Performing live with an MPC ONE using a big project

hi,

tried to search for this topic, i hope it was not previously covered!

anyways i've decided more than a year ago to using an mpc ONE as the 'brain' for my live sets (basically ditching the laptop on stage).
Recently i'm doing concerts following the release of an album, so i'm using a lot of samples to kinda recreate the record's sounds/atmospheres as closely as possible (that's of course debatable, but it's the direction i chose to take ).

my setup consists basically of an mpc ONE, 3 synths (2 monos and one is 4-voices) and some effects (i also sing and play wind instruments). I'm trying to use as few samples as possible, to avoid taking too much space on the mpc, but still i'm dealing with quite a big project, all my efforts to economize data still have brought me at 29/30% CPU and 82% MEMORY.

so i guess my first question would be how dangerous is it to work around mpc's memory limits?

with this post i'd also like to have a confrontation with my fellows live performers with an mpc...
do you use several smaller projects and have a way to load another project during the performance? if yes how do you deal with this moment, performance-wise? do you use another machine/sampler to fill the gap when the mpc is loading the next project?

i choose to use one bigger project... i use many sequences: some songs only have one sequence and with these i use a lot of track muting to build the structure of the song; some other songs also have one sequence but it's a long and intricate sequence basically making a backing track in which i can play with my synths creating evolving atmospheres; some other more elaborate tunes have one sequence per section, so i can navigate beetween the song sections incrementing sequences (this way i can loop a certain part of the song etc).
i ended up with around 35 sequences so far.

to economize cpu usage, i basically don't use plugins; i have just a HYPE lead in a place where my synths were already doing stuff. i have a couple of KeyPrograms (using the bare minimum of samples), the rest is midi sequences and a bunch of samples (mostly organized with DrumPrograms but i do have 4-5 ClipPrograms).

i'm curious to know your perspectives/workflows... thanks a bunch!

Just get some other device to use while loading projects and save yourself the huge headache trying to fit everything within the poor hardware limits. I use a drum machine & some other things when loading projects. Projects are 2-3 tracks per. Also, just keep your projects slim & streamlined as possible, including truncating long samples. Load times are like <20 secs anyways most of the time.

i sequence MPC One externally from Hapax and do 99% of my drums on an RD-9 so a given MPC project for me is just the samples and a couple tracks of plugins and/or keygroups. but if Akai ever brings disk streaming over from the Force, would probably just sequence everything in MPC, assuming i could make transitioning between multiple projects a seamless thing

jabberwalky wrote:Just get some other device to use while loading projects and save yourself the huge headache trying to fit everything within the poor hardware limits. I use a drum machine & some other things when loading projects. Projects are 2-3 tracks per. Also, just keep your projects slim & streamlined as possible, including truncating long samples. Load times are like <20 secs anyways most of the time.

yeah, i guess i'll have to divide the set into 3/4 smaller projects. probably the best compromise for me... i declare myself defeat in my one project quest
playing acoustic stuff as well (saxophones, flute, bass clarinet sometimes) it would have been so easier to avoid changing projects... i try to be 'clean' with my samples, but i'll have a second look, maybe i can truncate a couple ones here and there... thanks!!!

chrisroland wrote:i sequence MPC One externally from Hapax and do 99% of my drums on an RD-9 so a given MPC project for me is just the samples and a couple tracks of plugins and/or keygroups. but if Akai ever brings disk streaming over from the Force, would probably just sequence everything in MPC, assuming i could make transitioning between multiple projects a seamless thing

cool! yeah we have a different approach... i toyed with the idea of having a drum machine as my drummer, but rn it would just change my sound too much (very sampled based).

sequencing from MPC is great for me, i like the way you can incorporate ext synths as tracks alongside drum programs asn...

I could have written this post down to the details - I recently switched to an MPC One to drive a very similar setup. I use one big single project for my live show - MPC only does drum samples, a Fabric bass on one song, and everything else is MIDI and CV sequencing external synths. I have some songs that are made up of 8 different sequences, other songs that are a single sequence where I do a lot of playing over top and muting/unmuting different parts, and I even have some transitional sequences that fire off a longer sample between songs. I just played this way my first time on Saturday night and it was perfect. Your load really sounds reasonable to me.

First, it's a very good idea to use clip programs (instead of audio tracks for instance) as much as you can. You don't have to use real time time stretching if you don't need it (warp). An alternative to warping (and it works well for drums) is the use of patched phrases, remember you can use them in clip programs.

Unfortunately clips will stop if you change sequences, AKAI needs to fix that because it makes it impossible to do transitions between sequences that way.

Limiting the use of plugin programs or effects will make your device more stable. Use buses (sub-mixes) for effects like global delays or reverbs for every single track. You should not need 15 different delays and you can automate settings from sequence to sequence if you need different settings on each sequence for the same effect in the submix.

Spatial and temporal effects such as chorus/flanger shouldn't take that much CPU on some tracks.

For the plugin programs you really want to perform live, if possible try to resample them into a keygroup without the filter on and just use the keygroup filters. Loop the samples if needed. The big advantage of keygroup/drum programs over plugin programs is that keygroups can respond to program changes, and aren't limited to 8 instances.

You'll save sample memory by using monodic samples instead of stereo samples, or downsampling (the drums for instance). Not every sample needs to be 44.1KHz.

Someone made a test about CPU load and they concluded the less programs loaded into memory the less CPU usage. So gather all your drums in a single Drum program for instance. You shouldn't need more than 127 drum sound?

Finally I suggest you keep everything under a single project for your live performance in order to save yourself the hassle of having to load different projects, unless you are OK with blanks between your songs, in that case there is no problem with multiple projects. Remember that you have set lists in OS 2.11 and the key ranges as well.

AKAI certainly needs to improve the MPC performance tools, there is a lot little things they could do to improve the performance workflow.

mpc_fan_2022 wrote:First, it's a very good idea to use clip programs (instead of audio tracks for instance) as much as you can. You don't have to use real time time stretching if you don't need it (warp). An alternative to warping (and it works well for drums) is the use of patched phrases, remember you can use them in clip programs.

Unfortunately clips will stop if you change sequences, AKAI needs to fix that because it makes it impossible to do transitions between sequences that way.

Limiting the use of plugin programs or effects will make your device more stable. Use buses (sub-mixes) for effects like global delays or reverbs for every single track. You should not need 15 different delays and you can automate settings from sequence to sequence if you need different settings on each sequence for the same effect in the submix.

Spatial and temporal effects such as chorus/flanger shouldn't take that much CPU on some tracks.

For the plugin programs you really want to perform live, if possible try to resample them into a keygroup without the filter on and just use the keygroup filters. Loop the samples if needed. The big advantage of keygroup/drum programs over plugin programs is that keygroups can respond to program changes, and aren't limited to 8 instances.

You'll save sample memory by using monodic samples instead of stereo samples, or downsampling (the drums for instance). Not every sample needs to be 44.1KHz.

Someone made a test about CPU load and they concluded the less programs loaded into memory the less CPU usage. So gather all your drums in a single Drum program for instance. You shouldn't need more than 127 drum sound?

Finally I suggest you keep everything under a single project for your live performance in order to save yourself the hassle of having to load different projects, unless you are OK with blanks between your songs, in that case there is no problem with multiple projects. Remember that you have set lists in OS 2.11 and the key ranges as well.

AKAI certainly needs to improve the MPC performance tools, there is a lot little things they could do to improve the performance workflow.

perfectly put. i would suggest tho that for reverbs and delays you use aux sends and return channels instead of submixes. that gives you a lot more nuance for adding depth to your mixes.
another suggestion: if you have "static" effects on single pads of drum programs (distortions, static filtering via plugins like air filter, reverbs to add "tails" to your sounds, compressors, eq's...) you want to FLATTEN those pads, so the sounds are resampled with the effect on and you drop all those fx from cpu.

if you use multiple drum programs and use a similar channel strip for each of them (eg: eq, compressor, air transient...) you might want to route all drum programs to a single submix and put the plugins on the submix, so a single set of plugins will affect ALL your drum programs. you can do the same with other type of tracks, like all basses on submix 2, all synth leads on sub 3 etc...