The "MINI SAMPLE GLITCH" tutorial

The “MINI SAMPLE GLITCH” tutorial:
Created by Jesse Feinberg 2005


The following description is an example of how to exploit this new glitch I found in Version 1.07 for the MPC1000. Other versions should work too. This glitch may work on other MPC models as well. This glitch can be applied to any regular wav file that would work with the MPC1000. This would be a 1411 kbps WAV audio file. There doesn’t seem to be any limits to the length of the sample either. I suggest recording a brand new sample into your MPC, after its been restarted. I am going to walk you through how I just created a new mini glitch file just a few minutes ago. Below that will be all of the extra info you need to know… holla!


1. RECORD a sample into your mpc. You can probably load one up, but for fun, record something new and save it to memory. Make it long for demo purposes.
2. Go to TRIM and DISCARD any excess noise/silence at the beginning and end.
3. Once discarded, in the same TRIM page, set the start at 0 and the end at 1. You are selecting only the first little sample at the beginning. Just a tiny little sample.
4. You can preview this newly selected area by holding down PAD 13 (PLAYLOOP). You will hear the whole sample, even though you only selected a tiny little area! Believe it or not, THIS IS SAVEABLE!!!
5. Ok, so to use it, go to the PROGRAM screen. Select a new program to work in.
6. Assign the new sample to any pad in the new program.
7. Set the sample to NOTE ON. It doesn’t matter about poly or mono, etc…
8. Go to the TRIM loop page, and change the LOOP to ON.
9. Now go back to the MAIN page or PROGRAM. Your done!

The “MINI SAMPLE” should play the whole long sample you recorded into the mpc, only it’s a tiny little blip of a sample! It may sound a little “bit grunger” style, or synthy/gritty, BUT OH SO COOL! You can change the pitch in the PROGRAM screen. And I think the filters should work on it too. I came across this when I had a bunch of new samples in my memory ready to get chopped up. I selected a tiny little area on one of the samples to loop, and then I noticed this high pitch sound. I adjusted both the START and END of the area and came across an area 20 samples long. I heard the whole sample playing when I held down PAD 13 (PLAYLOOP). It actually continued playing other samples in the memory after the first one ended. It was CRAZY how long it was! I extracted this little 20 sample long area. I then assigned it to the program and followed the instructions above… With the 20 sample long file, I could then make adjustments after, just by trimming the END value closer to the START… closer to 1. “ONE” is where the sample should sound its best, its clearest. But if you need to find a crazy sounding sample, play around with these numbers! This is a great way to do the glitch because you can always make the adjustments later. 32 is largest a mini sample can be, to still be able to hear the whole thing. 20-25 is really the lowest quality though that I could see still usable. After 32, its just noise. This is so much fun!

***UPDATE***
TO COMBINE SAMPLES: You must have at least 2 samples in memory… maybe you recorded a few different things from vinyl… maybe you loaded only 2 snares to combine. You can only combine 2 different samples to play at the same time (so far as I know). Pretend you have Stevie 1, and Stevie 2 next to each other in the memory. The samples that you want to combine need to be one after the other in the memory. Select only the last little sample of Stevie 1 (the first on the two). When you preview this area with PAD 13 (PLAYLOOP) it will play from start Stevie 1 combined with all of Stevie 2. It will play all the way through each. Discarding areas from the start and end of samples can help make these two match up better. Or pre set the samples so they fit over each other perfect (Soundforge, CoolEdit, ProTools, etc…) and then load them into the MPC for this. This “mini combo sample” can be saved and assigned to any program. It will work even after the MPC has been restarted, and the “mini combo sample” has been re-loaded. Have fun mixing stuff together!

PS: I can email anyone that cant get this to work a mini sample glitch file, but you should be able to figure it out no problem! Know one needs to see a video either, Its as easy as saving samples. Email me if you need anything else, or if you have some exclusives on the mini glitch. Add them to the topic if they work. Thanks in advance! Peace -Jessiah

wow, way to go. now everyone who cant figure out how to turn off note correct or how to not double trigger a pad is gonna be using the trick. sweet.

hahaaha..........

thanks jessiah!!! coolest post evar!

tiger vomitt wrote:wow, way to go. now everyone who cant figure out how to turn off note correct or how to not double trigger a pad is gonna be using the trick. sweet.

i wasnt teaching people how to loop a sample. I was talking about how you can save a tiny 1 millisecond blip of audio, and trick the Akai into playing the WHOLE sample. PM me if you have any questions or if I need to clarify this all for you...

Thanks Rough! I hope you have fun with this! Its my little magictrick with the 1000... I had to share it with yall. I came here to learn how to use this thing a year ago, so its only right to give back whatever I can.

I played around with saving this little blip file, and then restarting the mpc. The little blip file will still play the whole long sample if you set it on loop/note on. The only thing is that it looses alot more quality. I think this is basically a compression type glitch... so if someone could figure out software to decode these tiny little blip files, then we would be on to something! -Jesse

weird...I just tried this. I had it at 1 sample between the start and end pints right at the end of my sample, and it did just what was described. I noticed that as I moved the start point back a little it lowered the pitch of the glitched up samples. The further the space in between the lower the pitch.

yeah, awesome! the furthest the numbers can be is 32 i believe. At 32 and beyond, the mpc is just going to generate analog synthy type tones...

now try combining two samples together... just select the last little millisecond of the sample, and set that blip to loop once extracted. It will play that whole sample, and the one that was right after it. This is great for if you want to get some gritty sounding drums or samples...

If you save the little blip files, and restart the MPC, the glitch file wont sound as good... but if you record these glitch files into protools, or even mix it down in the mpc, you can save these glitchy sounds as new samples... have fun!

Can you post a little demo of this?

I'm on holidays right now and I don't have my MPC with me, and i have no idea of the way that glitch should sound...

It is certainly an interesting bug (actually two of them). To play loop points of a sample, the points themselves are stored as relative points in memory. The MPC will play from point to the other without regard to what is actually there. It has been possible with the other MPC models to put bogus loop points in the sammple files and trick the MPC into playing other samples in addition to the one intended. This bug in the MPC1000 exploits a similar "feature" but can be done from the front panel. When the loop point distance is less than 32 then there is a math error in the MPC1000 that places the end loop point before the beginning loop point in memory. Since all the MPC has to do is play from Start to End, it has to play through all the samples in memory (effectively like going all the way around a monoply board and passing Go to get back to the space just before the one you started).

For the Pitching down of the sample. It is likely that the start point is stored as an address in memory and the end point is stored as a relative offset of that memory location. In cases where the end point is less than 32 from the start point then the end point is actually a negative number. A negative number in computers has the potential to interfere with other adjacent memory locations (like pitch).

I guess. This would be easy for me to verify on the MPC2000XL since I have a reliable method to get that MPC to crash and look through the debug screen. I have not crashed the MPC1000 so I do not even know if it has a similar debug. If someone knows a way to do this on the MPC1000 let me know.

pretty cool stuff huh? I think the best way to use this right away is to record any crazy sounds that come from this glitch, and then resample them... this would be fun... I heard all kinds of crazy stuff being spit out of my akai when i do the "combine" samples glitch... this is really fun!

Now someone needs to figure out how to make this glitch go reverse stylie!

i still dont know what your talking about

has any of you done a beat using this?

The steps are each outlined. Shouldn't be too difficult.

G4s

guesswhosback wrote:i still dont know what your talking about

has any of you done a beat using this?

Did you do the things he mentioned. It sounds cool, try it.
This is the first good bug in the 1000. Hope Akai is not going take this out with the next OS.
Otherwise i'm gonna have to stick with 1.0.7
Thanks Jessiah

Cheers mate thats the best effect on that machine.

i will try this almost immediately. i remember seeing it when i just got my mpc and didn't know what the hell you were talking about. now i know the machine through and through though...it sounds dope as ****.

thanks jesiah!