How do you use your MPC X or Live

I pretty much just stick stand alone lately. I’m having far more fun chopping and doing sound design through off board gear than I ever did trying to look through hundreds or thousands of software patches. Sure you can do plenty of amazing sound design in software, but I really prefer the more hands on control you get with hardware. The MPC Live/X can require a bit too much menu diving at times, but you can build up the muscle memory for that. Software tends to be far more flexible... which also means the controls may undergo significant change and require relearning more than you bargained for with an update.

Just bought my unit (because they finally added sidechain option). Love the fact that I can use it in standalone. If I ever need - I can use it with my DAW of choice (S1) so that's nice. Portable, standalone mpc is a huge game-changer for me, now I can focus on music.

Getting ready to go out of town on business, but will have plenty of downtime. Just packed my MPC Live, a Korg NanoKey Studio, a Roland VT-4, and a mic - all in a single carry on! Ready to go...

What there only 23 of us who own a live or X..lol

The forum isn’t as active as back in the day man...

Most of the time I use it as a plug-inn with Logic when I import my projects form the MPC 2500 into a DAW environment. Sometimes I use it in standalone as a sketchpad or if I want to do some tweaks on a project when I want to stay away from the computer a little longer and am not around the 2500.

I bought the Live with the intension to use it fully in standalone as my go to piece of equipment. Coming from a 2500 and Studio I wanted to go 'all in the box' with software/ DAW like features I was introduced to by the MPC Software and Studio (FX, piano roll/ grid, better Sample Edit GUI). For years I had struggled with finishing projects, and thought the Live would be the solution for this, and at first at felt like it really was. With working with the Live for a year I basically found out trying to keep everything in the box was the reason I wasn't able to finish my projects. Once I started messing with Logic everything 'clicked'. For me it's perfect to add other sounds with pluggins, arrange and get the sound I want to. Things I just had problems with doing on the Live or the Studio or the 2500.

The quickest way to lay down a foundation for a sample based beat for me is still to go with the 2500. Finish as much as I want to inside the 2500 before exporting the project. I have a Logic template for the MPC plug-in I dial up and load in the exported project. From here I add instruments, arrange and mix as I go. Things I had problems with doing in standalone mode. At this point I basically use the Live as an overpriced Touch. I was thinking about swapping the Live for a Touch, but I just love it's portability and standalone option too much to get rid of it. Even though I barely use it like that nowadays.