how long did it take?

i've had my mpc for about 3 weeks now and had never produced anything until i touched the mpc.i've picked it up pretty quick and am already makin beats.how long did it take every1 to start making beats.im not bragging but i think the beats i have made are really good.was every1 happy with the first beats they made and if not how long did it take before you were happy with your tunes

I can't remember exactly how long I had my MPC before I did my first beat being that I didn't have any experience with one. I'd been around them in the studio but never played with it myself. I started off on some Executive producer ISH. But when I decided to build my own set up I went and copped it and as soon as I learned how to program it and set the tempo I was gone. It couldn't have been more than a week though. And just like you I loved every beat I had done as if there was no body out there close to me. Of course the more I played with it the better I got and relized I had dropped some B.S. in the beginning, but nevertheless it feels good to create some ISH be it tight az hell or wack az F**k! It was my ISH and I did it!!

I first used my cousins mpc about 3 years ago and learned the basics in around half an hour. He left it over that day cuz' he didn't feel like carrying it home and I made like 4 beats that same day and they were slammin'. The next day I played them for him and he said "WTF!". I guess it was NGS(new gear syndrome), when you have a new toy in front of you and your hype so you just bust something out without thinking but really your just trying to learn how to work the machine. BTW that hasn't happened since, I've had my own mpc for 8 month's now and the most beats I made in a day is 2.

That's weird how it works, when I bought my last guitar I stayed in my room all day for like 9 hours just playing guitar non-stop, playing every song I knew and just freestyling on it. I even went to sleep with it next to me, sometimes I still do.

I started making beats 5years ago. I started with some low end equipment and started pumping out he beats. The funny thing is, for the time, I said to myself "This beat sounds good!) then a few months would go by, a friend would say "wow, you getting better!" I would then go back and listen to that track. It totally sucked! My opinion is, you will allways continue to get better. Think of it like martial arts. If you practice every day, you will be an ass kicking mo fo. I could confidently say now that my beats are pretty good. Not to be big headed, because I am not, but I have been working the hardware beats for some time now.

Like a lot of cats on here, I started doing beats in software. It was like, Hammerhead or something real small where it didn't take forever to download on my frickin dialup connection. Then it was all kinds of software snagged on Kazaa or wherever, Sound Forge and FruityLoops and eventually Reason seein their way onto my hard drive. I still love using some of the neat little BS programs you can get for free (legally) like this one called DrumSyn for coming up with synthesized rhythm and effect sounds.

My first piece of hardware (not including a shitty Numark mixer with a worn out crossfader and a couple low-end Numark tables I got ripped off on) was a Roland TR-505. That was a boring-ass machine for someone who wanted tweakability and decent real-time recording. Still messed with it for like a month and resold it for profit. Next up was my Korg ES-1. This was the piece that had me falling in love with hardware production. It featured a 16-step sequencer like the TR boxes, but you could load and tweak sounds, sample (!) and record in real time, then add effects. Sweet for the price. (picked mine up new for 500, they still go for 400 new)

After the ES-1 I actually started recording my sounds, collabed with a few people on some mostly shitty tracks (it was experience) and started adding to my gear supply, always learning more about how things work together.

Gear I've had and discarded since then includes a cheesy keyboard controller (I can't even remember the name) that was missing it's adapter and overloaded when I used the only supplies I could find for it, a Boss SP-505 and DR-202 (was a cool piece, just not beefy enough esp. the outs), a Roland MC-303, a Korg EA-1 (a nice simple tweakbox, wouldn't mind having one again) and a Boss BR-8 multitrack.

Gear I've kept is the ES-1, my MPC (still the main workhorse, though sometimes I trigger sounds from the ES-1 or elsewhere) an s5000 and my Korg Karma. I now record to a Yamaha AW16G but am looking to move into DAW-based recording and am eyeing a Roland mixer/soundbox kit that runs 800 bucks and has flying faders. *drool* Hey if anybody's interested in the Yamaha box, get at me!! It's eBay meat if nobody get's hold of me.

As soon as I get a piece of hardware, I dig in, latch on and don't let go. Every beat I make, whether it was put together 2 years ago (about when I started) or lastnight, I love. That's not to say they'd all be playable for anybody, but I do my shit for me. When I make stuff for other people that's a different story, but haven't had a lot of that come around lately.

Lot of typing, I guess, huh.

Oh, and by the way, you can pick up DrumSynth at http://www.mda-vst.com/ if you're interested.

-tank.

The first time I did a beat, and every beat in that month, I thought it was the shiznit... funny cause I loaded one of those floppies of a beat I made that first week and I laughed at it so hard you would think I was watching FRIDAY for the first time again...

DrumTek wrote:I even went to sleep with it next to me, sometimes I still do.

Now that's love for the art.

I've actually fell asleep on my 2XL and woke up with pad imprints on my forehead..

My first MPC beat wasn't too bad because I was familiar with it. However my internal mixer settings were crazy because I didn't know you could edit the sample volumes in the trim screen!

I bought my XL April of last year. I can't remember how long it took me to make a beat but I spent hours on it and I still do. It took a few months before I had anything that anyone wanted to use though. I remember listening to beats that I thought was hot months earlier and could tell I had grown because I could see where I needed some improvement on those earlier beats. I knew why no one was interested in using some of them. It takes time to develop your flow with the machine but once you do, it's addictive.