How are people finding thier new baby MPC???

jksuperstar wrote:I'm a little disappointed in the sampling engine of the MPC. My own fault for not giving it enough attention when researching. It's way behind every other sampler on the market. I just figured akai meant "real-time" the same way everyone else does. I'm a tweaker at heart, and tweak the hell out of filters, effects, envelopes, etc.

I did expect to be able to sample my drums & synths in the studio, and just take only the MPC on the road. I still do that, but need to spend more time tweeking the sounds in the studio, rather that "real-time" in the show.

Have you thought about getting the akai filter? its realtime and from what i hear it pretty nice.

You can use the Q-link sliders at any point in the sample not just the beginning of it. However you first have to lay the samples down in a sequence, Then hit the after key on the q-link that you assigned to the pad you want to do the sweep on. hit play, play start, or overdub, whatever just get your sequence playing, or recording, and you can sweep that sample till the cows come home, at any point in time during the sample.

Hope that helps some people!

u sure about that Lou? it doesnt work like that here.. i just tried it the way you said it

Yes...definitely yes it works. I found this out by accident at 4 in the morning last night. I decided to do some practicing on laying down beats without timing correct. I must have been really tired or something but I started playing with buttons and effects and it just happened.

After playing with again this morning I was able to duplicate it on all q link functions. However you cannot record the performance in overdub actually...I think. Got to play with it more I'm not sure now. BUt you can definitely play your sequence in the record page do your sweeps just by moving the slider, remember to put on the After key and you can sample the result by recording the main outs.

Maybe try getting the q-slider to work on a sound. Put the slider in neutral then record the sound in a sequence in the arrangement you want. Then hit the After key above the Q-link. play back the sequence (don't worry about overdub for now...I haven't figured that out yet!), and start moving that slider while the sequence is playing back. It works trust me!

have you installed OS 1.03. This might have something to do with it. I didn't do this before installing the update. It a loose connection, but who knows!?

im pretty sure there's no loose connections, im using the newest OS and all that

are you trying this with a long sample? if youre checking with a track full of 16th note high hats youre not gonna be able to tell the difference. take a vocal sample or something long (detune it to make it longer if u gotta). that slider isnt doing anything to the filter until the next sample is triggered.

i hope someone can prove me wrong. i was disappointed about this too, it's such a basic thing to do with any sampler/synth

Ok, it sounds like poeple are settling down nicely with their 1000's now, this is a question for the poeple who have switched from the 2000xl to the 1000 or who still own both.

My question is, which one do you find the most intuitive?
You know when you get that urge to make a beat, which one would you turn to first?
Also does anyone really miss any of the other features on the xl like the autocromatic tuning and slice into new program features for example?

Just trying get some vibes, thinking bout gettin the 1000..

Sorry.... I didn't mean lose connections as in cables. I meant a loose connection between being able to do the q links sweeps and installing the new OS since I haven't done it before 1.03.

I have been doing it with one of the 2 second bass samples that's in the internal flash, and it works just fine for me. Are you able to get the Q links working at all on filter? I know I had to set filter to ON for the same pad in the program screen, and I had to adjust the filter settings before the actual filter for q link would work. Besides this, it should work no problemo!

jksuperstar wrote:Yeah, it just can't sweep the filter while a sample's playing (q-link doesn't take until the sample restarts) or sweep the resonance at all. It'd be nice to at least have filter envelopes again, like the 2000xl had.

are you talkin like attack and decay??

Overall I dig it. I've been making some powernoise-type distorted beats on it that are pretty cool. The way the next seq and mute are 1 button away is awesome, I had an RS7000 and that took several button presses to change, annoying when you're playing live in the dark. And it's generally really easy, I feel well versed in 75% of the features after less than a week of f*cking with it.

My only complaints - I can't figure out a way to sweep filters in realtime while a sample phrase is playing, either. If you're programming a beat, you can fake it because every time the drum hits it's changing, but when I'm working with an 8 bar sample, the current way of working doesn't do me much good. I was going to use this with my Nord 3, but now I may hold out for a synth with a filter etc. I can send outputs 3 and 4 through, or get a used sherman filterbank or something.

I'm also pissed I had to pay $130 to get that 128 megs of RAM. That's something that could just have easily come inside the unit, or it could (like every other sampler I've ever used) just ask for standard RAM like you'd get at the store.

Seriously guys this really works! It works for tuning, filters, attack, and decay.

I haven't tried it with the q-link feat that lets you adjust the different pad levels for different samples (I think that's what that feat. does). Actually that's the only q link feat.

Sorry guys, I'm an intuitive type of person. If ya'll were right here I would be able to show you how to do it. It's really simple. Just give me second to get my MPC.......okay I'll try to give you step by step to follow along....maybe what I'm doing isn't what your wanting to do, but here we go.....follow along with me!

Turn on MPC - Load DJ-Hip-Set program from internal memory - hit pad 9 it should be a sample file called HIP_FILT make sure you got this in there - hit Mode button then hit pad marked Slider use F1 or F2 to pick which Q link you want to use (Q1 or Q2) - hit pad 9 to populate Assign Pad field with A09-HIP_FILT - press down arrow key to get to Parameter. Select whatever Parameter you want (tune, filter, layer, attack, decay) Adjust the ranges for parameter you pick. It's easier hear q-link effects when you press the full level key - let's pick filter for the effect - hit Mode key - hit pad marked Program - make sure it says A 0 9in the left margin if not then just hit the 9 pad and it will auto populate - press f2 for filter - press down arrow key until you get to area where it says Type:Off - Off will be highlighted turn the jog wheel once clockwise so it now says On - move cursor to Freq. set frequency somewhere below 50. keep hitting pad 9 while moving Q-link up and down to make sure you got the desired Freq level. adjust other filter params if you wish - press Main key - move Q-link to centr position so it is neutral - record a sequence just using pad 9 for now - press stop when finished - press the After key right above the q-link you assigned to pad 9 - press play - move q-link up and down while sequence plays - make sure you are moving q link while sound is playing - you now got real time - control over the sample - move that q-link like your moving a slider on a guitar - the sound will change whenever you move the q-link not just at the beginning - this works really well with the Tune feat. If you want to record your performance press Mode - hit pad marked record - select input to main out - press f6 for record - press play start - and move that Slider!

I guess it's quite detailed and not so simple after looking at this explanation!

Hope this helps you guys out. At the very least it will show you what I was doing. Maybe yo guys had something totally different or more advanced in mind. Anyway, it's all there for you, hope it makes sense.

"Have you thought about getting the akai filter? its realtime and from what i hear it pretty nice."
I've got a Nord Modular that I modeled the Akai filter in...the Nord can do *almost* anything:) But only on two of my outs.

"are you talkin like attack and decay?? "

I'm talkin A-D-S-R on ampliutude, filter/resonance, AND pitch. Once you get those 3 envelopes, drums get real expressive. Especially if you can use velocity/aftertouch to modify them. I know attack & decay are q-link adjustable, and I like the way it can set the decay to automatically line up with the end-of-sample time.

"Seriously guys this really works!"

Still not happening..I use pad 9 on the top_gun kit. high freq stuff so it's obvious the filters doing something. Use that or use the tune..still only changes on the start of the sample. got v1.03

I don't know why this isn't working for you guys. Maybe I got a special MPC or something. If I did, I'm never selling this baby! mmm mmm no! Or maybe Akai gives special treats to us Canadians.

I'm just playin'

No I haven't thought about getting the effect board, what is it called: MFC42, or something. Anyway, how does it work? do you connect the main outs to it or what? I didn't think there was anything to add peripherals on the 1000 otherwise.

lou,

thank you for the detailed explaination! im sure that took a while to do..

what you wrote is EXACTLY what i did, except with a different sample (the included programs and samples that came on that akai cf car are loooong gone by now)

i did not get the results you did. for me the filter only changed on the next triggering of the sample.

what is going on here?

jksuperstar wrote:"I'm talkin A-D-S-R on ampliutude, filter/resonance, AND pitch.

yeah i really miss that too! i was using NI Battery a lot before the mpc. it doesnt have a single filter in it (NI can be really dumb sometimes), but it does have nice envelope options for pitch and volume. i was kinda shocked to see there are only attack and decay envelopes on the 1k. and the're kinda weird too...