Reviews and questions about the entry-level MPC500
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By damien907 Thu Jun 28, 2007 9:15 am
i was wondering if there was a mode that lets you only play the sample for as long as the pad it is assigned to is held down.

so say you have a 5 second sample, and instead of just playing it through when you push the pad, it would only play though until you lifted your finger off of the pad.

you can do this with an sp-404 and it is called "gate" playback. i was wondering if the mpc (500) had a feature like this. i looked through the manual and didnt really find anytihng that said much about this.

i was also wondering if i could copy PART of a sequence to another sequence, for instance i have a piano line on seq. 1 and seq 2 BUT seq. 1 also has a drum line and i want to copy the DRUMLINE from seq 1 to seq 2 without also copying the piano line. is this possible, i was reading in the manual, and i was wondering if the track mute feature may have something to do with this? but im not 100% on how that would work.


any help at all would be GREATLY appreciated :D
thanks you guys.
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By enotide Thu Jun 28, 2007 11:37 am
1st question pg. 74 in the 500 Manual (Note on).
2nd question pg 27 if the drums and piano are on different tracks.
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By damien907 Thu Jun 28, 2007 7:58 pm
thanks alot enotide!

those things were really bothering me :D
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By damien907 Fri Jun 29, 2007 9:58 am
is there any way i can split the drums and piano up if they arent on different tracks? i already made the sequence and it has drums and piano both in it and i didnt even mess around with tracks cause i didnt fully understand what they were used for.

will i just have to replay my drums on the new sequence? is there something like a note mute feature? i was looking at the track mute button but dont fully understand it.

so next time i make a sequence should i make them on two different tracks, (ie one with the piano line and the other with the drums) and then layer them on top of eachother?

thanks again :D

sorry about these questions, but the manual doesnt explain very well and i cant really ask anyone around here in person cause i live in a small town.
im really grateful for your guys' help on these fourms!

in the meantime im gona go try and copy the drum pattern i recorded on the first seqence

ByErgg Fri Jun 29, 2007 10:11 am
will i just have to replay my drums on the new sequence? is there something like a note mute feature? i was looking at the track mute button but dont fully understand it.

so next time i make a sequence should i make them on two different tracks, (ie one with the piano line and the other with the drums) and then layer them on top of eachother?


The MPC has 48 tracks devided into 4 banks of 12 tracks (corresponding to the 12 pads). In mute mode pressing a pad decides if the track corresponding to the pad (A1~D12) is playing or not (this is actualy stored with the sequence).

Press the mute button to enter mute mode than hit a pad and watch the screen to see what happens... (remember you have 48 tracks and 4 banks)

You should really spend more time with the manual, it's all in there and it's quite a good manual :!:

If this is your first (hardware) sequencer it's going to take some time to get the basics down, experiment with the unit... get to know how it works.

Snerg
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By damien907 Fri Jun 29, 2007 11:25 am
thanks alot snerg. you summed it up WAY better than the manual could for some reason lol. but ill start reading it more closely for sure. :D

and this is my first hardware sequencer besides the 404 but i didnt use that nearly as much as i use this becuase it couldent connect to the comp via usb so i didnt end up loading my samples on that i was just messing around with the stock ones. and you couldent get a sequence off the memory card on that one either, just the one shots.

i cant wait till the 500 bible drops.