SuperKonquer wrote:Don't walk upon the oft frequented path of NOT using songmode. Songmode is your effervescent friend. When creating, use song mode to glue sequences together by laying out your sequences then use convert to sequence. It takes 5 secs to do. If you get in a habit of using songmode this way now, you won't get trapped in the same experience of others who are stopped in their tracks due to lack of a linear arranger. Consider "convert to sequence" your linear arranger and let your music flow like a cool spring in the forest of Gaia.
This is one of the most important aspects to grasp if you wanna enjoy the mpc workflow. sequences are really powerful in that they can be very short or very long, and this use of song mode as a part arrangement laboratory is key to unlocking the mpc power!
to clarify it a lil bit more i'll throw an example here
1)sequence 1 you create a simple drum beat of 2 bars.
2)copy sequence 1 to sequence 2 and modify that beat a little, adding a fill at the end or whatever you like.
3)go to song mode, insert seq 1 and have it loop 3 times, after it insert seq2 and have it loop 1 time.
4)convert to sequence 3, now you have a nice 8 bars sequence.
5) on track 2 you put a bass instrument (keygroup, plugin, an external midi synth, whatever) and you record a good 8 bars bassline over your drums.
6) copy seq3 to seq4
7)modify the bassline on seq4, change some notes, whatever. maybe add some micro variations to your drums too.
8 ) go to song mode , clear the previous song, insert seq3 as first step, have it loop 1 time, insert seq4 on the second step having it loop 1 time.
9)convert to seq 5: now you have a cool 16 bars with drums and bass, not loopy, interesting.
10) go to track 3 and insert , say, a rhodes (again, whatever: plugin, keygroup etc...) and record a 16 bars chord progression over it.
11) copy seq 5 to seq 6, erase drums track and bass track, keep just the chords, and record new drums and bass on top of it.
12)etc etc etc... rinse and repeat, insert "break" sequences, "bridge" or "solo" sequences, pauses etc... and you end up with a song. of course you can record audio on top of the final song once it's arranged, or on the long sequences you created previously (8 or 16 bars sequences for example).