Workflow for making IDM type music

Hi
I have had my MPC live for a couple of months now and I've got my head around the basics and feel ready to create new tunes.
I want to create Boards of Canada, Thom Yorke, Fourtet styles of music. Typically a slower break-beat but usually synth based drum sounds for that Modular type of complex evolving drum pattern. I have an Electron Model Samples and I love the Electron sequencer for this type of music particularly the Probability and trig conditions. I bought the Live for it's all in one box solution and the fact you can take it with you.

I'm trying to set my self up with a good workflow for making this type of music. I've tried programming patterns in the MS and basically sampling them into the Live as 1 or 2 bar clips. I've also tried triggering the patterns from the MPC via Midi CC pattern change commands but that is not very intuitive.

I think we are a long way down the road with 2.6 firmware as you can modulate most parameters on a per step basis (a la Elektron trig conditions) but would still ideally love to do probability per sound per step and the chance options of the MS ie 1/2, 2/2. 1/3. 2/3. 3/3 trigger of sounds that the Elektrons have.

Does anyone else make this type of Music on the Live and have a nice workflow for making these types of complex drum patterns that twist and evolve in ways that simple programming can't achieve without spending hrs meticulously planning each drum sound in the song. And I'm particularly thinking about finished sounds, not live performances.

Or does anyone have any observations how to integrate the MS into the Live setup better or is there an argument for ditching it and staying with the Live for Beat making, after all the MPC is for making drum beats eh?

Thanks in advance Jamie.

It seem like this workflow is perfect for Ableton Live. Have you tested the Akai Force?

Probability is a problem on mpc live. I use random sample function to do this, but it's unintuitive

Yea clip launching isn’t the lives strong suit. In this situation you be better just using the electron and ableton, a force, Roland 404 or maybe the new Roland 707.

You could also upgrade to a digitone and leave the drum programming to the live and do the funky stuff on that.

Cockdiesel wrote:Yea clip launching isn’t the lives strong suit. In this situation you be better just using the electron and ableton, a force, Roland 404 or maybe the new Roland 707. .

Doesn't the MPC Live have a perfectly functional Clip Launch feature on each track? I can trigger Clips via the pads just fine.

It does but I’m not a big fan of using the clips programs on the live. Now the force on the other hand you actually can use clips at the same time as you sequence. I am Sure they will streamline the clips mode Better in one of the next updates.

Cockdiesel wrote:It does but I’m not a big fan of using the clips programs on the live. Now the force on the other hand you actually can use clips at the same time as you sequence. I am Sure they will streamline the clips mode Better in one of the next updates.

One can hope! I'm truly looking forward to what 3.0 brings, for sure.

Thanks for all of the replies.

I've settled on using pattern change commands from the midi track of the love to the MS and monitoring the incoming audio into the live.
Seems wasteful having the live not doing the drums but it works quite well without too much fuss.

I'm sure Akai will address this to take the live next level. It's already a fantastic bit of kit.

Thanks again Jamie

I feel your pain. I used an MPC2k in the late 90's and fell in love with it. Fast forward to a few years ago and I've been mostly on Elektron boxes. My favorite so far is the Digitone, I just can't stop having fun making music with it. Once you get used to all of the fantastic ways Elektron allows you to bend sequences (Plocks, randomness, weight, Conditional Locks) you really want that in all the gear because it's so useful.

So enter the MPC Live. Yes, you can do randomness, but compared to Elektron it's really rudimentary. You can do round robin with silent samples or do some basic % based probabilities, but that's it.

For live jamming, I just keep most of the stuff I need on the Digitone. For rendering out a song, I will print the Digitone by letting the sequence run for ages and just edit the parts I like. I don't really use the MPC's random features very much as they are fairly weak.

hai! don't know if you'll even see this by now. ive been interested in similar sounds and rhythmic pallettes (especially those of afx) so ive been spending a lot of time on sorting out a work flow for evolving syncopated rhythms

there's a way I've been seemingly random drum patterns by having some of the samples layered (adding up to four samples per pad and making sure some of them are tracks with no volume) and then changing the triggering behavior from "velocity" to random.

this video is better explaining it than I am prolly https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uJNhcs8HNVQ

I heard that in the new update they just released there might be stuff for improving probability stuff but I haven't dug deep into it yet

EDIT: they definitely did https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-_QdC4PTHoE

I’ve had mixed results taking a pattern and bouncing it down, chopping it up and using the generate random notes to create new sequences to be a nice way to create unpredictable patterns, but you need to make your sequence long enough for the pattern to not become repetitive.
Another fun thing can be to take a pad parameter like velocity or pitch and manually draw in a bunch of random automation before creating patterns. This can be a cool way to counteract our natural tendency to create repeating patterns.
I’m open for tips too if anyone has more!