The Gear!!!! im a rooky so bare with me...

ok so i have managed to collect gear here and there and get it passed down to me and what have you....

but i love the 60II i got the scsi so floppies are just back ups
but i also have the s950 with mem up
i have never used the midi yet (still kinda unsure how it works)

so here is the thing i a bout to get rid of my 1000 (i had great fun with this little thing compared to the 60 since i am in the military and get stuck in places all over) and probably gonna get rid of my asr 10 (i dont know though i love that sample sound) i suck at sampling then chopping in the 60, its never been my thing to do it takes a min for me then i end up loosing interest in the rest of the sample tweaks.... and im not to keen on software either, i get down with the hardware
but i may cop the 2000xl since i have no real time to spend chop sueing in the 60 and the 2000xl is a dope setup i think for dong just that

now... the set up midi thru/ in/ out? i never got the manuals so maybe it explains there but how would i go about hooking up the 950 to the 60 i have been just using the outs ...bassically unpluging and replugging... im trying to speed up my process so i can spend more time working on my drums and getting more pad time in then edit trim cut copy zone this and that....
any word of advice or tips from you guys alot of you guys probably have it down to a exact science &... i hear your guys stuff and its dope real classic for the most part so im not asking for your secrets (unless you wanna tell me, you got the props in advance)
so if you cvan help this rooky out i need it, my drums could use the s950 attention!
peace

Yo! Heres what you do. Connect a midi cable from midi out 1A on your 60 to midi in 1A on you S950(the 1A, is cuz I don't have the machine in front of me so im not sure if its 1 or A. what I mean is for convieince, use the first ports.) Make sure you plug in the audio outs of your 60 and your 950 to whatever you use to amplify them and you should be all hooked up. Also, make sure you have the master volumes at a decent level for BOTH machines.

K, now fire up your 60 and hit midi. Goto the pad assignment option and hit the 1st pad in bank A. change that number to 35. Now go left to right, bottom to top through the pads, setting them in numerical order(Pad 2 should be 36 with Pad 16 being 50). Double check that they are in fact in perfect order then hit the bank button to go to bank B and keep going in order(pad 1B is 51, pad 16B is 66). Repeat this process until all your pads are in numerical order, then do one final check to make sure all 4 banks are correct. What this does is sets your pads up in chromatic order so that each pad increment goes up 1 half step like between keys on a keyboard. This will make it easy to know where you put your S950 samples and what range on your pads they will cover. After this is done DO NOT SHUT IT OFF OR LOAD ANY SAMPLES TO MEMORY.
IMPORTANT: This setting can be stored on the internal ram, however, the battery that keeps it from erasing is most likely from the late 80's or early 90's so I would not trust it. This is like trying to save your game of Legend of Zelda on your old played out NES cartridge from 86, most likely when you come back your game will be gone.

SO HERES WHAT YOU DO: Go to save, and save a system parameters file, and a program file. Name them something like BasicSetup. Save to your scsi drive and like 2 floppies to be safe(make sure you label them). Now anytime you wanna make beats with your 950, or any new ones from now on, load the 2 files (ON THE 60) you saved before you start working. What this does is provides you with a starting point for when you wanna make beats with your 950 since all that tedious work you just did will be saved. Then when you've made your beat, you just save a new program/par file(not sure if par is necessary, I just do it to be safe) This keeps the pad order the same that that your samples haven't gone all over the place and the sequencer don't play horn loops where you set the kicks to play.

If you have saved MPC60 beats and your system was not set up chromatic like this when you made them, the pads are gonna be jumbled so watch out for that. You can either load the old settings back up or just change the sounds back to the pads they used to be on(use step edit>options>locate next event on each track on each sequence to find out what pad they were on. If you labeled your tracks well it shouldn't be too bad. Then just resave the program when you've fixed it.) I personally recommend the latter.

Bored yet?

NOW, Fire up that S950. Get it all warmed up and sample something with it. Once your sample is all set up and named and whatnot, goto edit program and select the current one and map it to the pads you want on the MPC.(On my Emax I can just hit the select pads to set my range but im not sure it the 950 get down that way. If not just use the knob on the machine.)

PLAYING THE SAMPLE FROM THE MPC: On the main screen of the MPC Under "Track data" on the left, theres a field called CHN and by default, its off. Goto the solid word off, not the parenthesis, and turn the wheel to set it to the 1st channel. This enables it to play the 950. Now make sure full level is on for now and hit the pad you set the 950 sample to.(On the Emax I had to hold the pad down by default. This was due to the settings on the ASDR envelope on the Emax. If you have to hold it on the 950, thats prob why as well.) You should hear the sound come out. If you set it to a range, the sounds in that range should be higher and lower pitched. WORD OF ADVICE: Don't set the samples from the 60 to the same pads you set the 950's samples to. Use like Bank A and B for the 60 and C and D for the 950. Also the pad settings on the 60 have an effect on the playback of any sample being played from them, including those on the 950.
ALSO:Keep tracks of s950 samples on different tracks as the ones direct from the 60 and label them as such. If the sounds are coming from the 60, you leave the CHN setting to OFF.

SAVING: The 60 is the Master sequencer so all sequence and song data gets saved from that as well as anything that was sampled directly to it + the program. The 950 just has its samples and its own program data so save those to a disk from there. (Name your programs from both machines, as well as your disks, similarly to avoid confusion being sure to mark which is from what machine. An S and and M should take care of that.)

Now when you come back to work on it, you should just have to load your disks and pick up where you left off. That was the whole point of setting up the default chromatic program and par files on the MPC. And remember, when starting a new project, load that BasicSetup file you made on your 60 before you start to work. Good luck. Any questions, just hit me up.

Also, for fat, more gritty, "GangStarr" style drums, use layers on the 950 with the sample rate turned down on each sample to around like 28 khz. That will help give you that crisp classic sound. Also, it will save disk space as each sample will be smaller.

GOOOOOD LOOOOKIN
man thats what i needed big time! much more productive that way!
one more question on the s950 is it safe to save to regular floppies or do i need the DD's
i know my 60II i only use the old one's?
and good looking on the gritty tip made a drum set i just sampled way better and punchy!


once again good lookin on the quick schoolin'! peace

Thanks for the info! I was basically on the same page with ya saving the par and moving all pads to sequencial numbers. Then bam you talk about layering samples in the s900??~!? How do you do that... I am sure its easier then i am thinking...Maybe the two samples with the same keygroup? Shit if thats it i never though of it.....

You can technically do it the same way you did with just the 60, set one of the pads to trigger multiple samples and ur good to go. As far as the keygroup thing goes, i'm not too sure since I own an EMAX, I've just read the 900 and 950 manuals which are much better written than that of the EMAX. My recommendation for layering comes as follows.

Lets say you have 2 snares that you want to put together. Set each to a very short keygroup, Im talkin like 2 pads each that way you can vary the pitch btwn hits to give a more natural feel to it. So say you set snare1 to cover a range of pads on the 60 which is from A1-A2, and snare2 on A3-A4. With that all said and done, go to Sounds>1 on your 60 and hit the A1 pad. Set it from normal to simult and set the trigger to A3(which if you set up your pads chromatically would be 37). Now hit pad A2 and do the same, only changing the trigger to A4(38). Now you should have 2 layered s950-900 snares of 2 different pitches.

PS:
The 950 can use either HD or DD floppies. I'd use HD cuz they hold more.

Layering is more than pitching +/- . The 60 has no filter so layering drums and basslines would suck for me, I would not get the results needed. thats my prob with the 60. I know I can EQ prior to sampling but It would be guessing, because I need to tweak when layering in realtime.

asr/3000 all i need.


**** around with gear lust and you end up:

sampling in the asr , sampling drums in a s950, sampling bass s950, resampling and midi everything with 60.

all sounds good on paper but to me sucks **** with 3-4 old machines to make one beat.

yo Blue Drinks I still have some EMax floppies if you want them, drop me 5 bucks in a paypal and I'll ship them out...and give you an official count of how many there are

[email protected]

can i run a sound module to the samples all at the same time i sampling in the s950 or do i sample into the s950 then add the module to it?

would i use the thru MIDI for this?

firework wrote:Layering is more than pitching +/- . The 60 has no filter so layering drums and basslines would suck for me, I would not get the results needed. thats my prob with the 60. I know I can EQ prior to sampling but It would be guessing, because I need to tweak when layering in realtime.

asr/3000 all i need.


**** around with gear lust and you end up:

sampling in the asr , sampling drums in a s950, sampling bass s950, resampling and midi everything with 60.

all sounds good on paper but to me sucks **** with 3-4 old machines to make one beat.

There are different uses for the term layer. A beat with many things going on can said to be very densely layered. At the same time, a snare sound that is composed of more than one snare sample is a layered snare, with each sample being a different layer. One may have a fat bottom end to it and the other a nice sizzling crack to the top, put them together and you have a layer. Doesn't mean it's always going to sound perfect. There's usually more tweaking (more so than not) that needs to be done to make them fully work together in harmony. But, it is still layered nonetheless.

If you read my quote,

"Now you should have 2 LAYERED s950-900 snares of 2 DIFFERENT PITCHES."

You should be able to see that in no way do I imply that the fact that the layered snares are able to be played in 2 different pitches is what makes them layered. I simply provided an exercise that would help to get them familiar with the interaction between the 60 and the S950 with regards to layering 2 samples that came from the 950.

"I know I can EQ prior to sampling but It would be guessing, because I need to tweak when layering in realtime."

I see your point, but with the technique provided, that can easily be accomplished by assigning the samples different output channels on the 950, thus giving them their own separate tracks that can be eq'd in realtime during the mixing stage because this technique simply is a way of telling the 60 to play both samples at the same time. If this won't work due to limited inputs into your recorder, you can also just make 2 separate tracks each sample set to play at the same time and sync them via midi or smpte or what have you.Probably should have made that part clear.

"The 60 has no filter so layering drums and basslines would suck for me, I would not get the results needed. thats my prob with the 60."

That's fine, which is why they have s950's that have filters in them.

"asr/3000 all i need."

That's straight too, some people say cucumbers taste better pickled, but they already have the 60/950 combo and were asking for advice on how to use said combo. knocking the functionality of the 60 doesn't do anybody any good. Whatever gear anyone wants to use is cool, some excel at certain tasks.

As far as gear lust goes, I run a small studio and work in others. My gear lust goes way beyond the realm of samplers and into vintage mics and other gear. Sadly, it's far too late for me there.

I've gotten some nice results with my mpc2kxl emax setup, but my workflow is very limited by the way im currently using them both together. Ive got the two connected via midi- but at the moment im resorting to sampling sounds from the emax into the mpc because trying to control the emax via the mpc midi is limited.

as an example, i cant control velocity, pitch, envelope settings on the emax with the mpc.

can anyone help? where am i going wrong here?

Thanks people

MPC2kXL
Emax 1 Rack