Way to latch and not retrigger a midi program (drones)?

Hey, folks,

Still learning the ropes with sequencing here, have a question. I play a lot of drone type music. And, of course, say, in a 16 bar sequence, that means holding the note for 16 bars. The problem is, of course, the retriggering. If I don't take my finger off on the very last second, it won't replay that sequence until it goes through the entire 16 bars again, and when it does, it retriggers it, every time. When you have a pad with a big sweep on the front of it, you don't generally want to do that. You want to trigger it once, and just sustain on subsequent repeats. I know, for example, when one uses Ableton live and loops a midi note that is constant, it doesn't retrigger it, so you can just have one seamless pad that plays indefinitely. Is there some sort of workaround for this, as, in a live setting, it really makes doing the drones next to impossible?

If the end of the note doesn’t sit so well why not select the note and ‘edit end’ so it will end exactly where you want it to?

zangetsu01 wrote:If the end of the note doesn’t sit so well why not select the note and ‘edit end’ so it will end exactly where you want it to?

Mostly because when doing that live, it would disrupt the flow... plus, it still retriggers the note instead of sustaining it.

If you don't record them and just push them on as the sequence goes, they play until the end.
Or you can extend the beats of the sequence until they fit with the drone length so it retriggers properly

Frisbi wrote:If you don't record them and just push them on as the sequence goes, they play until the end.
Or you can extend the beats of the sequence until they fit with the drone length so it retriggers properly

When you say 'push them on', what do you mean? I can't keep holding that note and then go play other synths through the Live.

You don't need to hold it.
Put oneshot on program edit and then you just need to switch it on and it plays until the end.
But best solution for me would be to extend the beats of the sequence so the drone makes a whole cycle and loops properly.
Just extend the bars from main menu andb then copy the content of every track to fill the bars of the sequence

I'll try that, thanks.

Old post, but found a solution that might be useful for other ppl..

Boss FS-5L is a latch pedal (sustain without note off, press again for note off).
If you want to drone on one or multiple channels and play live on other channels, use the FS-5L on a midi controller and a sustain pedal on your MPC..

If you still are on MPC 2.X just use clip programs, that is what it is made for. There are no clip programs on 3.x though.

The only chances you have are two:
1 To extend your sample with a computer editor, so it lasts as long as you want, you import it on Mpc, you put it on a drum track and then you trigger it manually hitting the pad.
2 You extend the sequence on MPC and make it long as the sample, so it gets triggered good.

No, clip mode doesn't change anything in this regard.

Straker wrote:The only chances you have are two:
1 To extend your sample with a computer editor, so it lasts as long as you want, you import it on Mpc, you put it on a drum track and then you trigger it manually hitting the pad.
2 You extend the sequence on MPC and make it long as the sample, so it gets triggered good.

No, clip mode doesn't change anything in this regard.

2 defeats the purpose of trying to trigger the looped sound live.

1 wastes RAM and doesn't solve anything either.

The point of latching is to be able to trigger a sound anytime without sequencing it, hold it without having to hold a pad then stopping it only when needed, anytime. None of your workarounds addresses these. Clip program did but it is gone without any alternative.

mpc_fan_2022 wrote:

Straker wrote:The only chances you have are two:
1 To extend your sample with a computer editor, so it lasts as long as you want, you import it on Mpc, you put it on a drum track and then you trigger it manually hitting the pad.
2 You extend the sequence on MPC and make it long as the sample, so it gets triggered good.

No, clip mode doesn't change anything in this regard.

2 defeats the purpose of trying to trigger the looped sound live.

1 wastes RAM and doesn't solve anything either.

The point of latching is to be able to trigger a sound anytime without sequencing it, hold it without having to hold a pad then stopping it only when needed, anytime. None of your workarounds addresses these. Clip program did but it is gone without any alternative.

1- You can set that long sample to stream from disk to save on RAM, but you don't have to use a PC to make a long sample, just resample it while its looping for as long as you think is needed Not the best way but could that work as an workaround?

Also, here's a big maybe since I haven't tried it and just thought of it, you don't not even need that long of a sample if you set the program to Mono or Poly but put some pads in the same mute group, then put the same sample that you want to loop on different pads and set pad play type to note off, or whatever it's called when the pad plays when you let go of it. Then set pad 1 to trigger p2 & p3 to trigger p1, which would hopefully re-trigger p2 and on & on. I'll try this out later, but pad looping should just a pad play type like one-shot & Note On. Hopefully that's what's on the menu if they they make "Drum Tracks XL" or whatever.

mpc_fan_2022 wrote:

Straker wrote:The only chances you have are two:
1 To extend your sample with a computer editor, so it lasts as long as you want, you import it on Mpc, you put it on a drum track and then you trigger it manually hitting the pad.
2 You extend the sequence on MPC and make it long as the sample, so it gets triggered good.

No, clip mode doesn't change anything in this regard.

2 defeats the purpose of trying to trigger the looped sound live.

1 wastes RAM and doesn't solve anything either.

The point of latching is to be able to trigger a sound anytime without sequencing it, hold it without having to hold a pad then stopping it only when needed, anytime. None of your workarounds addresses these. Clip program did but it is gone without any alternative.

1 No, you don't waste Ram so much, I use long samples and MPC handles them good, I never run out of memory.
And on MPC3 there should be disk streaming so problem solved anyway...

You can fade in/out the sample with volumes or filters assigned to qlinks, or make it go on the background with flavor, the chances are many, just use your creativity.

I also had your same problem and I solved it these ways.

I was wondering...Can you use the Mod Matrix to Turn CC Sustain Midi Note On/Off? Put that event in List Edit. Never Tried it.