i saw Pete Rock do this...but i can't figure it out...

Jacpot wrote:And to chime in... that bpm counter on the mpc has been proven to be
sh!ty. Works better with samples that have lots of drum peaks.

What makes you say this?

Birdbrain that isht drove me mad my first month on an mpc..

the reason that happens is because the pads have a little fade off. they shave a little decay off the sample. You can change a setting in the program where decay defaults to 5, but even when you change it to zero it still shaves off a little decay, very slight.

if any doubts me, this phenomenon is easy to notice if you do the test birdbrain was talking about.
get a sample looping correctly for 1 bar. zone it into 8 even chops, don't even fine tune the chops at all. have it creat a program with those eight chops on 8 pads, and sequence them on the eighth notes. set the sequencer to the exact same tempo as the loop was (check it in parameters). play it and you will hear a tiny gap inbetween each sample. makes the loop stutter a little.

so don't think you are going crazy or doin something wrong it's the way the machine is.

the reason most people don't notice this or mind it is because we always fine tune our chops anyway to isolate individual sounds out of the loop, so we will end up tweaking things anyway to find a way to play back the chops and sound natural and dope. We are not always using the exact same tempo the loop was at.

anyway if it really bothers you you can leave the sample buffer at 30 and change the decay on the pad to zero and the little gaps will be covered up this time when you do the little experiment it will sound just like the loop.

but it's pointless to chop that way I just did it to diagnose the machine to test if what I was hearing was true (that the pads shave off a little decay even with decay on zero.) that's the only reason I know what you are talkin about... because I did that anal little test on the machine when I first got it.

about the bpm counter not working I don't agree with that. I don't think it has anything to do with peaks, it calculates the bpm with a simple math formula based on knowing the length of the sample in seconds and the length of the sample in beats.

it works fine and saves you from grabbing your calculator to do the same thing the way we all used to back in the day.

M.ic P.ro C.rusher wrote:

birdbrain wrote:thats why i am so confused. i have a 109.5 bmp 2 bar loop. i chop it into 16 parts making each part need to be triggered at eight note intervals. thing is, when i go into step edit and paste everything in at its proper place and hit play it doesnt play through smoothly as if i hadnt chopped it.

Lemme see if I understand. Basically, here's the deal. You sampled a 2 bar loop, and broke it into 16 parts, so you have 8 chops per bar (2 per note if you are using 4 beat bars)

So you paste them at 1, 1.48, 2, 2.48, 3, 3.48, 4 & 4.48 (or 1,2,3,4,5,6,7,8 if you use the double tempo/resolution trick) on each bar. then you press play, but sh!t don't line up. Is that right?

real close. its not that a snare doesnt hit on the 2 or anything like that though. its that it sounds like when i did the chop, it took a bit off the end of each zone. the sum of the parts isnt adding up to the whole. Jac said to speed up my tempo but the fact is that i SHOULDNT have to do that.

a trick to fix the whole gap / loopin gap thing is if you time stretch it to the same tempo, i.e. source tempo-94 bpm, time stretch tempo 94 bpm....
then it'll loop perfect.

thanks. i was just **** around and noticed that and its been bothering me all damn day.

Aster wrote:about the bpm counter not working I don't agree with that. I don't think it has anything to do with peaks, it calculates the bpm with a simple math formula based on knowing the length of the sample in seconds and the length of the sample in beats.

it works fine and saves you from grabbing your calculator to do the same thing the way we all used to back in the day.

I read somewhere that it works best with samples with heavy drums. If that is the case then its based upon peaks in the sample. Either I way I dont care to use it anyway, I just figure it out on my own

Have yall tried adjusting the End margin in the slice edit mode!! Hope that help a little...peace!!!

The MPC doesn't detect peaks, it calculates against length (excluding the 1k and 2.5).
Peaks have no affect on it.
Contrary to what poeple believe the display on the MPC isn't very accurate in the visable sense.
You have got to really use your physical sense to work and understand the math behind the MPC to get the most from it.
Typically a persons trimming will throw the BPM anywhere from .5 -2.0 BPM off which means all the calculation it does is off.
Starts from the fact that you are doing visual editing from a rather inaccurate view.
Even when you zoom in it lacks what you are after.

If your chops don't overlap correct have you ever tried changing the END MARGIN setting to 99?
If you have a sample of the correct actual length, set the BPM correctly and then created slices with the End Margin setting at 99 and get gaps....then you have a broken MPC.
zthe End Margin setting is one of the most important things about chopping.

im sure this has been answered millions of times already but i havent read the replies yet.

but im sure he chopped the sample up. once you do that, you can change the bpm and the chops will stay with the tempo. if your just working with a loop, the tempo has to fit that loop. you either have to change the bpm to match the loop or tune the loop to fit the tempo.

Smoove03 wrote:im sure this has been answered millions of times already but i havent read the replies yet.

but im sure he chopped the sample up. once you do that, you can change the bpm and the chops will stay with the tempo. if your just working with a loop, the tempo has to fit that loop. you either have to change the bpm to match the loop or tune the loop to fit the tempo.

echo echo

lol

Aster wrote:it calculates the bpm with a simple math formula based on knowing the length of the sample in seconds and the length of the sample in beats.

Exactly

Here's the way I see it. Your working with a sampled loop thats in 4/4. Cool. Pete Rock's chops were broken up into eigth notes(there are eigth of these in 4 beats) Like jacpot has been saying, the small size of these chops give off the illusion that its not chopped at all. True if you slow it down, you will have small gaps. Your on your own from there. LOL Find some complimentary filler efx.

birdbrain wrote:real close. its not that a snare doesnt hit on the 2 or anything like that though. its that it sounds like when i did the chop, it took a bit off the end of each zone. the sum of the parts isnt adding up to the whole. Jac said to speed up my tempo but the fact is that i SHOULDNT have to do that.

Check it, look at the length of each chop. Are they all the same? Prolly not, cause the original sample wouldn't be perfectly on beat, so to chop each note properly, the lengths will vary slightly. So if each chop isn't a perfect 1/16th of the original loop, you can't just paste them on the up and down beats and expect them to line up. You need to move them a few ticks in the step edit screen.

As far as what Flux said^^^, I'm gonna try that out tonight.

Peace1