Creating MPC Expansions without software?

I stumbled upon some royalty free samples and that got me thinking to make a MPC Expansion from those.
Then I read https://www.mpc-tutor.com/mpc-expansion-packs-complete-guide/. Two things surfaced: 1 it is possible to make 3rd party expansion and 2 one needs to use some tool for it.

Now here's the problem. I'm running only in standalone. My computer runs Linux OS and the tool seems to be for Windows and Mac OS's.
This didn't stop me so I downloaded "mpc-bible-demo-expansion" and checked what's inside.

[Previews] - directory for premade-demo-tunes
MPC Bible Expansion.jpg - image to display on MPC
Cache.json - listing of what's inside the pack
*.sxq - no idea what these are as they are unreadable. (sequences according to cache)
*.wav - samples
Expansion.xml - seems to be the metadata for the pack.
*.xpm - seems to be drum programs.

Plan
- Make a script that creates the Cache.json and manually edit Expansions.xml
- Check if it's feasible to add MPC-styled tags with hyphens.
- Ignore xpm and sxq as the sample pack only has samples.
- Create directory called 'Expansions' on the root of my SSD. Copy expansions there.

Unknowns
- Does MPC validate the files? What happens if a file is not listed in cache?
- Has anyone been tweaking the expansions like this?
- I could make a opensource program to this is there's demand?
- Is this really worth it? I'm thinking that if I just drop samples to the SSD that I'd get overwhelmed with all the unsorted samples and if I use packs then atleast there is a way to filter some.
- How does MPC handle samples that have same name?

You don't need the cache files, just the image, Xml and samples. Follow my other guide for the force

https://www.mpc-tutor.com/akai-force-tu ... xpansions/

Thanks for the link about creating expansions! I hadn't thought it might be that easy.

But:

- Is this really worth it? I'm thinking that if I just drop samples to the SSD that I'd get overwhelmed with all the unsorted samples and if I use packs then atleast there is a way to filter some.

If all you want is a way to find samples, have you tried the new search function? It finds through all the files you have e.g. on your SD card quite quickly, with a speed completely comparable to Ableton Live's Ctrl/Cmd-F find function, at least with this one Sandisk SD card I have. With the internal SSD drive it's probably even faster.



In the example I searched for "veh kick", where "veh" is the prefix for the venerable Vengeance Essential House library. And as you see, it finds the "kick" string even though it's in the end of a word "hallkick". I find this search feature very usable. The only requirement is to have all sample files named systematically. If you have a folder called "909" with a sample "KICK1.wav", searching for "909 kick" will not find that sample. It's best if every single wave file contains all the relevant information. Which is good to know when recording your own sample files. You won't find your stuff if it's all named like "Audio Recording 001.wav".

You can limit the search by first navigating to a subfolder.

(It would be nice if the search showed the folder name for each sample. If I search for "bass", I get a thousand samples, and if I happen to like one, I'd like to go to that folder and see what else is there...)

Thanks MPC-Tutor!
I suppose the cache is something the software makes.

HouseWithoutMouse wrote:If all you want is a way to find samples, have you tried the new search function? It finds through all the files you have e.g. on your SD card quite quickly, with a speed completely comparable to Ableton Live's Ctrl/Cmd-F find function, at least with this one Sandisk SD card I have. With the internal SSD drive it's probably even faster.

My situation is that I'm a very newbie in the sampling scene. I don't have any expansions only the Vault 2 and Essential that came with MPCX. Now I'm figuring out a naming scheme for my future samples. And a way to contain them, expansion seemed the most logical solution.

And no I haven't tested the new search, my MPCX is back at the factory for repairs. I'm planning to make some expansions ready on the SSD so when it comes back there's fresh bleeps.

What are you trying to achieve by having stuff in an expansion vs. just a regular file folder? I have no idea, I just started my MPC journey a few weeks ago myself.

I'm thinking that very different styles would be good to be separated.
For example, I like Drum and Bass; I also like Retro VGM.
Now if I want to do a strictly Retro VGM song (8-16 bit), it really shouldn't have any other sounds. If all those sounds are in expansion, then I could maybe use that as a filter.
This is a scenario where I'll would build my sample collection from the ground up.

Then there are vendors that provide samples, but they are not in MPC Expansion format, but they would be if they were released by akai for example.

But I don't know. Maybe I'll put everythin' in the same folder in the end.

I meant having separate folders for each thing you want to separate. Something like SAMPLES / GENRE / TYPE

SAMPLES/
- RETRO_VGM/
- DNB/
- HOUSE/


If you want to limit the search to RETRO_VGM, you go to that folder and then use the search.

No idea how good this particular article is, but a web search returns instructions for arranging your content, such as https://www.edmprod.com/file-sample-organization/

It lists a few "strategies" for naming folders such as,
- By company/pack name
- By genre
- By type

In addition to folder naming, you may need a scheme for naming files. If you don't just use pre-made libraries. The linked article talks about that, as well as other "processes". Information management is a process.