MPC One Advanced Loop Question

Hi everyone,

I'm new here. Just purchased a MPC One after high recommendations by other musicians. Besides wanting to use it as beat making tool, I want to use it in live performances for launching loops. I hope I can express my question in a right way. I'm totally new, so please forgive me any newbie faults.

I recently used laptop based software ableton live for sample-playback. In ableton you can start a sample and assign a loop to just a part of the sample. In my case I had a sample consisting of a beat with a "count in" in the beginning. When I hit the "start" button it started with the (sample contained) "count in" and then the 8 bars of the beat were looped.

As I dont want to use a laptop on stage, I was hoping the MPC One can offer me the same feature, as it is nothing super special. At least I think so.

What I want is:

- assign a sample to a pad (I am able to do this)
- hitting the pad and the sample is played from the beginning (in my case the "count in") and then automatically played in loop in the area that I want or assigned it to play in.
- by hitting the pad again the sample should stop

Maybe this operation mode is not possible with the MPC One.
But as it has so many functions, I am quite optimistic.

If anyone can help me with this problem, I would be very thankful.



Kind regards

Timm

Welcome!


What I want is:

- hitting the pad and the sample is played from the beginning (in my case the "count in") and then automatically played in loop in the area that I want or assigned it to play in.
Count in found in 2.9.1 manual pg 80 is all I can find.

- by hitting the pad again the sample should stop.
MPC doesn’t work like that. Assign another pad to mute the playing pad.

Check the manual and read up on all the capabilities and from that devise your strategy. If you base your strategies purely on “wants” and not against the machines capabilities your gonna be frustrated as all hell. Don’t fall into that trap.

Select clip program rather than drum program and it will do exactly what you're asking. its the icon under the drums. when you assign samples to a clip program, you can toggle them on / off with the pads and they'll loop like ableton.

After you assign all your samples to a clip program (using program edit) you can click "pad" in the program edit window or alternatively "edit clips" (in the project window) tap a pad, and adjust the sample start and end positions and voila.

Hi!

Thanks for your super quick responses.

@Lampdog:

Thanks for the advice of checking the machines capabilities vs. my wants. Amen that!
I will do that in future.

@Ultros:

Thank you! I will try this.


Kind regards

Timm

Hi there,

I tried it in the way you described @ultros. Basically, it works. Thanks again.

Unfortunately, I am not able to set the loop in a way, that the whole sample is played at first and then only the region of the selected loop is playing in loop. Sorry, if its described confusing. But in my case it's what I need, as the sample starts with a "count in". Maybe I need to work again with ableton...

Kind regards

Timm

The loop configuration you describe is possible, but I don't think it will work in a clip program. If you open the sample in SAMPLE EDIT and turn off 'loop lock' you can configure a different 'loop' start point (the blue marker) - set this to the beginning of the region you wish to loop (i.e. just after your initial 'count in' section). Now assign that sample to a DRUM program with a NOTE ON pad. Now if you hold down the pad it will play the initial 'count in' portion but will then continue to loop the sample between the loop point and the end point.

However, there is no 'toggle' mode in a drum program. And as far as I am aware, there is unfortunately no option to recognise separate loop start points in a clip program, it will just loop between the main sample start and end point.

Basically IMO akai need to beef up DRUM programs to have features like toggle play and all the clip launch options found in a clip program and just sack off clip programs altogether. I assume there's a reason why Akai decided on a separate type of program for clips, but it just seems like a half hearted, stop gap measure.

Hi MPC Tutor,

thanks you very much. I will try this. The sample edit mode is quite similiar to the ableton sample edit mode, as with the blue loop area and the start and end points. If I have to hold the pad in "note on" mode to hear the count in it's not working for my, because I usually have to play my guitar after the "count in".

The obvious question I date to ask now is:

Is there any standalone sampler has the before mentioned clip/loop feature?

Thanks again for your help

Timm

Just thinking:

If I wouldnt need the loop function and just create WAV-files of every "Loop" in a length of maybe 8 minutes including a "count-in", it would work. But I think, this would question the whole idea of using loops in a live setup.

Hi,

You can do what you want to do, (sort of), if you use the method of setting sample playback position to be velocity sensitive.

with the right velocity settings each note event will start playing the sample from a certain point away from the sample start, so you can loop a section of a sequence of notes to loop the sample where you want.

You need to tweak the program settings and put together some template note sequences to make this work.
It is not the same as defining a loop in the normal way, the start point is effectively quantised, (which might be what you need anyway).

This is an old trick i used with Ensoniq samplers back in the day. Tubedigga has a good tutorial on how this is done with the MPC.

1-8-8-1 wrote:You can do what you want to do, (sort of), if you use the method of setting sample playback position to be velocity sensitive.

with the right velocity settings each note event will start playing the sample from a certain point away from the sample start, so you can loop a section of a sequence of notes to loop the sample where you want.

Thanks. Sounds pretty advanced. I will try this with the tutorial of tubedigger.

Kind regards

Timm

1-8-8-1 wrote:
This is an old trick i used with Ensoniq samplers back in the day. Tubedigga has a good tutorial on how this is done with the MPC.

@1-8-8-1:

You were talking about the tutorial called How to "Automate the Start Position of a Sample"

right?

Timm

Hi,

Yes that's the one.

it takes a bit of messing about to get it to work seamlessly, but it works very well.

What I did was make a template sequence with tracks containing the notes needed to slice different length loops in different ways.
Also a template program for the loops organised in a standard way.

Once you have this you can just copy sections from your templates and youre up and running.

Nooooo dudes! Abandon all hope he who goes there! Inside the clip programs "edit program" menu on the lower left side there is the word "pad" touch it! lol and from in there you can set the loops start and end positions! I swear i no lie to you!

If you have a launchpad by any chance, you could set it up as a MIDI launcher, then set your sample loop start and end points and it should play the sample from the beginning to the loop end point, then loop from the loop start point until you toggle the pad on the launchpad. In theory.

I use launchpad to trigger long ambient backgrounds and noiseloops and it just works way better than the MPC's internal launching.

I use launchpad to trigger long ambient backgrounds and noiseloops and it just works way better than the MPC's internal launching.

Except that the loops aren't going to be quantized when triggered. The Drum program should support both quantized triggering and toggle, not just oneshot/loop . Right now it doesn't.

Maybe the Force can work that way I'm not sure. But clips certainly do not allow to define a start point then loop only a portion of the clip thereafter in the MPC Live.