workflow suggestions for beginners

i think it might be useful to share some tips about super basic stuff that can cause headaches to beginners,
please expand on this list if you think it useful.

-always NAME your TRACKS and PROGRAMS in a useful recognizable way, otherwise you'll soon end up with your channel mixer filled with stuff with odd names and you'll go crazy trying to remember which is which. remember that the channel mixer shows you PROGRAM NAMES while the track mute window shows you TRACK NAMES, hence if you only rename programs you'll end up with track mute window populated by track 1, track 2 , track 3 etc.... again, very awkward to operate. i think naming programs and tracks in a very similar way can help you a LOT. also rename your sequences to not go crazy when you go into song mode to arrange the song.

-often you'll end up copying a sequence to a new one, erasing track content and re-recording new stuff to create variations of sequences, when you do that, before start erasing and\or overdubbing\recording, remember to CHECK wether you are in the newly created seq or on the old one, this can save you a lot of troubles.

-if you record automations with your q-links and\or external midi controllers, always remember to switch back the automation icon from RED (write) to GREEN (read) after each automation recording, otherwise you'll end up recording parameter adjustment you dont want automated and then spend hours erasing bad automations from the list edit window. also: read the manual and\or mpc bible regarding pad mute recording and playback and relative preferences, as this can mess with your head if you don't grasp it fully.

-often you'll find yourself wanting to edit one parameter (say: amp envelope attack or filter cutoff) across multiple or all pads in a drum program. you can do it by changing the pad edit mode from CURRENT to MULTI or ALL, but remember to switch it back to CURRENT always after you adjusted your parameter, otherwise you'll be making a huge mess and going back isn't always easy because maybe you've done other stuff after and UNDO will erase all the good stuff after the mistake too...

-dont put a ton of delays and reverbs on every single pad\program as this can pile up on your CPU very quickly, learn how to use return channels and aux sends for those effects, so you'll need just 2, 3 of them instead of 20-30... this is especially useful if you are creating a huge live performance project. the cpu usage is not that greatly optimized, so even effects you used on a previous sequence and you aren't actually using will take a toll on your cpu.

-always flatten your pads when you are using a lot of effects on them that can reasonably be "printed" definitively on the sound (distortion, eq, compression), again, this will save you a lot of cpu.

-if you chop samples and want to copy some pads to other pads and create variations of your chops, remember to choose PAD PARAMETERS instead of NON DESTRUCTIVE SLICES when you are converting your chops to a program.

-if you want to draw smoother automations in GRID EDIT and you have timing correct (quantization) on, either turn it off temporarily or engage the DONT SNAP button, lower left on the grid edit window.

-remember to keep the levels of your pads in a drum program and of your programs relatively low at the beginning or you'll very soon saturate and clip your master bus.

ok, i'll add some more when i think of other stuff. please contribute.

1. Don't save on or delete anything on the internal drive with the stocksounds and demoes on it! It'll **** up your mpc. Use a SD card or whatever.

2. Think about file management early on. I got 5 folders on my sd cards (beats, drumbreaks, samples and two other I can't remember right now). Within the beats folder I got a folder for each year, and within that folders for each beat I made during that year. Same with the drumbreak folder. Keeping shit organized helps you alot.

3. Not sure about this one, maybe I'm doing something wrong, but I always save my programs separatly after saving the .xpj file. Reason for that is when I'm browsing beats - and perhaps I'm wrong here - but when I only save the .xpj file I can't preview the samples I used and therefor not know which beat is in the folder. This way I can.

4. If you got a sample which you chopped into a new program, put the original sample on a pad as well. Otherwise the mpc won't save it.

5. If you like to try alot of samples when kayering drumprograms pure the unused samples when saving your project. Saves you some HD space and keeps everything more organized.

Christov wrote:3. Not sure about this one, maybe I'm doing something wrong, but I always save my programs separatly after saving the .xpj file. Reason for that is when I'm browsing beats - and perhaps I'm wrong here - but when I only save the .xpj file I can't preview the samples I used and therefor not know which beat is in the folder. This way I can.

I'm not really sure what you are referring to here. When you save a project it saves everything currently sitting in memory; all the samples, all the programs, sequences, kits, settings etc, and if you access these saved samples in the browser (via the projectData folder) the samples will preview just fine. Can you explain this issue in more detail?

Christov wrote:3. Not sure about thi4. If you got a sample which you chopped into a new program, put the original sample on a pad as well. Otherwise the mpc won't save it.

We need to be clear on what we are talking about here, because if you chop a sample 'non-destructively' and make a program from it then the sample is already assigned to the program. If you chop a sample via 'Extract New Samples' then yes, the original sample is not present in the converted program.

However, if you save your project then the original sample will be saved as part of the project and permanently stored in the ProjectData folder on your disk, unless you 'purge' before saving.

I think for beginners it's important to stress the idea of saving your project regularly, either via autosave or via a manual save. If you save a project at regular intervals you will be creating an 'archive' of all the resources you ever used in your project, plus will ensure all your work is saved at all times. I don't recommend saving individual programs unless you have a very specific reason to do so. Just save the project.

To clarify a little further for the beginners. When you are working in a new project, all the samples you load or create are stored in 'active memory' (approximately 1GB of free RAM on most MPC models). When you save a project it creates a 'snapshot' of everything in the active memory at that time; samples, programs, instruments, plugin settings, sequences, audio tracks, FX settings etc. This is all saved to your selected disk location inside a hidden ProjectData folder (hidden by default, but can be made visible) along with a (visible) XPJ file (this is the project file that gets loaded when you wish to recall the project at a later date).

So when you turn on your MPC the next day, you load the XPJ file and your project is recreated exactly as it was when you last saved it. As you continue to work on your project, you will probably create or load more samples into that project. When you save your project again, these newer samples will also now be added to the projectData folder on your disk.

There might also be samples that are no longer assigned to any program and you might decide you don't want them clogging up your memory. These are considered 'unused' and if you wish you can remove these from active memory by using the purge function - this will free up more memory so you can add new samples and audio to your project. All those deleted/purged samples will no longer be loaded into the project when you next load the XPJ file, as they no longer form part of the 'active' project.

However if those samples were previously saved to the ProjectData folder then they will still be sitting there in the ProjectData folder on your disk. Purging does not remove anything from disk.

So purging is essential for reducing the amount of memory the current version of your project uses, but will have no impact on the size of the associated projectData folder on your storage disk. In fact this folder can get fairly large if you have been constantly loading samples, saving the project, then purging away those samples at a later date. But IMO that's rarely a problem with storage so cheap these days.

I personally would rather have that archive of all the samples ever used in the project, at least until I've finished a project, at which point I can re-save the final version of the project with a new name and then delete the older archive, or back it up separately to a different disk.

Christov wrote:2. Think about file management early on. I got 5 folders on my sd cards (beats, drumbreaks, samples and two other I can't remember right now). Within the beats folder I got a folder for each year, and within that folders for each beat I made during that year. Same with the drumbreak folder. Keeping shit organized helps you alot.

I also put the date before the the name of the beat like:
2023-04-17-Beat Name#1 (year/month/day#version - I may make different versions of the same beat, #1 is usually just the rough draft).

I do the same....

"Beat Name 4-17" in a "April 2023" Folder

Thanx for the insight Tutor! Appreciated. For clarification, I chop to new samples

I'm more of a Chop to Pad Parameters kinda guy

40Beatz wrote:I do the same....

"Beat Name 4-17" in a "April 2023" Folder

I put the year first so I don't have to make a folder for each month by year. I just make 1 beat folder & all the beats will be organized by the date within their own folder with the same name as the beat (Hope that makes sense). Also, the date acts as a beat social security number that never changes, even if I change the name of the beat later which may happen as the beat develops & I come up with a better name or if I can't come up with a name for the beat it still has the date as the name in the meantime. This helps to know what beat is what, if I need to find something on an old backup drive that has a beat that's named has been recently changed.
I should've put this info in my earlier post ,

Thats whats up!
I also make Project Preview Mixdowns for each beat. That way I dont have to load the beat to see what it sounds like

40Beatz wrote:Thats whats up!
I also make Project Preview Mixdowns for each beat. That way I dont have to load the beat to see what it sounds like

Beside being from NY that's another thing we have in common.
I've been on this mission to transfer all the sketch-beats I've made from other devices since I started making beats in 2002 to the Force, then I make a mixdown file to have it on my PC so I can compare them & make a playlist of the best of those so I can then remake them with all my current gear & experience.
Currently I'm working on a 5 album epic - 1 for each of the devices. Good times!

cool tips everyone.
another which might seem a bit more advanced, but can help beginners achieve a certain sound (i already mentioned this in other threads).

you want to do the infamous sidechain trick ducking sounds with your kick, you put a mother ducker on the track you want to duck, then a mother ducker input on your kicks. (remember you can have different pairings, using different mother ducker buses, like kick on synth on bus 1, high hat on a vocal on bus 2 etc...)
problem is: if your kick is a very long boomy kick (something like an 808) it will not work very good, because the tail of the kick is so long and loud , it will keep your synth compressed too long and not duck in a dynamic way. here's how you deal with it: put the mother ducker input on the second insert slot of a return track you dont use (return 4) and route this return track to a master output you dont use (say: outs 7,8), this way you will not hear the ducking signal. put an high pass filter or an eq just before the mother ducker on the return track and remove most of the bass from it, so only the punchy transient will remain, adjust mother ducker settings to taste.
this could be avoided if akai puts an high pass filter on the mother ducker input, like almost every decent compressor has. (remember, if you use an outboard compressor or a compressor plugin, you can use the sidechain filter to shape the signal who's driving the compression, even if you don't use external sidechain, example: you are compressing an entire drum bus, you remove some of the low frequency from the sidechain, the gain reduction will not be totally dominated by your boomy kick tail. in extreme cases you can even have the high hats or snare driving your gain reduction...for more advanced sound shaping).

alternative workflow for ducking: in your drum program you either copy your kick to a new pad and filter most bass out of it or put a different kick sample which has less boom and more transient, then put the mother ducker on this "ghost" kick. you then use simultaneous play on your actual kick to play this other "ghost" kick whenever you hit your real kick. you then route this ghost kick to an output you are not using (7,8) so it will not be mixed with your other sounds.

hyena wrote:cool tips everyone.
another which might seem a bit more advanced, but can help beginners achieve a certain sound (i already mentioned this in other threads).

you want to do the infamous sidechain trick ducking sounds with your kick, you put a mother ducker on the track you want to duck, then a mother ducker input on your kicks. (remember you can have different pairings, using different mother ducker buses, like kick on synth on bus 1, high hat on a vocal on bus 2 etc...)
problem is: if your kick is a very long boomy kick (something like an 808) it will not work very good, because the tail of the kick is so long and loud , it will keep your synth compressed too long and not duck in a dynamic way. here's how you deal with it: put the mother ducker input on the second insert slot of a return track you dont use (return 4) and route this return track to a master output you dont use (say: outs 7,8), this way you will not hear the ducking signal. put an high pass filter or an eq just before the mother ducker on the return track and remove most of the bass from it, so only the punchy transient will remain, adjust mother ducker settings to taste.
this could be avoided if akai puts an high pass filter on the mother ducker input, like almost every decent compressor has. (remember, if you use an outboard compressor or a compressor plugin, you can use the sidechain filter to shape the signal who's driving the compression, even if you don't use external sidechain, example: you are compressing an entire drum bus, you remove some of the low frequency from the sidechain, the gain reduction will not be totally dominated by your boomy kick tail. in extreme cases you can even have the high hats or snare driving your gain reduction...for more advanced sound shaping).

alternative workflow for ducking: in your drum program you either copy your kick to a new pad and filter most bass out of it or put a different kick sample which has less boom and more transient, then put the mother ducker on this "ghost" kick. you then use simultaneous play on your actual kick to play this other "ghost" kick whenever you hit your real kick. you then route this ghost kick to an output you are not using (7,8) so it will not be mixed with your other sounds.

No disrespect, but this is for beginners that may not even know what side-chain compression & a mother ducker is. This would be better as a video. Look up the term "the curse of knowledge"

B-Wise wrote:Look up the term "the curse of knowledge"

I used Google to look up "the curse of knowledge", apparently, it also works for looking up sidechain compression and Mother Ducker.

I guess my suggestion for beginners is to try your best to answer your own questions first, if possible. Google search, the MPC Bible, the MPC User's Manual, YouTube, searching past forum posts, etc. There's a wealth of resources that can help you get to proficiency with the MPC, you just need to tap into them.

well, in my more than a decade long experience as sound design teacher i know that young people usually learn what sidechain compression or ducking is even before knowing how a compressor works, especially in the field of dance music, it's such a popular technique. but mother ducker can give the impression of being bad for the job if you use the "wrong" (or untreated) kick...