Sample Length

I just got my 60 on Tuesday and I already find it to be much better than my PC software for beat making. One problem I've been having tho is that I'll have a sample and maybe I want it to go a little longer but without shifting to a lower pitch. I was thinking that I dump the sample to my pc, time stretch it, then resample it, but if I end up doing this alot Ill use mad memory. Is there any way to make the MPC loop the end of the sample to make it sound like its playing for longer or any tricks within the box that I can use to make it do what I want. My PC method should work in theory but I'm lookin for alternatives to that.

1. you should always sample @ 45rpm to maximize memory.

2. you should just chop the end of the sample and assign it to another pad so you can loop it at the end of the first sample, or, chop. you might wanna add some decay to the end of that chop, too.

3. read elmacaco's chopping tutorial in the bible thread (should be in the first couple pages).

Thanks man, Ill def do the 45 when I rip from viynl. Right now I'm just messin wit some samples from some floppies I got just so I can learn the machine. That chopping technique sounds like what I was lookin to do so Ima try that out in a lil bit.

be sure to take your time with that chopping. it took me a few times to get it down, but like elmacaco said, once you do it a few times it goes pretty quick.

just remember to sample your 'blank' sounds before copying to temp and be sure to paste it to the right end point, then delete the blank second before the soft start. you'll understand what i mean after a few tries.

Yo Yo! I got the chopping down but im still having a little trouble lengthening my samples. Is there anyway to make the decay/attack settings part of the sample as opposed to a pad setting? I have a sample of a pipa(chinese lute) and the note is very short so when using multiple pads to drag the one note out i have to hit them ridiculously fast to make a continuous sound. If i can make those settings part of the sample, I can dump it onto the end of the first giving me a longer note.

Any ideas or do I just have to sample longer notes. I know methods of getting it done but I wanna do it all with just the machine and turntables so that I learn all the tricks.

oh wait, i see what you're saying now. so your original sample is very small and you want to make it repeat. you can mess with the timing correct and record a sequence but there isn't a way to re-sample on the 60 and assign it to a pad.

Aight cool. I have actually thought of a method that in theory will work I just need to test it out tonite. If it does work I def be posting that along with examples of my sample and the finished product.

I tested my theory out tonight and it worked! I had a very short bass sample(.32 sec) that I wanted longer notes out of and was able to do so using this method.

First I took the bass sample and made and extra chop of it. Nothing too crazy, basically just enough so that you don't get the sound of the inital string pluck.

Now armed wit my dual chops, I went to the pad settings and put a slower attack envelope on the second part, that way it blends together, and some decay on the end of the first.

Then after that I went to step edit and every few ticks I put another hit of the second chop untill the end of the note length I wanted(every 3 ticks at 82bpm seemed to work for me).

I then set the decays of the individual events accordingly and biggity bam, nice long bass notes with a total of .540 secs of sample time used.

I haven't played around with it too much to know ideal decay settings and tick gap lengths. I did notice it ain't sound as good sped up so I think I need wider gaps at higher speeds. One trick I can tell you is to set wider gaps if you want to get that rattle effect of hitting a string really hard and then close the gap toward the end. Thanks to highlife for pointing me in the right direction n I hope this will be useful to all of you. If yall know this already then props to me for figuring it out myself I don't have time to put the examples up right now but I will either sometime tomorrow night or on Sunday. Peace.

dope, good stuff man. i'll have to try your method. i don't even mess with step edit, never mind half the functions the machine can do. i need to read the manual more, but overall this machine can do a lot and it is very well designed.

i find copying the whole sample to be easier than making blanks and pasting pieces onto them. on the 60, it takes forever to copy and paste. so i just copy the whole sample, delete the part you dont need, copy again and so on. as you start chopping away, every subsequent copy gets shorter, so only the first few chops take a while to process. and since every copy/chop process follows same button pushes, once you get used to it, it just flows.

how do u chop on it by number liek teh 500 or like 2k???

cuz im kinda lost on that??

is there "Zone Edit"?? or i have to copy paste the sample cuple times and cut out the parts i need??

In the "bible" thread theres a great chopping tutorial but basically what you need is the full sample and then as many sound files as there are chops you wanna make.

All you gotta do is go to record new sample, set the threshold all the way down and the sample length to .1.

Then just move the needle and the sound of the record starting is enough to jar the recording and give you a space to put your chops.

Go to edit sound and take the original sample and use the zone section to isolate your chop then copy it to temp.

Then, WITHOUT LEAVING THE EDIT SOUND SCREEN!!! go to one of your .1 second samples, set the zone end all the way up and do Ins temp to zone end.

Then delete the first .1 seconds.

Pezzie has a point about speed by pasting the previous ones onto one another so that it gets shorter, but unless I'm misunderstanding it, that takes up alot of memory and if you have like a 10 second sample, one copy of that makes it take 20 seconds of your sample time out of the max 26.2 on a fully maxed machine. In the end it turns out the same size but theres the possibility of running out of room in the process.

The method I described in my last post wasn't really a chopping method but more or less a way of manual time stretching since it can make pieces sound longer without changing the pitch. Just a way to get more from putting in less. It's a bit of a process but is real useful when you've got alot of memory used and you've found the tone you want but the sample is too short. It seems like it would work for doing what that Jay Z song did by making the end of that horn sound from "Rump Shaker" go on forever. I realize his producers use much newer gear but the 60 has alot of capabilities if you just think outside of its limitations. That's one of the reasons I really like this machine, it forces me to be more crafty.

but wat if i havea rack smapler??

i can just chop on it and then use teh mpc 60 to trigger the smaples right??

im talking about a s5000 sampler.

I'm not entirely sure seeing as I've never owned a rack sampler although i plan on gettin an emax someday but I would think there'd be a way. I'm not really sure what this has to do with the technique I was talkin about. When I put the samples up it will clarify what I mean.