samples are sounding choppy

I've chopping joints up on my mpc 4000 and sometimes recycle at zero crossing and all that for a while now but my joints always sound a little too choppy for my taste (basically it sounds unnatural to the ear). I've been getting away with it by masking it behind my drums but I want to be able to mute my drums every now and then for some variation. The only time I've ever achieved this was by using the quanitize off but that s**t gets a little hard when trying to flip chops of different sizes and still stay on beat. If anybody has any suggestions I could try it would gladly be appreciated. Thanks in advance.

dez perado wrote:I've chopping joints up on my mpc 4000 and sometimes recycle at zero crossing and all that for a while now but my joints always sound a little too choppy for my taste (basically it sounds unnatural to the ear). I've been getting away with it by masking it behind my drums but I want to be able to mute my drums every now and then for some variation. The only time I've ever achieved this was by using the quanitize off but that s**t gets a little hard when trying to flip chops of different sizes and still stay on beat. If anybody has any suggestions I could try it would gladly be appreciated. Thanks in advance.

Before you make a program set your end margin in slice program to zero. Make sure you understood the bpm of the original loop and have your sequencer tempo the same or faster. Playing a loop slower than the original loop makes problems too. Plus even if you use recycle to slice your loops you should always check the start and end points after importing back into your 4k to get them as tight as possible whatever mpc you use.


P.S. count out the direct number of beats you are going to set your quantize at in the same time whether it be 1/8th, 1/16, or 1/4 notes.


Alot of this is covered in getting started threads for newcomers.

Maybe they sound choppy because you are losing original sample´s swing when you quantize again those slices...
Recycle has an option wich create a MIDI file that keeps that original swing. Try it out
Good luck!

In this area all the mpcs sucks at an insane level. Realtime (doesnt even have to be realtime!) timestretch on all models basically is worthless. But thats your answer. Go outside the 4k and use a professional timestretcher like prosoniq timefactory or something.

A small tip set the sample to no loop instead of one shot. Go into step edit or the main page select duration and set each piece to 960 if you got 1/4 chops or whatever length time you were chopping. Then go to edit 1 page in Program and extend the Amp release to your taste by ear. That can help mask the endings too. From the 2xl thread forget the dude`s name.

two things
1) use the option in recycle to create tails onto the slices
2) choose a very very good ambience program from an excellent reverb unit or plugin.

geoff

foge1 wrote:two things
1) use the option in recycle to create tails onto the slices
2) choose a very very good ambience program from an excellent reverb unit or plugin.

geoff

yes, a short reverb program should help you... try room reverb or even a gated one

thanks for all the replies. I'll give all of these methods a try and see what works best for me

The only time I've ever achieved this was by using the quanitize off but that s**t gets a little hard when trying to flip chops of different sizes and still stay on beat.

get better at this