Pro Pack and Clips

What a scam... these motherless whores made us wait half a decade and then turn around and make us pay for the clips feature after buying an incredibly expensive piece of hardware. like bmw making people pay for the heated seats. just makes me not wanna spend my money on that device at all. i'm happy to be excluded from the next era of MPC if the next era is just a buncha musically-political weirdos shelling out cash for features. I am not down with all that.

I hate that akai knows its sceners so well that it's got the "everyman" mpc user fkn LOCKED. Akai's been clockin folks, peepin em.. creeping. I feel insulted they think we're all punks who wanna just bust out money endlessly for their goofy offerings. For real: i jacked it all in 2.XX. I am not getting punked by some greed machine that wants me to pay to unlock features that already exist within a device i bought and paid for. people need to be more vocal about it, its no bueno homies..

down with the locked features, down with new features or internet connectivity what-so-ever. F all that... we dont want to be strung along by a single god damned piece of studio gear that constantly has some special quirk that insures there is 0 standardization for projects from studio to studio unless every studio buys or rips off all their features and had a equal or newer firmware.

for as many hip hop heads there are around here I find it very odd that so many people would rather pay for something than loot it lol. i feel like looting akais shit and openly abusing it gives me some extra sauce on my steeze. No jokes, i'd jack the box too if i could find one to steal that wouldn't hurt anyones feelings heh. ultros, "the dude who doesn't pay". stiff you before last call dip out the side door.

oldwired wrote:

EnochLight wrote:None of these are on the first-gen MPC's (nor comparing 2.x's approach to Clip Programs), which is the real mystery...

He did a video about the Pro Pack for his own channel using his Live 2: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0VpkLx5jcHo

That should help some Gen-1 MPC users!

So are clips basically a workaround for programs? Or maybe in the way I used to use programs on older MPCs:

- create program (drum kit)
- load program to track 1, record kick
- load program to track 2, record snare
- load program to track 3, hi hat

Et cetera, et cetera, et cetera...

I basically sequence out all my drums & sounds on their own individual tracks and play with different pattern variations/track mutes

With the Live 2 you either build a drum kit on one track and record all your drums on that track, or you would have to load every sound into it's own track...effectively losing the drum "kit" qualities programs provided. (or third option: record all drums to one track, copy track multiple times, delete out unwanted drums in each copy)

I know I can make a kit within one track...and then copy that track to a bunch others for every other sound I want to use...but at that point you're just adding more data into the machine, so I'm trying to avoid that.

I haven't gotten into the clips yet, but the way I'm assuming I can use them the way I used programs:

- create drum kit track 1 of seq 1
- enter into clip mode
- record clip of kick
- record clip of snare
- record clip of hat

And all I have to do is create *one* track with all my drums & samples on it, right? And then I can use that *one* track to pull all my drums from in clip mode?

The Jackal wrote:So are clips basically a workaround for programs? Or maybe in the way I used to use programs on older MPCs:

- create program (drum kit)
- load program to track 1, record kick
- load program to track 2, record snare
- load program to track 3, hi hat

Et cetera, et cetera, et cetera...

I basically sequence out all my drums & sounds on their own individual tracks and play with different pattern variations/track mutes

With the Live 2 you either build a drum kit on one track and record all your drums on that track, or you would have to load every sound into it's own track...effectively losing the drum "kit" qualities programs provided. (or third option: record all drums to one track, copy track multiple times, delete out unwanted drums in each copy)

I know I can make a kit within one track...and then copy that track to a bunch others for every other sound I want to use...but at that point you're just adding more data into the machine, so I'm trying to avoid that.

I haven't gotten into the clips yet, but the way I'm assuming I can use them the way I used programs:

- create drum kit track 1 of seq 1
- enter into clip mode
- record clip of kick
- record clip of snare
- record clip of hat

And all I have to do is create *one* track with all my drums & samples on it, right? And then I can use that *one* track to pull all my drums from in clip mode?

I would just make 1 main drum track with all the samples & other drum track name after all the sounds that I want on it own track; Kick, Snare, Hat with no samples on them, but MIDI Send them to the main drum track. Now, you can play & edit the samples on one track, record on any of the empty tracks ( which triggers the Main Drum Track) & just move & delete any other samples pads that not for that track, like if you're on the Hat track & recorded the hats, kick & snare, move the kick & snare to their own track & delete them on the hat track.

Another method is to record everything on just one drum track with samples like normal, but have different clips for whats on it like; All-Drums1, Kick (just the kick), No-hats (All drums except the hats)... This may seem like its too much, but the clip-matrix view helps you to see more more things at once. You can just copy any of these clips where ever they're needed. You can even make a template with a row of these clips with names like All-Drums... to save time from naming them in every project. The matrix can take away the need for Mute Tracks.

This can get messy, so I would recommend you use the top section for clips ideas (I call it the Clip-Bank) & create a dummy row of empty clips to act as a Matrix divider (I name these clips - just to know that the dummy row. You can name the Launch row on the right of the matrix) & start your beat seqs beneath that dummy row using the "Insert & Capture" feature that will paste all the active clips on a new row. The Navigation view can help you move around the matrix faster.

This is basically turning the matrix into an Ableton style seq with it's Session/Arranger view. I also recently started to create another section after that dummy row to use for combo clips that's has all the clips that I combine either as amended (JJOS has this) or octave stacks (putting 2 clips that's playing the same thing at different octaves on 1 clip).

I made a basic video of this a while ago but it's need to be updated, but show it in action & it may help to see the overall concept: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ankzrt0 ... GX4H2dlvOT

B-Wise wrote:Another method is to record everything on just one drum track with samples like normal, but have different clips for whats on it like; All-Drums1, Kick (just the kick), No-hats (All drums except the hats)...

This is what I was doing anyway, to have all variations available through sequence change rather than having to mess with pad mutes (also because my drums are Drumsynth or MIDI more often than drum samples, but that is beside the point) so having variations as stacks of clips in the matrix is the same but better - because now each instrument's variations are not tied to the other instrument's.

Jean-Marc Liotier wrote:

B-Wise wrote:Another method is to record everything on just one drum track with samples like normal, but have different clips for whats on it like; All-Drums1, Kick (just the kick), No-hats (All drums except the hats)...

This is what I was doing anyway, to have all variations available through sequence change rather than having to mess with pad mutes (also because my drums are Drumsynth or MIDI more often than drum samples, but that is beside the point) so having variations as stacks of clips in the matrix is the same but better - because now each instrument's variations are not tied to the other instrument's.

Happy to know I didn't write all that for nothing

This is how I've been doing it myself. Like that there's options. I also, like to mute on the fly so I saved in the project template marcos that mute each of the drum pads & can either record the mute automation live into the arranger or clips & then pick the mute automation takes I like best & record that into the arranger or row.

I wonder if all future feature updates will only be available to pro pack owners , or will the greedy t w a t s. Make it a chargeable pro pack 2 .

Lampdog wrote:Many of us (me included) blurted out "I'd pay for reverb pro" and some other shit, so, it happened. Many said, "They don't listen!" Welp, they heard that "take my money" part loud and clear.

The Streets is Watching

I don't mind paying it by itself, but putting it in a pack is wack!

B-Wise wrote:The Streets is Watching

Did someone say The Streets?

the last time i give akai my money....!

If that forum avatar photo is your actual gear, something tells me you'll be just fine.

lol most of that has been swapped out for other stuff. but yeah, gas is not a problem for me anymore with what I have.

Well the weekend is here and I'm pretty much devoting my next two days to music work.

Haven't integrated the Live 2 into my setup yet because I'm still working through old JJOS projects on my 1000, but some features I told myself I didn't give a shit about (speaker, battery) have made it great for laying in bed at night with while I work on "disposable projects" i.e. banging out ideas I'm not going to save because they're really just exercises in learning the machine.

I'll have to have some of these sessions the next 48 hours while I teach myself clips; kinda feeling like I need to simplify my drums anyway, maybe minimalize/group them better...so I'll the suggestions here and see what I like best. I typically group out (audio-wise) kick, clap/snare, hats, rhythm/percussion, so I should probably just carry this over audio workflow over to the way I sequence too and start using a 4 track/4 clip process in the box.

The Jackal wrote:Well the weekend is here and I'm pretty much devoting my next two days to music work.

Haven't integrated the Live 2 into my setup yet because I'm still working through old JJOS projects on my 1000, but some features I told myself I didn't give a shit about (speaker, battery) have made it great for laying in bed at night with while I work on "disposable projects" i.e. banging out ideas I'm not going to save because they're really just exercises in learning the machine.

I'll have to have some of these sessions the next 48 hours while I teach myself clips; kinda feeling like I need to simplify my drums anyway, maybe minimalize/group them better...so I'll the suggestions here and see what I like best. I typically group out (audio-wise) kick, clap/snare, hats, rhythm/percussion, so I should probably just carry this over audio workflow over to the way I sequence too and start using a 4 track/4 clip process in the box.

Sounds like a fun weekend! I hope you find a method that works for you. I know you'll like clips & the matrix once YOU start using them with an open mind like kid with new toys!
Let us know how it went. Peace!