwards?

As for mix down in the MPC.. I just upgraded to the "free version" of the JJOS, It's great, however how do I go about re-sampling? Basically soloing my tracks in song mode and recording them internally thus turning them into wavs? Or is there something I'm missing there?

One last thing, just for assurance.. I "AM" supposed to be recording most tracks mono yes? Will re-sampling be in mono? If not I'm sure I can just drop into the DAW tracks set to mono...

Thanks again!!!

You mentioned earlier that you are using an M-Audio Fast Track Pro, that is not an MBox.

You should be setting the gain so that you are getting decent levels into the audio application, Ableton Live for example, on the audio level meters on the track you are recording into, in that application, without clipping (hitting the top of the meter).

I would set the MPC to full level, as you are doing.

I really think that you should try a different (free) audio application, other than Live 8, to see if it sounds any better.

If you go into the MPC Record page, you can set the input for recording to Main Out, that will record the output of the MPC as a new sample inside the MPC, you then save that and transfer/load it into your computer.

You can record in either stereo or mono, it depends on what you want to do, whether the source samples are mono or stereo, etc.

Yeah my bad I had to google that, I thought mbox was short for m-audio interfaces. But you get what I mean.

So yeah thanks again, I'm going to try the re-sampling route next time.

Def