Technical questions for the MPC2000xl and the MPC2000
By pawn Fri Dec 26, 2003 12:10 am
For xmas i got a couple of floppy disks that i got for drum sounds, but on them theres a couple of insturment sounds, ex)a quick violin sound. What i was wondering is because its such a quick sound is there any way to lengthen the sound to last longer? I used the note variation but nothing really helped.
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By BRAVO Fri Dec 26, 2003 12:46 am
Pitch/tune it down.

Shift >Program>Drum (1,2,3,4 etc). Hit pad with sample on it> Params > Tune: 0 (Mess around with it abit and see what happens)

By rickreed Fri Dec 26, 2003 1:14 am
Mess around with time stretch and see what you can come up with.
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By Blaz4me Fri Dec 26, 2003 8:15 am
BRAVO wrote:Pitch/tune it down.

Shift >Program>Drum (1,2,3,4 etc). Hit pad with sample on it> Params > Tune: 0 (Mess around with it abit and see what happens)

Also do some initial tuning from the param screen under your sample trim screen. Then again you may love this one but it's going to take some work. First copy the sample you want to extend. Next trim the sample to a point where it's basically a sustained note lacking a better way to say it at the moment. move your cursor up to the sample name and hit edit. From there scroll over to new sound not INSERT new sound and label it (mid snd) for midlle sound or part where it prompts for the sample name. Hit do it. Now you need to get one more copy of the original sample for this copy we're going to do the same thing except you're going to focus on you samples tail. Repeat the process above but focusing on your samples tail. However to shorten the process a couple steps I just remembered that you could change the sample name as soon as you copied it. And then once you've found the part you want to keep hit the edit button and hit discard. What this will do is delete the parts of the sample that is not highlighted. Now the next thing to do is edit your last part the first piece. Now for the last step turn to your last sample part the tail and hit edit. From here scroll over to INSERT NEW sound. select the midlle part of your sample and hit do it now scroll over to your new sample whic will be the very last sample on your trim screeen listen to it edit it if necessary then open window and repeat the insert new snd function this time selecting the first part of the sample. edit if necessary. After a few trial and errors you'll develop a knack for this and begin creating some cold combinations. I believe I wrote it right but then again it's late as hell for me.
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By descartes Fri Dec 26, 2003 8:20 am
shhh... don't tell anyone else this, but there is this whole section at music store called the "classical" and they have, like, mad violin tones on almost every cd... some of them sustain for, like, two or three bars even. plus cause no one listens to that s!it, they only charge, like, 8 fity a c.d. check it out...


sorry, i'm just joking with you, man.

ps blaz4me, you rule, that was one of the better posts i've read so far. I like it when people start talking about how they work and the tricks they have to share. It's why i'm bothering right now, isn't it?

By pawn Fri Dec 26, 2003 2:43 pm
lol, but man dont get me wrong...Im all about digging, just ive had trouble makin bass sounds, so i got these floppies for that, and on em they had some hot sounds, so i figured why not use em.
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By Blaz4me Fri Dec 26, 2003 3:25 pm
It's all good, that's what we're here for to help each other out. Me myself I don't have a problem sharing my tricks I ain't funny actin' like that. That's really why I set my signature up the way I did. Now let's get it CRACKIN". Ohh Yeah, I'm still looking to learn new tricks too. got some tips you guys want to share make a post and let's see what we can come up with.

By mpc3000 Fri Dec 26, 2003 3:58 pm
I can't believe no one has answered this. It is called setting loop points. In the LOOP screen, set the START and STOP points in the sample where the sample has at least some amount of sustain. Turn LOOP: ON. Adjust the loop points to where there is no more clicking and it sounds smooth.

There is an art to doing this and people pay good money for samples that have loop points already set in samples. This just gets the maximum amount of versatility out of the smallest memory space.

The MPC can just barely do this since it's loop settings are very minimal. A full featured sample will you options like: loop forward, loop backward, loop forward then back, loop crossfade, loop bowtie crossfade, loop tuning, etc. This is one of the main features of these samplers.

More info is easily found on a web search.
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By descartes Fri Dec 26, 2003 8:24 pm
yes there is an art to it... the reason no one mentions it, MPC 3000, is that trying to set loop points for sustains on the mpc 2000 is like trying to paint a picture through a key hole (possible, but not very easy)...
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By descartes Fri Dec 26, 2003 8:52 pm
[quote="pawn"]lol, but man dont get me wrong...Im all about digging, just [b]ive had trouble makin bass sounds[/b], so i got these floppies for that...[/quote]

heres a quick recipe for making a cool monosynth style bass sound.

you need 1) any sample with a lot of both high and low frequency content 2) any 808 kick drum sample 3) a record player

take the first sample and trim it down to about 450 samples. Loop it. Now play it. It should sound pretty horrible. rename it something like "buzz"

take the 808 kick and go to the edit page. Open a window and look at the tail end, see how the wave form kind of rolls. that's a sine wave (the part of the 808 that rattles speakers). cut the sample so you just have this low frequency sine wave. Loop it and mess with the start and stop points so it don't click. rename it something like sine...

now create a new program. put buzz on pads d1. put sine on pad d2. Now find your dirtiest record (that sounds real scratchy when nothing else is playing). record these clicks and pops. Try and get five or six seconds worth. put this on pad d3.

Now have d1 trigger d2 and d3. Adjust the sounds in the mixer and adjust the individual tuning of d1 by going back to the sample page and changing the loop length one click at a time. There is a mathematical equation for doing this quickly but ive forgotten it. Anyone?

now hit the sixteen levels key and set d1 for tuning. If everything works out the tuning for all the notes will change together (it does on my mpc and i hope it does on yours).

The end result should be a dirty mess, but now you use a filter (an external analogue filter if you have one) to cut of some of the high frequency range and you have a real nice sounding mono syth bass tone (think Mr. Oizo or the bass sound on "Dracula's Wedding" off the new outkast record).
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By Blaz4me Sat Dec 27, 2003 3:09 pm
GeoffShoulders wrote:http://www.mpc-tutor.com/tutorials/multisampling2.php

Chck out the Fudge looping part


Maybe so but we all tend to describe how to do it methods in our own words. Meaning the tutor hasn't and can't touch every single aspect of the MPC. Here's one for you how does the MUSIC preset under the timestretch menu affect your sample? There's always going to be a question that has come up a million and one times but hell there's a million and one people whom don't all grasp everything the same. Besides unlike when you do a search you don't get a response back to your question like you would from a fresh post. Don't get me wrong I 'm not saying the hell with doing a search/checking the tutor's tutorials I'm just saying if someone has the right mind to ask a question let's be respectful enough to give them a answer or link them to a solution. Not to rag on you personally playa I'm putting this out there for everybody!
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By descartes Sat Dec 27, 2003 7:33 pm
plus answering these questions in your own words, even if they've been answered a million times before (and better) by someone else, has the added bonus of helping you remember just what you yourself can do on the MPC.

if sampling is an art, then there shouldn't be one right answer to how to achieve a certain effect. So when some one asks a question like "how do I make a sound longer?" i take it to be a kind of subjective artistic question, along the lines of "how do I paint a picture?" now we all know that there is a bunch of different ways and methods one would use to paint a picture: there is no strictly "right" answer. thats what makes painting different from mathematics.

same, i think, with this kind of question...
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By MPC-Tutor Sat Dec 27, 2003 7:46 pm
Blaz4me wrote: Meaning the tutor hasn't and can't touch every single aspect of the MPC.


I'm actually sitting here at my laptop writing the last couple of chapters to my MPC2000XL Ebook which I'm hoping will answer most questions - including the original question in this post :)

Looping is definitely the way to approach extending a musical sample because it's the most effective way to increase length without affecting the pitch. Timestretching isn't the great as it starts screwing with the sound after around 10%.

I've actually found looping on the MPC to be a lot easier with practice - it'll never be as easy as using Soundforge, but I can loop most notes on my MPC within 5 minutes these days. There will be a detailed description of the MPC looping proceedures in the Ebook.