keygroup using 1 sample question

Hello all!

I mangled a vocal one shot, and I liked to I tried to use it as key group to play chord(3~4note).

but as far as I know, every pitch's length is different.

are there any way to make them all same length?

if I hit C2 it stays for 2 sec.

if I hit C3 it stays for 1sec.

any way to make those length same in one keygroup?

This is completely normal. if you sample one sound and play that sound on a higher key they the sample is played in an accelerated fashion, if you play a lower key then the sample is played in a slower fashion.

That's how sampling always worked.

You can loop the sample if you want a note to sustain the same time no matter the key you are pressing.

I suppose you want the sample to "warp" i.e. time-stretch so that its apparent speed and length are independent of pitch. There was a question of exactly this on the Force forum

viewtopic.php?f=49&t=215188

On the Force it works like this

- Create new Drum Track
- Load your sample to the Drum Track
- Turn on WARP
- Convert to Keygroup (with the small "keyboard-plus" icon at the top of the screen)

--> now you have a keygroup that plays the sample chromatically, but tempo-locked.

On the MPC you'd be looking at a drum and keygroup Program instead of a track. I assume it'll work the same.

It will sound pretty bad though, because the warp algorithm is bad.

A better way would be to loop a portion of the vocal to create a seamless sustain loop. Do this in sample edit. Now the vocal notes will all play for as long as you hold down the notes in the chord

thank you guys for your help.

really appreciated it.

I tried sample looping but I failed this time, I feel like I need to really learn how built in sampler (using loops and etc..) works.

I'll try that method again and report back!

I have ran into same issue... I also don't like how the warp function sounds. It's also super CPU intensive according MPC manual. Now I did use the loop function.. In my case I was looping a saxophone sample.. It was a real pain to try and find a loop that sounded natural but I did find one that was 90% good. Problem is when I tried to pitch up my sample and add to another key group the sample loop timing was now messed up in n the new samples it needs to be set for each and every pitched up sample... Here talking about the pitch up process that sounds better than the warp real-time function. Am I doing something wrong?

You said saxophone 'sample' (singular), why are you using multiple keygroups if it's just one sample? Could you explain what it is you are doing?

BTW, if a loop isn't perfect, any little irregularities will be amplified once it gets pitched. Plus acoustic samples usually can't take much more than +-2 or 3 pitching before they sound poor.

With a single sax sample, accept that it's not going to cover much more than maybe a 6 semitone spread (and still sound natural), no matter what type of processing, warping or pitching you apply. Synth samples on the other hand have much more flexibility (to the point where single cycle samples can be comfortably pitched across the entire 128 note scale).

Lancerben wrote:In my case I was looping a saxophone sample.. It was a real pain to try and find a loop that sounded natural but I did find one that was 90% good. Problem is when I tried to pitch up my sample and add to another key group the sample loop timing was now messed up in n the new samples it needs to be set for each and every pitched up sample... Here talking about the pitch up process that sounds better than the warp real-time function. Am I doing something wrong?

MPC-Tutor wrote:You said saxophone 'sample' (singular), why are you using multiple keygroups if it's just one sample? Could you explain what it is you are doing?

BTW, if a loop isn't perfect, any little irregularities will be amplified once it gets pitched. Plus acoustic samples usually can't take much more than +-2 or 3 pitching before they sound poor.

With a single sax sample, accept that it's not going to cover much more than maybe a 6 semitone spread (and still sound natural), no matter what type of processing, warping or pitching you apply. Synth samples on the other hand have much more flexibility (to the point where single cycle samples can be comfortably pitched across the entire 128 note scale).

Lancerben wrote:In my case I was looping a saxophone sample.. It was a real pain to try and find a loop that sounded natural but I did find one that was 90% good. Problem is when I tried to pitch up my sample and add to another key group the sample loop timing was now messed up in n the new samples it needs to be set for each and every pitched up sample... Here talking about the pitch up process that sounds better than the warp real-time function. Am I doing something wrong?

Yes I started with using a single... But extremely clean and expressive (vibrato) saxophone sample I got from a great player. The sample is about 3 sec long. I looped it using the loop function. That single sample actually sounded nice a even up ti à full octave down and about 6-8 semi tone up...to my ears anyways.

But I wanted to make it more natural so I tried to pitch it up to maintain the same vibrato speed and get a cleaner result that using the warp algorithm.
My problem is that the loop I had painstakingly chosen to sound as natural as possible now clicks and pops... It's not timed in the right spot on the sample anymore. If there was a way to make that loop stay at the optimal spot it would make my life easier.

I can get other samples and redo the loop finding process but it's very hard to get two near identical notes on the saxophone. Often saxophone instruments patches I find have samples that are so far from each other you can tell instantly its fake even when not played front and center on a mix.

This sample actually sounds very nice. I did find some pretty good saxophone with the Brass instrument pack which are different than this one. But this particular sample plays very nicely. Now I need a headset wind controller!

Do those work with the mpc?

Also... We need a synth that will vary vibrato/modulation speed slightly note to note, same with volume and pitch. Like a random slight change. That probably exist in a different synth / workstation though I have been out of the synth world for a while came back recently.

If you want next level natural time/pitch mangling of samples, the MPC is not the system that will give it to you. Try something like Ableton Live or Melodyne. Yeah it would be nice if Akai gave us miracles.

Lancerben wrote:Also... We need a synth that will vary vibrato/modulation speed slightly note to note, same with volume and pitch. Like a random slight change. That probably exist in a different synth / workstation though I have been out of the synth world for a while came back recently.

You can try to use the LFO set to a slow sine wave modulating pitch and amp, can work well. Would be better if they had the random wave options as used in the LFO in Fabric.

But if you want to create a useable sax instrument you're better off recording a range of notes directly from the sax itself (without vibrato). Ultimately the MPC is just not the best sampler for these types of instruments, it doesn't have the necessary features to handle the complexity (better for more simple sounds like keys, plucks etc) but with a spread of sounds you can build something. But I would just go for recording long samples rather than looping, like we did with MPC Horns:

https://www.mpc-samples.com/product.php ... n-edition/