By Kriskov
Mon May 27, 2019 11:37 am
Hi everyone.
So I've decided to step up my hip hop production game and work on my sound's tone and texture.
Before I got my MPC, I was mainly learning to create beats on ableton, but I just felt that I couldn't get that "feel", you know the story... 90's grit, analog warmth... I tried to play around with effects and plugins, but the science of mastering is just too much for me for now, I spent nights trying different methods but nothing really satisfying...
When I got to the point where I was really comfortable with chopping samples and sequencing, I decided I wanted to go old school and bought myself an MPC 2000xl. I love it so far, the workflow is just as good as I imagined and the sound of the A/D converter has a nice punchy/compressed quality to it, although also a little cold (in a good way), but still keeping the sound pretty close to the original.
So I made my first beat on the MPC, then tracked it out to my usb interface and daw... And then, I don't know why but it just didn't sound good at all, very flat no more punch. probably the A/D conversion again on the interface has something to do with that.. I spent a lot of time trying to mix it and EQ as best as I could, then a little mastering (not a expert, just did a little compression, limiting and saturation). But I couldn't make it sound right.
I then made another beat, recorded it to my cassette deck, letting it peak juste a little over 0db to get that sweet saturation and... TADA! I was blown away by the result, the natural beefiness and warmth it added was just what I was looking for. So I resampled it to the MPC, saved it in wav and exported it to my pc digitally with cf card. So that gave me an idea to what direction I should be heading at.
My question is, what are my best options to track out my beats from the MPC, apart from directly to ableton?
I read DJ shadow tracked his first album out to an Alesis ADAT. Or maybe a 4 track with metal could be an option ? I'm ok with mixing internally on the MPC although it's a little tedious, and I have no 8outs.. (expensive af, I'd rather spend my money on other pieces of gear). Basicly I'd like to go full hipster and have an almost dawless process.
Another question, I was thinking about getting a Boss sp303, would that help me in my endeavour? the effects are cool, how should I use it in the chain? The thing is my turntables/mixer aren't in the same room as my MPC setup, so rather than having to carry the machine around everytime I wanna sample I thought sampling to the 303 and then bringing it to the MPC would be alot simpler. I how should I process? How will it affect the sound?
I'm still an noobie with all this and it's easy to get confused...
I would be really thankful if you could help me out with all this.
Kris
So I've decided to step up my hip hop production game and work on my sound's tone and texture.
Before I got my MPC, I was mainly learning to create beats on ableton, but I just felt that I couldn't get that "feel", you know the story... 90's grit, analog warmth... I tried to play around with effects and plugins, but the science of mastering is just too much for me for now, I spent nights trying different methods but nothing really satisfying...
When I got to the point where I was really comfortable with chopping samples and sequencing, I decided I wanted to go old school and bought myself an MPC 2000xl. I love it so far, the workflow is just as good as I imagined and the sound of the A/D converter has a nice punchy/compressed quality to it, although also a little cold (in a good way), but still keeping the sound pretty close to the original.
So I made my first beat on the MPC, then tracked it out to my usb interface and daw... And then, I don't know why but it just didn't sound good at all, very flat no more punch. probably the A/D conversion again on the interface has something to do with that.. I spent a lot of time trying to mix it and EQ as best as I could, then a little mastering (not a expert, just did a little compression, limiting and saturation). But I couldn't make it sound right.
I then made another beat, recorded it to my cassette deck, letting it peak juste a little over 0db to get that sweet saturation and... TADA! I was blown away by the result, the natural beefiness and warmth it added was just what I was looking for. So I resampled it to the MPC, saved it in wav and exported it to my pc digitally with cf card. So that gave me an idea to what direction I should be heading at.
My question is, what are my best options to track out my beats from the MPC, apart from directly to ableton?
I read DJ shadow tracked his first album out to an Alesis ADAT. Or maybe a 4 track with metal could be an option ? I'm ok with mixing internally on the MPC although it's a little tedious, and I have no 8outs.. (expensive af, I'd rather spend my money on other pieces of gear). Basicly I'd like to go full hipster and have an almost dawless process.
Another question, I was thinking about getting a Boss sp303, would that help me in my endeavour? the effects are cool, how should I use it in the chain? The thing is my turntables/mixer aren't in the same room as my MPC setup, so rather than having to carry the machine around everytime I wanna sample I thought sampling to the 303 and then bringing it to the MPC would be alot simpler. I how should I process? How will it affect the sound?
I'm still an noobie with all this and it's easy to get confused...
I would be really thankful if you could help me out with all this.
Kris