drop yo tips....: mpc2000xl

This is one that I came up with on my own after realizing that you can't turn up the volume of a one bar loop after it's been triggered. For example, if you wanted to fade in a one bar loop, you'd have to use an external mixer or the volume control on the MPC, but you can't sequence that fade.

1. Make sure the loop is exactly the length of a 4/4 bar

2. Chop it up into 16 zones and make a program

3. Using the step edit, lay out each zone on a 16th note; zone one is on the first 16th note, zone 2 is on the second 16th note, etc. until zone 16 is on the last 16th note for the fourth beat. If you hit play your loop should sound seamless (that is if you chopped it to the correct length in step 1).

4. Make the velocity of the first zone 0, the second zone 8, the third zone 16, and so on until the last zone is 128. This should give you a fairly smooth rise in volume.

I don't think most people would be able to detect any choppiness if executed correctly. Obviously, you can use this technique for other velocity changes besides volume, for example panning. I hope I explained it clearly, if not let me know and I'll elaborate. Out of curiosity, if anyone else does this let me know.

Actually, now that I think of it, you could chop that loop in half and then chop each part it into 16 zones, thus coming up with 32 zones. Then place each zone on a 32nd note, that way your fade is even more fine. Of course you could keep chopping forever.

How do you know when the note is on the first, second, thirdetc.. 16 note?

Uno/1

gams

For your notes you will have to use step edit to see where they hit.

For a sample you have to listen along with it and figure it out the old fashioned way, that's the easiest way..

Or a beatmapper or loop calculator or something like that.

Jo!

My english isn't the best,but i'll try my best to explain the shit...(just a beginner tip i think, but whateva....)

Me and my beatbrother often had the problem, that our drumtrack didn't
fit to the sample correctly, the snare of the sample were a bit before or after our own snare, ya know?!
So in the past we would sample the sample again and again until it fit correclty, but now we found this little "trick" (it's in the manual,but overseen by me)

In the loop screen (trim) you can change the "to" position, so the first loop will start at this position and not at the very beginning of the sample---with this adjustment we are able to add or sub some points and check if the sample now fits...and it works very often!
have fun, beatbuilders

Here's another one to swing up your Hi-Hat:

You have 2 hi-hat tracks, in the first one you puit the hi-hat on the "standard"-position (01.00..01.48..02.00..02.48...)
the other one is like this: 01.24..01.72..02.24...02.72....
it's very quick now, doesn't sound that phat, but if you turn the volume of the second track a bit down (to about 30-40%) and erase all notes (of the 2nd track) in XX.01.XX and XX.03.XX you often get more "swing" in your beat....try it out!

hope you understand a bit

PeacE

just

Sometimes I play a bassline, then play it an octave lower, go into step edit and make all the lengths the same, then adjust the levels of each tone. The deeper octave fattens up the bass and makes it a bit deeper, works well if you're bass notes are kinda high and your tone loses some bass in the higher notes.

1. If you have a sequence of sounds that you want to play that are assigned to diff. pads and you don't want the sounds to overlap when hitting the pads, you can make it so that the next pad you hit turns off the sound that is currently playing.
>Open the params screen.
>Select the sound.
>Go to the "Overlap" section in the bottom right and hit "Open window"
>For the top is the sound that you have on the pad, the bottom two lines are for the pads that you want to turn off when hitting the pad assigned on the first line.

2. Making sounds fatter:
>Duplicate the sound, and assign it to a pad so that your sound is on two pads.
>Take the sound that you duplicated and trim off a tad of the begining of the sound in the "trim screen.
>Open the mixer screen and pan sound A to the left, and sound B to the right. They don't have to be panned all the way, experiment with it.
>Go to the "assign" screen by hitting Shift+6, then F1.
>Choose the note being the pad that has soundA on it, and then go down to "Mode" witch will read "Normal" by default.
>To the right choose the pad that has sound B on it, and assign.
>Go back to the main screen, and hit the pad that has sound A and it will be a fuller sound. Experiment with the panning to fine tune it.

3. Probably 99% of the time, I use the 16 Levels function to sequence my sample that I find. Then if it doesn't fit in the 4 or 8 bars, depending how long the sample is, I get it as close as I can, and then in the params screen for that sample, I adjust the tuning up or down by 1 or 2 levels.

eightsixteen wrote:This is one that I came up with on my own after realizing that you can't turn up the volume of a one bar loop after it's been triggered. For example, if you wanted to fade in a one bar loop, you'd have to use an external mixer or the volume control on the MPC, but you can't sequence that fade.

1. Make sure the loop is exactly the length of a 4/4 bar

2. Chop it up into 16 zones and make a program

3. Using the step edit, lay out each zone on a 16th note; zone one is on the first 16th note, zone 2 is on the second 16th note, etc. until zone 16 is on the last 16th note for the fourth beat. If you hit play your loop should sound seamless (that is if you chopped it to the correct length in step 1).

4. Make the velocity of the first zone 0, the second zone 8, the third zone 16, and so on until the last zone is 128. This should give you a fairly smooth rise in volume.

I don't think most people would be able to detect any choppiness if executed correctly. Obviously, you can use this technique for other velocity changes besides volume, for example panning. I hope I explained it clearly, if not let me know and I'll elaborate. Out of curiosity, if anyone else does this let me know.

Or, you can just go to your mixer screen, set "Record Mixer Changes" to "On", hit overdub + play, fade in the pad w/your loop on it.

Viola. Now your fade in is saved in your sequence data.

A really quick way to find the sample you want to trim or process is to press shift+program then F1, hit the pad with the sample that you want trimmed and Snd: should display the samples name. Next press shift+trim and your sounds wav will be on the screen.
This is way better than going to the trim screen and using the wheel to cycle through 64 drum sounds trying to find the right sample!

Another thing I try on a bad day when I can't seem to make a decent drum beat is to make a simple 1 measure beat then speed the tempo to 250 or 300, then I add extra kicks, snares and hats randomly, but I still try to stay on time. When I slow the tempo back down to normal speed like 90bpm it might sound really cluttered but there might be a little kick and snare pattern that might sound good, I just trim away the other stuff thats off time and keep the little parts that sound good.
This way I've stumbled upon a ton of patterns that I wouldn't have thought of normally and they sound new and fresh because I wasn't really thinking about a particular pattern when I made them.

SAMPLE YOUR SYNTH!
thats always cool [for me]
use more records....lol
ok tips...

when doing hats or ticks use full level-to not have to go back over
in step and adjust volume....lol-no brainer

when playing...say kick in ch 1 play out listen and if its ok
just go to step copy the first one delete and paste as you go along
to have your kicks-ect. come out same volume...

SAMPLE MONO...to save memory ect.
you can always change mono back to stereo with pan [thanks tutorial!!]
lol.

listen with track mute often to find nice ways to buildups and breakdowns-cuts ect.

i copy kicks and snares sometimes and resample one down [to sound gritty] then layer them for a hybrid sound...try it sometime [adjust volume]

best tip for beginners USE SEPERATE tracks on final make [of beat]

thats all i can think of now....
sorry.

1 IMPORTANT TIP!

respect your MPC, give him a kiss before you going to sleep. Tease him and clean him, and kiss him again..

Here's one: Get a radio into your studio, and start sampling. It can be more fun than digging for records and you can get some stuff you would never consider buying. Turn the dail to get some mad distortion on the snares you sample.
Ghetto soundmodule? Go into your kitchen, and take anything that makes sound back into the studio, then sample it with a mic or even with a headphone if you don't have a mic (like me). Try putting rice and pasta in cans for nice shakers. Take some tinfoil and pimpslap it, then layer this with a snare.
Also try breaking stuff or dropping it on the floor for strange percussion sounds. If you run out of shit to sample because you've broken everything, go to the supermarket and dig for samples there. Shopping will never be the same again.

For the timing freaks...here's a good tip. I always had trouble getting the hits exactly where I want. I mean, everything's cool but the snare needs to be just a little earlier. I used to used the step feature to move the sound back a little, but even just moving it back one tick might be too much. So now, on all my drum samples, I try to leave a little space before the sample. Then if I want it to play a little earlier or later, instead of using step I just tweak it in the trim screen. It works, cause you can move the start point of the sample just a small fraction and it will trigger just a bit faster or slower.

To add a more "full-ER" sound to your tracks or drumz make two or three of the same drum sound and then hav them all playing at the same time but with one of the pads slow it down maybe +1 and and a RESON of 5, and the other on you slow down -2 and drop the filter from 100 to maybe 85(play with it). This is really good for drum hits. If it's a longer sample make only one pad and slow it donw by -1 ans turn the 100 to 20 and add a RESON of 6-8 play it a 1\16 of a secound after the original one and it give your sample nice sound especially if you're into housemusic. BUt you have to make sure the new track is lower than the one with the original or you'll always get that "flanger/airplane'n" sound which you might want but not all the time though.
I make a phoney arpeggator when I load a keyboard bass sound into a pad and do the SHIFT+NOTE VARIATION which accesses that sound and then while the track is playing I hold down TAP TEMPO with pointer finger(LFT hand) and move the slide up and down with thumb(LFT Hand) all whie holding down whichever pad with any finger on my Right hand. I know that might seem weird sounding to do but load a bass into it and have the tempo at 1/32 and do it the last two counts of every other measure while you have your other drummz playing with the above trick and you're gonna hear something really different and you'll love I bet.....Just my two centz...Peaceout!
XKwest-
I like that track Neptune too it reminds my of Cypress,Psycho Realm,Soul assassins and the like...