Exchange tips and tricks for the Akai MPC4000
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By Mohammed Wed Jun 02, 2004 1:40 am
Somehow i cant get any usefull answers on that note duration/cut thing.

Please tell me.....

Ive recorded a note wich goes ( this note ive recorded overlaps the fourth beat)

___|___________|____________|________________|______

I want this note to stop exectaly at the fourth beat, like this
____|__________|_____________|_______________|

Its impossible to cut notes, so i have to play around with the duration,,, how can i dot this without having to rerecord it over and over again???? How can i get the mpc to edit the note duration in the grid??
Twisting the %tc value is inadequate, there is no midicut function.


Please poeple im getting major headaches over here :(
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By Reveal Wed Jun 02, 2004 1:54 am
push window on start of note and move the cursor to D and change the length.,

use step edit.

use duration in the main menu

240 is 16th
480 1/8th
960 1/4 bar

what u need to do is change the duration
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By Reveal Wed Jun 02, 2004 2:24 am
or while your in the seqe edit page push option,
set duration of recorded notes to tc value =100% or 200% and so on......

then set Tc at the top of the page to the value you want your notes and play ,then the notes cannot be longer than the Tc value(100%) or double(200%) the tc value and so on...


and set swing to 50% when doing this if ya want it dead on beat ....
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By Iceberg-Slim Wed Jun 02, 2004 3:25 am
Reveal always dropping gems

Another way is to go to the Misc Page

I think its Truncate Sequence Duration or some shit, set that to yes and it will automatically cut the last note so that shit will loop perfect

Believe me I've lost sleep over that as well
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By Mohammed Wed Jun 02, 2004 2:39 pm
Reveal wrote:or while your in the seqe edit page push option,
set duration of recorded notes to tc value =100% or 200% and so on......

then set Tc at the top of the page to the value you want your notes and play ,then the notes cannot be longer than the Tc value(100%) or double(200%) the tc value and so on...


and set swing to 50% when doing this if ya want it dead on beat ....


Thanx, at least now i know that there is no other way then change the duration manualy. This is a major shortcomming, i hope you all agree.
From now on i need a pocket calculator next to my mpc to calculate the note length :lol: (mpc homework assignment)

Lets hope Sean has improved some of the midi-functions in the future update.

Thanx reveal for you usefull input as always

By Altopiano Thu Jun 03, 2004 2:18 am
yo mohammed

i'd forget about the calculator! that sucks ... i've tried it! as your homework you could make a one page excel sheet with duration numbers related too 1/64/3, 1/64 ... til 16 bars and stick it on your wall right next to the 4k! you'll need them - once you're used to insert numbers manually you can't stop beyin precise enough when apropriate! and it also helps gettin a feel for those numbers, soon you'll know the most important ones by heart!

... yo and sorry but i can't agree that they're a shortcomming ... i love them as i do the entire step edit page!

By MAD T Thu Jun 03, 2004 7:58 pm
It's really ridiculous....you can do it in Sonar at the same time you quantize the note positions. There is no reason why the MPC should not do this.
By bleepfreak Fri Jun 04, 2004 12:07 pm
Hi,

I am working on a simple computer application that helps me with these kind of problems. When it is finished I will let you know where to download it. It is somewhat like a tick calculator. I can type in the start location and the end location and it gives me the duration in ticks (according to the time signature). The only disadvantage is that you have to use a pc.

Also, for quick reference I created a track that contains all important notelengths. All notes start at the beginning of the sequence, starting with the shortest lenght at C-1, increasing chromatically. I copied only this first tick, containing all notes / notelenghts, into the phrase library. If I need to know a specific notelength I paste the phrase into an empty sequence / track and look it up in the step editor. This way I do not need a piece of paper when I am working out of the studio.

Now I know most of the values by heart btw..

Cheers! Bleepfreak.
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By Reveal Fri Jun 04, 2004 1:25 pm
sup,

goodlooking bleepfreak(dont forget about the mac users hahah),

Dont mean to hate or anything,but i cant help feeling like your all trying to get the 4k to act like a pc(cubase) application and not the performance machine it is!
And we should all know the tick duration for different note values off he tops of our headz anyway! and u can input notes into the grids tc value as descibed above
Id just rather play it again then refer to a pc!,
hey but thats me!


thanks

By bleepfreak Fri Jun 04, 2004 2:07 pm
Yeah, I'll try to make the little app. both mac and winXP compatible.

And no I don't wish my MPC4000 to be a computer. Most of the machine's functions I like exactly the way they are, but you must agree that being able to edit the values in step edit while playing, in real time, listening to your changes while the beat loops, would keep the workflow way better than pressing stop and play-start all the time...

Most of the time I don't use a PC at all, but sometimes it comes in handy for doing quick calculatuions and stuff. I am working on a set of handy tools to work alongside the MPC...
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By Reveal Fri Jun 04, 2004 2:15 pm
sup bleep,

thats Cool,
fair point on realtime editing it could be implemented better,i agree ..

what other little tools you got in mind? ....':lol:'
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By Mohammed Fri Jun 04, 2004 3:36 pm
Great bleepfreak, im sure it will come in handy later on,,
but i still hope that some advanced miditools will be implemented in the next os so we dont need your app :P
By bleepfreak Sun Jun 06, 2004 9:43 am
What kind of other tools do you guys have in mind? If you have a good idea I can see if it is possible for me to program it.
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By ikke Sun Jun 06, 2004 10:06 am
bleepfreak wrote:Yeah, I'll try to make the little app. both mac and winXP compatible.

And no I don't wish my MPC4000 to be a computer. Most of the machine's functions I like exactly the way they are, but you must agree that being able to edit the values in step edit while playing, in real time, listening to your changes while the beat loops, would keep the workflow way better than pressing stop and play-start all the time...

Most of the time I don't use a PC at all, but sometimes it comes in handy for doing quick calculatuions and stuff. I am working on a set of handy tools to work alongside the MPC...


Yo Bleeps!

Maybe you could make a Win/Mac application wich let us map multi instruments easy over the keyboard, and saves to *.akp in 24bits.

Dat zou toch de max zijn!

By bleepfreak Sun Jun 06, 2004 1:22 pm
hmm,

since I am not familiar with the akp format and I am not an expert programmer this sounds a bit over my head at this point. Besides I read that there is already someone else working on this program.
I was more thinking of MIDI/sysex based tools.