Phrase hold?

Hi,

I'm considering a MPC1000. Can you loop a phrase sample and have it start playing when you hit the pad, and stop when you hit it again, like on the Roland SP-303, 505 and 606? I checked out the manual, and it looks like "NOTE ON" will create an endless loop, but you have to hold the pad down to keep the loop going.

- thanks

Yes.

grimaybeats555 wrote:Yes.

... ummm - I think "yes" means "Yes you can"? How, exactly? As I read the manual, "NOTE ON" will just play the sample while you hold the pad down?

yes, you can create a sequence, put your loop on one of the tracks and then you can go into track mute and hit the pad to mute and hit it agian to unmute.

You set it too one shot. You can't set it so that when you press that pad again it will cut the sample off but what you can do is assign a blank pad to the same mute group. This will do the same thing.

pad-ophiliac wrote:yes, you can create a sequence, put your loop on one of the tracks and then you can go into track mute and hit the pad to mute and hit it agian to unmute.

Ok, I get it - but that's not the same. It means your loop has to be in time with the track tempo. On the SP boxes, I can have 2 or 3 or 4 ambient drones or pads of different lengths all looping in the background like tape loops.

sorry, i don't understand what you mean.

pad-ophiliac wrote:sorry, i don't understand what you mean.

Ok, here it is:

On the SP boxes, you can assign a sample to a pad. You can make that sample a loop - let's say it is a drone that runs for 45 seconds. When you hit the pad, it starts playing, and keeps playing (looping) until you hit the pad again. The sequencer is not running while this is happening.

Let's say you assign another looped sample to a different pad. Let's say it is 60 seconds long. When you hit its pad, it will start playing until you hit the pad again. The two samples will be playing simultaneously, but they won't be in sync.

Can you do this on the MPC?

Here's the downlow on Note On. shhhh, don't tell anyone though.

First of all, you have to hold down the pad and keep holding it until you want it to stop looping. Second, it will only loop if the sequencer is running. Either recording or just playing. Either wise the sample just plays once.

Ok, thanks for all those answers. Kind of confirmed what I thought. Pity - the SP's have lousy polyphony and only 2 outputs. I was hoping I could use the MPC as an improvement.

jumbuk wrote:Ok, thanks for all those answers. Kind of confirmed what I thought. Pity - the SP's have lousy polyphony and only 2 outputs. I was hoping I could use the MPC as an improvement.

It's a huge improvement from an Sp-303 in almost every other way except for effects.

ONE wrote:

jumbuk wrote:Ok, thanks for all those answers. Kind of confirmed what I thought. Pity - the SP's have lousy polyphony and only 2 outputs. I was hoping I could use the MPC as an improvement.

It's a huge improvement from an Sp-303 in almost every other way except for effects.

Yeah, I'm sure it is. I have a SP-505 and 606, and they both have heaps of shortcomings. I would dearly like almost every feature of the MPC - but if I can't loop samples like I described, I can't use it.

Why don't you sequence the sp's with the mpc.

grimaybeats555 wrote:Why don't you sequence the sp's with the mpc.

there you go. simple solution

Sometimes what i do for playing live is::

Just leave it in record mode, on a 4-bar loop or something. Then I just have samples which are 4 bars; to start them playing i hit the pad... to stop them i hold "erase" near the loop point and hold the pad down. For some things this works alright. I have my samples set to "one shot" and "mono". If the sample is longer then 4 bars, it just gets cut, but if it's less, i must remember to hit it twice.

Now, this ain't gonna give you any automatic timestretching so you have to use a sample that matches the tempo yer playing.

Anyone else have clever ways of accomplishing the same thing?