Discarded materials and keygroups

Ok, I tried to search this info but didn't find exactly what I needed:

When I sample something in, or transfer a sample in (mpc live) and then chop it or edit it somehow, then discard the beginning and end- are the discarded portions actually deleted or are they just no longer used in ram for that project?

Like if I had a sample I wanted one sound from for one project, but then wanted to use the whole sample in another project I can still discard and it isn't actually gone from the storage device? That's the whole non destructive editing deal right?

If I have a long sample with several tones I want to use as different key groups, but in the same project- what's the best way to do this? And will it eat up the ram, or will it only access the "cuts" that I haven't discarded. Like- if the sample/file is 1:00 long and I only use 3 keyboard tones from the file totaling 30 seconds, is the remaining 70 seconds not affecting the song, or is it still loaded into ram?

Also- what is the easiest way to load multiple octaves of a tone into a key group and crossfade from one to the next as you go up- I know that's a confusing one, it's just something I used to do with samplers all the time.

What I mean is basically this- you have a sample with 3 tones in it: c1,c2,and c3. So you load the c1 sample into c1, and c2 into c2 and so on, then they crossfade as you go in between octaves.

Sorry this is a complicated one, I'm sure there are several answers for all these questions, I just wanted to hear what you all said because this forum has been so helpful to me, thanks!

Keygroup cross-fade not supported.

Non destructive chopping: if the original sample is using 70mb of ram, then you can chop it all you want, you will still only use 70mb of ram. Nothing more. Nothing less. Nothing is actually discarded, nothing new is created, the MPC just plays back different portions of the original file.

Until you save it. If you discard/time stretch/pitch shift/gain/normalize/do anything to a piece of a sample, then save the project, that sample just got saved in its new form. The only way to keep your original file intact is to either have a 'master' copy somewhere else, or make a copy of it in the MPC and work on only one of them. Otherwise any edits you do to that sample are saved with the project. The RAM is your workspace, those edits are permanent the minute you do it unless you hit undo right away or quit without saving your work. Its not non-destructive at all. Its only 'temporary' until you save the contents of the RAM to disk.

I think Himelstein and I have a similar question/need clarification. I'm new to the MPC world myself pretty much (other than a very short stint with the MPC1000 back in 2011), and I come from the Yamaha SU700/RM1x/RS7000 world, where the concepts are somewhat different.

Correct me if I'm wrong, but my understanding is the original audio files (.wav, etc.) is loaded into memory when assigned to a program/pad. You can edit the start/end points of the sample, tweak, etc., and when you save your program, it creates a new copy of the samples used in that program and saves in it's own file directory. So the original samples are left untouched in their original directory location. Is that correct?

For example, on my internally installed SSD I have a main directory with audio samples from multiple sources (for sake of simplicity since I don't remember it's exact name lets say the directory is named AudioSamples). Underneath that directory I have multiple subfolders with other samples. For example:
MPCXSSD\AudioSamples\RY20\Stereo\Kicks\BDElec1.wav (an electric bass drum sampled from my Yamaha RY20 drum machine)
If I load this sample into my current project and tweak it, assign it to a pad, etc. and program a drum beat with it, then decide to save the project to the following location:
MPCXSSD\MyProjects\testproject1\
Doesn't it make a copy of my edited sample and save all samples in the new project file/folder?

When you first load a sample into a project, the sample is copied into memory from its original location. This gets saved along with whatever keygroup/drum program is using it (along with all the other samples and programs) into whatever directory you save the project too (the [Project Data] folder). From then on out, when you open the project, the audio in the data folder is loaded into memory, and when its saved, it goes back to the data folder. The only way to overwrite or edit the original file, would be to manually save it over the original.

Basically when you create a new project, the RAM is initialized as blank as possible, and "everything you do" happens in RAM. When you save, it will create a project folder where the project material in RAM is stored as files.

Loading a file from elsewhere, goes with "everything you do" and so the file is imported to RAM and eventually when the project is saved the next time, it ends up a new file inside the project folder. The original file is basically only used to load into RAM when you select it in the browser. After load, it is left alone.

Thanks guys. You both verified that I understand the concepts correctly. I just wanted to make sure I wasn't accidentally overwriting the original sample/location.