Does this ever happen to you?

Okay, you are playing your MPC, just playing it, right, hitting the pads to pound out a good drum beat. And then you think, "I should record that to the squencer."

But first you have to find out the BPM, right? So you use the tap tempo button and hit record. Listen to the count in, play (unquanitized of course) but the tempo of your beat and the clicks from the metronome dont match up.

So then you say screw it, I'll turn off the metronome... but now you can't make your beat loop right.... Theres always either a gap where there shouldn't be or the loop comes to quickly. So you're like "Damn! I had something going there, and now I'm fighting with my MPC!" It shouldn't be like that.

I want those "loose" unquanitized madlib/mr. oizo style beats (that sound kinda messed up) but I dont want them too messed up.

Any advice from cats who record raw unquanitised beats all the time? Thanks in advance.

yup, guess and correct it.

Play it and see if you finish before the bars loop or after, then adjust. The times it takes you to get it count as practice. Sometimes you lose it, but usually not for something worse. After a while you can guess pretty good. Also with unquantized beats, you got to play it the same so it may take longer.

Or you could always just turn the click off and ignore the tempo and record one loooong a$s sequence... Then you don't have to worry about looping.

undo-seq. if it aint tight, it aint right. you have unlimited takes brother. welcome to the world of imperfections.

So practice makes perfect, huh?

Its funny, cause Ive been using the MPC for 5 years (just not this way). It goes to show what a great machine it is: you can be an expert at using it one way (step squence + live quanitized fills) and be a novice at another.

Im glad though, Id rather be at step one, learning hopw to master a different way of production than thinking Im the sh!t untill someone else shows me how much better they are.

nice thread...and i aint even got my mpc for another two days.

but it gives me some ideas on what im gonna be trying to do with it.

quick question how do i set my tap tempo to respond to 4 beats rather than 3

i think its under MISC or OTHER. change your tap averageing to 4.

why not just use your step seq skills and fine the tune the note locations manually. a bit fiddly but a must for getting sounds off the grid.

just play to the click, it's called rhythm. or if you're trying to loop a sample, then check the time stretch feature and it will show you the BPM

antix818 wrote:just play to the click, it's called rhythm. or if you're trying to loop a sample, then check the time stretch feature and it will show you the BPM

Yeah, I play to the click sometimes, but what I'm going for is best described as a "loose" sound. Check out the madvillian record to see what I mean... a lot of the drum beats I like on the record are not "perfectly in time."

yeah u need to practice and tighten up ur timing skills. It takes a while to devolp good timing. The cool part is that this can be applied to all instrumensts (keys, guitar,) So its more of a mental thing and reflex thing than just an MPC tech. It is hard to do though at first. I cut up breakbeats and replay them with the pads and reassemple that shit but my if my timing is not exactly (8 zones on a 2bar breakbeat=1/8 note pad hits) my shit wont loop right

binger0 wrote:yeah u need to practice and tighten up ur timing skills. It takes a while to devolp good timing. The cool part is that this can be applied to all instrumensts (keys, guitar,) So its more of a mental thing and reflex thing than just an MPC tech. It is hard to do though at first. I cut up breakbeats and replay them with the pads and reassemple that **** but my if my timing is not exactly (8 zones on a 2bar breakbeat=1/8 note pad hits) my **** wont loop right

yep. practice practice practice.
Im half-way there: I've been practcing over the last 4 weeks just playing the pads, sometimes along to records and other times just by themself, and I can now play out a full beat without multi-tracking on the mpc (something i've always wanted to do).

Part of the problem is my "off" timing is part of what I like about the beats Im making. I know this cause I'll play a beat with timing correct off, and then turn the timing correct on to 1/16ths with 53% swing and it'll be the same beat but will be missing "something" I cant put my finger on.

I talked to a drumer frend of mine and he says he's never been able to play to a click track cause he just doesn't feel it, so at least I know Im not alone.

count the ticks of the bars, and se t the quantize 1/32

Science wrote:count the ticks of the bars, and se t the quantize 1/32

Heres something I figured out that I never would of thought of:

Turn quanitize off and set the metronome for 1/32. It sounds like a buzz, but its way easier to play along with cause its not so rigid like you are back in piano class or something.