Exchange tips and tricks for the Akai MPC4000
By kreative Wed Apr 20, 2005 5:46 pm
While I'm in the [SONG] screen. I have all my sequences in place. I play it and it sounds great. But when I [convert to sequence] the programs that I used get all shuffled and the beat does play right. Can anyone help me out to avoid this from happening again?

Thanks :wink:

By ddot_SFV Wed Apr 20, 2005 6:46 pm
i think all of your tracks have to refer to the same midi channel and track within each sequence. for example, if in sequence 1 you have your bass line on track 4, ch. 4 and your kick drum on track 1, then sequence two has to be set up exactly the same way and so on.

By kreative Wed Apr 20, 2005 9:14 pm
Thanks man! I think that is it. I remember doing that last time I had this problem. I just forgot about it... Too much drinking :wink:

Thanks again
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By Rob Thu Apr 21, 2005 5:46 am
There's more to it. Apart from the matching track order in all sequences used for the song, you have to make sure to get rid of any real-time tweaks used in some of the sequences.

With 'real-time tweaks' I mean the velocity, transpose and duration fields in the track area of the main screen. If you changed those values by only turning the dial when the cursor is over the field, the track's original values will be tweaked in real-time, the midi data will not really be changed. To change that into 'hard' values, you have to press the Windows key when sitting on one of these fields and follow instructions. If I remember correctly, there's an option there to do the changes for all tracks at once (how thoughtfull!).

Stricktly spoken, you only have to do this if *some* of the sequences in your song have these real-time velocity, duration or transpose tweaks set. It's not needed if all the sequences have the exact same tweaks defined.

Why? Simple really. When the song (which is a chain of sequences) is converted into a new sequence, the mpc only looks at the settings of the *first* sequence used in the song, and uses these settings for the new, generated, longer sequence. So if one of the later original sequences in the song has e.g. a transpose of +12 defined, the new, generated sequence will never 'know', since the first original sequence in the song didn't have that transpose value defined.

So to successfully build a new sequence out of a song (a chain of sequences), make sure that:

1. all sequences in the song have the exact same track order.
2. all sequences in the song have their real-time tweaks converted to hard midi data.
Last edited by Rob on Thu Apr 21, 2005 5:54 am, edited 1 time in total.
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By feline1 Thu Apr 21, 2005 5:52 am
set the right settings and it will put in Program Change messages to make everything work.
Read the manual!

Alternatively,
don't bother reading the manual,
and have all your song screwed up! :-)
Your choice.... :lol:

Think it might be in MISC mode or sthg.
Or maybe you press WINDOW in SONG mode
Can't remember.

By kreative Thu Apr 21, 2005 8:11 pm
Thanks for the help guys!