Audio track record limitation?

Support and discussion for all of Akai’s modern standalone MPCs including the MPC X / X SE, MPC Live 1, 2 & 3, MPC One / One+, MPC Key 37/61.
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Audio track record limitation?

By jamos Wed May 13, 2020 4:25 am
Well this is a pain in the ass. I am working on a song, most of which has played on my synths via MIDI, I was trying to record a scratch track to take over my bass player's house so we can record his track. But unfortunately the recording always cuts off prematurely! I've tried three times now, and it always cuts off at exactly the same point. What could cause this? I have plenty of free memory.

The recording cuts off almost exactly 5 minutes.. into a 5.5 minute song. This is the first audio track, and the drum kit is not huge.

The odd thing - maybe a clue? Is that the tempo of this is 140 BPM; my default is 120. The ratio of the cutoff recording time to total song length is very close to 120/140. My master and sequence tempi are the same, 140 BPM.
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Re: Audio track record limitation?

By EnochLight Wed May 13, 2020 4:57 am
jamos wrote:Well this is a pain in the ass. I am working on a song, most of which has played on my synths via MIDI, I was trying to record a scratch track to take over my bass player's house so we can record his track. But unfortunately the recording always cuts off prematurely! I've tried three times now, and it always cuts off at exactly the same point. What could cause this? I have plenty of free memory.

The recording cuts off almost exactly 5 minutes.. into a 5.5 minute song. This is the first audio track, and the drum kit is not huge.

The odd thing - maybe a clue? Is that the tempo of this is 140 BPM; my default is 120. The ratio of the cutoff recording time to total song length is very close to 120/140. My master and sequence tempi are the same, 140 BPM.


First of all, what MPC are you using???! Second, is it being used in standalone mode? Third, did you read the manual on audio recording to see the limitations?

Re: Audio track record limitation?

By jamos Wed May 13, 2020 5:27 am
Oops, yeah, sorry. Live, standalone. I have not found anything regarding limitations either in the scanty documentation, the Bible, or the vast Internet. Hence, my question.
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Re: Audio track record limitation?

By EnochLight Wed May 13, 2020 5:55 am
jamos wrote:Oops, yeah, sorry. Live, standalone. I have not found anything regarding limitations either in the scanty documentation, the Bible, or the vast Internet. Hence, my question.


First things first: are you recording long audio takes over a single sequence, or an assembled collection of sequences in song mode?

There is a 5 minute time limit when recording audio to an audio track and a 19:59 time limit when recording audio in Sampler on the MPC Live. If a performance is going to go longer than that, you would need to record audio in multiple takes or you could work on this project in the MPC Software itself.

https://getsatisfaction.com/akai_profes ... -5-minutes

Currently, none of the MPC's can do disk streaming in standalone, so until that feature is introduced, we're stuck at the mercy of its limitations.

Re: Audio track record limitation?

By jamos Wed May 13, 2020 3:00 pm
Wow. Thans all. That is a bizarre limitation but I guess it is real. Fortunately this particular song has silent measure right neat the Fibonnaci point, so I can easily break it up... but there go my plans to use it as a stand-alone DAW. (That's not why I bought it but the pandemic has changed our direction.)

Re: Audio track record limitation?

By DokBrown Wed Jul 22, 2020 2:47 am
coming from a roland MV, you get used to limitations as long there is a way around it. Why not use 2 audio tracks & do 2 separate recordings under 5 minutes ????
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Re: Audio track record limitation?

By bees80 Wed Jul 22, 2020 7:19 am
or just create the bass audio track per sequence and then make your song...

or just explode to tracks, make an ableton (or whatever daw) session, and send it to your bass player so he can record at home.

Re: Audio track record limitation?

By Guilleonline Thu Jul 23, 2020 2:47 pm
Actually there's a simple work around that will let you record way longer than that when you need an interrupted track so it'll get you closer to using the MPC as a DAW. I do it all the time for VoiceOver work.

instead of using the Audio tracks, click the "sampler" mode. in the sampler bring the recording time up to fit your needs. I think the default is 2mins long. I often have it at 10 minutes to make sure I capture all of the takes and later chop it all up to not interfere with the recording artist.

you can have the music you have already recorded playback in the background AND listen to what is being recording simultaneously by manipulating the "Direct/Main" knob. all the ay to "Direct" means you'll only hear what's currently being recorded, all the way to "Main" means you'll only hear the music in the background. Find a sweetspot closer to "Direct" to really hear what's being recorded but enough background music for the artist to know where he is at on the recording.

Once recorded you can then add effects and manipulate the audio by assigning it to a pad and using the pad mixed screen. that is usually my process.and if you want to export it out of the MPC then go to the MAIN window and on the PROGRAM track hit the pencil icon that is all the way to the right. Select "save current sample" and from there you can select where you want to save it and it'll save like a WAV file as it should.

Have fun!!

Re: Audio track record limitation?

By DokBrown Fri Mar 05, 2021 5:14 pm
I don’t have an MPC X yet since I value desk space for other tools. I was wondering can it simultaneously record 4 audio tracks. 1 track for each of the 4 audio inputs.


I wanted to live record some real drumming & separate kick from snare from hats from toms.
 
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Re: Audio track record limitation?

By Lampdog Fri Mar 05, 2021 5:42 pm
On screen you choose 1/2 or 3/4 for the inputs. No setting for 1/2/3/4 at the same time.

Re: Audio track record limitation?

By SVBJECT Sun Mar 07, 2021 11:34 am
Guilleonline wrote:you can have the music you have already recorded playback in the background AND listen to what is being recording simultaneously by manipulating the "Direct/Main" knob. all the ay to "Direct" means you'll only hear what's currently being recorded, all the way to "Main" means you'll only hear the music in the background. Find a sweetspot closer to "Direct" to really hear what's being recorded but enough background music for the artist to know where he is at on the recording.
Have fun!!


This sounds like what I might have been looking for. To clarify, Direct goes to direct input (line in etc) and the Main goes to premade stuff, including what? Does that include digital audio coming in via the USB in controller mode?
And more importantly, does the MPC One have this functionality in some way? Cant see the Direct/Main options for the One...
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Re: Audio track record limitation?

By Lampdog Sun Mar 07, 2021 8:53 pm
SVBJECT wrote:Does that include digital audio coming in via the USB in controller mode?


Did you have a way to test this? I don’t.
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