Pro Pack and Clips

EnochLight wrote:As a longtime Force user, I always hated - literally HATED - the old "Clip Programs" on MPC 2.x compared to the Clip Matrix on Force. So now that ya'all have the actual Clip Matrix on your 1st-gen MPC's, can someone explain to me why the old Clip Program was allegedly superior?

Because I can't for the life of me remember whether we could contain MIDI (read: Drum Programs, Plugins, CV, etc) on a single clip or not. Wasn't it just for audio?

As an owner of both MPC and Force, and the one struggling from this feature-cut, I am glad to answer why
Clip Programs 2.X were perfect exactly as a live audio clip launcher. Let me break it down on example. I have a band, and we are using it for live performances this way:

1) Each song is a separate Clip Program, each pad is an instrumental scene - intro, verse1, chorus1, verse2, chorus2, verse3, etc. I might have these scenes on lower 8 pads, grouped to same Mute Group, so only 1 is played at a time. Also on upper 8 pads I might have some one-shot samples in another mute group to play not synced with sequence bpm. So I have both clips and free-play samples on same programs, and MPC's 16 pads is enough to play whole song without pagination through groups
2) No pre-defined Clip Matrix is needed. If I decide to play some song - I just load Clip Program to current sequence - and I can play scenes with pads instantly, in any order I want. It was superior because MPC One have limited RAM so I can't load all the clips at once. So I have a project with empty sequences with pre-defined BPM, load clip program to sequence, boom, it plays in sync. Unload Clip Program if I don't need it anymore, load another, while having same FX setup, knobs, etc. I use colors and pad positions to remember which scene is on which pad. Like, I have intros always on pad1 and it's yellow, pad2 is verse1 and it's green, etc
3) My song program can be split by instrumental layers - say, I have drums1, drums2, bass1, bass2, keys1, keys2, pads1, pads2, and I want to play their combinations freely. If you want to achieve this on Force's Clip Matrix, using single Drum Program you could either have to pre-define all the sample combinations, like - row1 is drums1, row2 is drums1+bass1, etc, and you would have more than 8 rows, so you can't trigger them without pagination. Or, you might use pad-mute, but for this, you'd switch back and forth between matrix and program's pads, which is obviusly not that handy during live performance (and pad mute can't be quantized on Force AFAIK, so I can't enable/disable sample e.g. on next bar)

As a short summary - using 2.X Clip Programs you can freestyle your scenes launch, having all the 16 pads on hand. Using force you have just 8 rows this way and you have to always pre-define them. Using Clip Matrix on MPC 3.6 you have just 4 + pagination which is even worse. Let me know if you have ideas how to re-imagine same workflow using new Firmware or at least using Force.

Mikhail Shoroh wrote:

EnochLight wrote:As a longtime Force user, I always hated - literally HATED - the old "Clip Programs" on MPC 2.x compared to the Clip Matrix on Force. So now that ya'all have the actual Clip Matrix on your 1st-gen MPC's, can someone explain to me why the old Clip Program was allegedly superior?

Because I can't for the life of me remember whether we could contain MIDI (read: Drum Programs, Plugins, CV, etc) on a single clip or not. Wasn't it just for audio?

As an owner of both MPC and Force, and the one struggling from this feature-cut, I am glad to answer why
Clip Programs 2.X were perfect exactly as a live audio clip launcher. Let me break it down on example. I have a band, and we are using it for live performances this way:

1) Each song is a separate Clip Program, each pad is an instrumental scene - intro, verse1, chorus1, verse2, chorus2, verse3, etc. I might have these scenes on lower 8 pads, grouped to same Mute Group, so only 1 is played at a time. Also on upper 8 pads I might have some one-shot samples in another mute group to play not synced with sequence bpm. So I have both clips and free-play samples on same programs, and MPC's 16 pads is enough to play whole song without pagination through groups
2) No pre-defined Clip Matrix is needed. If I decide to play some song - I just load Clip Program to current sequence - and I can play scenes with pads instantly, in any order I want. It was superior because MPC One have limited RAM so I can't load all the clips at once. So I have a project with empty sequences with pre-defined BPM, load clip program to sequence, boom, it plays in sync. Unload Clip Program if I don't need it anymore, load another, while having same FX setup, knobs, etc. I use colors and pad positions to remember which scene is on which pad. Like, I have intros always on pad1 and it's yellow, pad2 is verse1 and it's green, etc
3) My song program can be split by instrumental layers - say, I have drums1, drums2, bass1, bass2, keys1, keys2, pads1, pads2, and I want to play their combinations freely. If you want to achieve this on Force's Clip Matrix, using single Drum Program you could either have to pre-define all the sample combinations, like - row1 is drums1, row2 is drums1+bass1, etc, and you would have more than 8 rows, so you can't trigger them without pagination. Or, you might use pad-mute, but for this, you'd switch back and forth between matrix and program's pads, which is obviusly not that handy during live performance (and pad mute can't be quantized on Force AFAIK, so I can't enable/disable sample e.g. on next bar)

As a short summary - using 2.X Clip Programs you can freestyle your scenes launch, having all the 16 pads on hand. Using force you have just 8 rows this way and you have to always pre-define them. Using Clip Matrix on MPC 3.6 you have just 4 + pagination which is even worse. Let me know if you have ideas how to re-imagine same workflow using new Firmware or at least using Force.

I appreciate you chiming in, as it's been a long time since I played with 2.x and have little to no memory of using the old clip programs.

I'll concede that having to page/shift through the Clip Matrix is obviously a thing, but - you can literally do everything you describe on MPC 3.6 + Clip Matrix, can't you? I'd also argue that the way the Clip Matrix works (which is how it has always worked on Force) is superior to the old 2.x clip programs - which always felt clunky to me. You can make entire song sections (or complete songs) on 1 Clip in the Matrix and free-style, etc. So, still having difficulty conceptualizing the issue.

EnochLight wrote:You can make entire song sections (or complete songs) on 1 Clip in the Matrix and free-style

That's the answer, exactly as you've said, to play different scenes you have to make entire song sections in Clip Matrix
To make a set for 20 songs in single project - I have to pre-create Clip Matrix for 20 Drum Programs, putting sample notes on grid first, and then trigger those clips. It's 8 clips per column for Force (+pagination), and just 4 clips (+pagination) on MPC 3.6. With 2.X I can just load and play Clip Programs instantly, having 16 scenes in hand. As in 3.6 we have only Drum Programs - it's still possible to play them as drum pads, but there's no quantization and looping for pads. As I can understand from mpc forum/reddit etc - people who want Clip Programs back - are missing same workflow as I do - we just want to play audio samples quantized and looped without creating exact song structure

is there a way to set the default start form clips to toggle instead of trigger?

ontherun wrote:is there a way to set the default start form clips to toggle instead of trigger?

Nope, but it should be. You can set it once & save it as a project template. If you use Legato mode a lot, you may want to set that up too or make more than one template.

I was working with a template for a while, mostly because of the midi mapping for my external controller.
What I really dont like is that I need a bunch of tracks where volume and stuff is mapped.
But most of the time i dont use all of the tracks and when I move a track or change from midi to drum my mapping are gone and I have a lot of empty ones.

I like it to start with one track and than go forward, makes it easier to work with the mixer and arranger and now clip matrix.

ontherun wrote:I was working with a template for a while, mostly because of the midi mapping for my external controller.
What I really dont like is that I need a bunch of tracks where volume and stuff is mapped.
But most of the time i dont use all of the tracks and when I move a track or change from midi to drum my mapping are gone and I have a lot of empty ones.

I like it to start with one track and than go forward, makes it easier to work with the mixer and arranger and now clip matrix.

That's sounds like a bug. Did you ever report it?

B-Wise wrote:

ontherun wrote:I was working with a template for a while, mostly because of the midi mapping for my external controller.
What I really dont like is that I need a bunch of tracks where volume and stuff is mapped.
But most of the time i dont use all of the tracks and when I move a track or change from midi to drum my mapping are gone and I have a lot of empty ones.

I like it to start with one track and than go forward, makes it easier to work with the mixer and arranger and now clip matrix.

That's sounds like a bug. Did you ever report it?

Do you mean the emply mappings whwn i change a tracktype.
The .ain provlem is i csnt mapp anything to not existing tracks. I would love to have volume and mute settings for the firdt 8 tracks, even if they dont exist yet

ontherun wrote:Do you mean the emply mappings whwn i change a tracktype.
The .ain provlem is i csnt mapp anything to not existing tracks. I would love to have volume and mute settings for the firdt 8 tracks, even if they dont exist yet

I get you're on the run, but you gotta text better than this.

There's Macro preset that's made for just vol & another for panning.

I was talking about the Track Macros. You can save them as separate track files & load them into new projects. I got multiple templates for different setups. One has over 60 tracks. Most I don't need per project, 51 of them are MIDI tracks for 4 devices (16=the RS7000, 16=Proteus2500, 8=MC707, 11=for TR8S). I don't know what I'll use at the start but I can delete them if I think I don't need them, but since I have their track files (with the save track macros) I can always reload them if needed. I don't know what you mean by, you can't assign to non existing tracks?

Just make them. Start with a blank Project & set up everything you want the way you like;

Tracks names (which is more important if you use clips as they get named after the track name & the row they were created on. A crappy naming system can make the clip matrix a hot looking mess. I use went many naming formats on the Force over the years & it still a work in progress. This would need it's own thread.

Set up macros for MIDI, Drum Tracks & maybe even Project, Pad FX, XYFX macros...

You can now even name each launch row, like Intro Verse#1, Hook, Outro...

You may know all this but, if you could better explain what you mean, it could help you better.

sorry for the mess, i was really on the run.

I am talking about "midi learn" and controlling parameters with a novation launchcontrol.
Can they be saved for each track?
I have a folder full of midi pogramms with CC mapped to most functions.
But im leaning to just doing most stuff inside the MPC and movied the launchcontrol to storage.

ontherun wrote:sorry for the mess, i was really on the run.

I am talking about "midi learn" and controlling parameters with a novation launchcontrol.
Can they be saved for each track?
I have a folder full of midi pogramms with CC mapped to most functions.
But im leaning to just doing most stuff inside the MPC and movied the launchcontrol to storage.

Lol.

All the MIDI tracks that mentioned is made to control the ext devices. There named after them & each macro knob has the the name/nickname, track number & parameters name. This get loaded as my new project & have all these setting & other things about the project ready to go. I ain't doing the same tedious shit over & over. There's a bug on the Force that makes it so track needs to reloaded each time. It might be fixed now & it may never been a bug on the MPC.

Templates are the way to go!

1/ In the clip matrix, is it possible adjust the level of an audio clip in an audio track without having to touch the track level or automating the volume or use scenes? do audio clips have their own level setting?

2/ is it possible to keep the clip launch function for pads when changing modes? It's possible to trigger clips via the pads in the clip matrix view, however, switching to any other mode will make the pads go back to drum triggering, it seems like one cannot use the pads for clip launching outside the clip matrix view, which sucks, if one wants to tweak effects or levels while launching clips...

B-Wise wrote:

ontherun wrote:sorry for the mess, i was really on the run.

I am talking about "midi learn" and controlling parameters with a novation launchcontrol.
Can they be saved for each track?
I have a folder full of midi pogramms with CC mapped to most functions.
But im leaning to just doing most stuff inside the MPC and movied the launchcontrol to storage.

Lol.

All the MIDI tracks that mentioned is made to control the ext devices. There named after them & each macro knob has the the name/nickname, track number & parameters name. This get loaded as my new project & have all these setting & other things about the project ready to go. I ain't doing the same tedious shit over & over. There's a bug on the Force that makes it so track needs to reloaded each time. It might be fixed now & it may never been a bug on the MPC.

Templates are the way to go!

My comment had typos:
Lol.

All the MIDI tracks that I mentioned is made to control ext devices like synths. The MIDI tracks are named after device & each macro knob has the device name/nickname & track number (for synths that has multiple tracks like the MC707 that has & parameters name. This Project Template gets loaded as my new project & have all these setting & other things about the project ready to go. I ain't doing the same tedious Project setting setup shit over & over. There's a bug on the Force that makes it so that track 1 needs to reloaded each time. It might be fixed now & it may never been a bug on the MPC.

Templates are the way to go!

Great clip-matrix/arranger 101 & workflow tips on gen1 MPCs.

Mikhail Shoroh wrote:I just load Clip Program to current sequence - and I can play scenes with pads instantly, in any order I want. It was superior because MPC One have limited RAM so I can't load all the clips at once. So I have a project with empty sequences with pre-defined BPM, load clip program to sequence, boom, it plays in sync. Unload Clip Program if I don't need it anymore, load another,

Wouldn't a drum program with disk streaming samples fill your requirement ?