The Legendar MPC Swing

Aiight...got a MPC2000xl about a month ago and I'm trying to get this whole "MPC Swing". I've been on the ASR-10 for 11 years and have enjoyed my drums and quantizing on it but everybody used to ALWAYS talk about the swing of the MP and I don't get t. I've read the manual and get you can use the swing when quantizing@ 8 or 16 from 50 to 75%, I even got my moms who's a music teacher to school me on this "swing" but I still don't hear it. In fact there have been a couple of times I've been frustrated on the MP's quantizing becuase if I quantize some drums on the ASR @ 120bpm and use 16(T) and do the same drums @ 120bpm and quantize it @ 16(3) on the MP they seem to come out different. Me and one of my die hard MPC-60 heads were listening to "Back Again" by Dialated and he said "listne to that MP swing" and I'm like "money, Alchemist did this and he uses an ASR ONLY!" So can someone explain the MP "swing" to me...not only what sound I'm looking for but how to freak it...or here's a better question, do all sequencers (MPC, ASR, SP-1200's)have "swing" because I've never heard it about talked about as much as I do about the MPC...good looking in advance...

"Swing" was a musical term long before the MPC was around. It's a way of describing notes being played on time with where they're written, but slightly off or 'swung' with that indescribable human quality. There's different words for different ways of playing a specific song's rhythem such as fox trot, waltz, tango, rhumba, swing, even hip hop was a name for that specific rhythem, before it was a genre of music or a sub-culture.

You dont hear the swing because your obviously not programming drums with a "bounce" in it.

Swing could be from playing with the timing set to 32nd note triplets, where the MPC would snap the note to the nearest 32nd not triplet. If you turn timing to Off it plays back whatever you played with no snapping.

Any swing done on a 2kxl can be done on an ASR10. They have the same ppqn resolution. ASR10 may not have the automatic swing functions of the mpc BUT it can be manually be done in edit event (asr10), step edit (2kxl). It's not legendary, haha. It's just a matter of knowing what notes get placed/pushed to what ticks.

Make a hi hat track on the mpc, bpm 90.0, tsig 4/4, timing 1/16, 1 bar loop. Use the note repeat so that you don't miss a hihat.
Hear all the hihats going, there should be 16 of them in 1 bar.
That's straight quantization, no swing.

Take that same hi hat track on the mpc, highlight timing 1/16, hit open window, change swing %65, notes all, do it.

Listen to the difference. That difference you are hearing is swing.

Imagine hitting drums like that, that is what alot of people do to make their drums swing. This is just a basic swing though. MANY people get way more intricate than this.

Lampdog wrote:Any swing done on a 2kxl can be done on an ASR10. They have the same ppqn resolution. ASR10 may not have the automatic swing functions of the mpc BUT it can be manually be done in edit event (asr10), step edit (2kxl). It's not legendary, haha. It's just a matter of knowing what notes get placed/pushed to what ticks.

Make a hi hat track on the mpc, bpm 90.0, tsig 4/4, timing 1/16, 1 bar loop. Use the note repeat so that you don't miss a hihat.
Hear all the hihats going, there should be 16 of them in 1 bar.
That's straight quantization, no swing.

Take that same hi hat track on the mpc, highlight timing 1/16, hit open window, change swing %65, notes all, do it.

Listen to the difference. That difference you are hearing is swing.

Imagine hitting drums like that, that is what alot of people do to make their drums swing. This is just a basic swing though. MANY people get way more intricate than this.

Cosign... you can take it a step further by changin the quantize and swing, THEN put the MPC in overdub mode on that same track so you can hear the metronome. This way you can hear how the MPC makes the notes swing...

peace,

Yep, what I said, that he said, that I said.