Direct recording with footswitch

Hi guys,

I got myself a footswitch in order to have my hands free while direct recording.
How can I set the MPC2500 to direct record with the footswitch (instead of pressing F6) ?

Thanks

goto mode pad 10(other) - footswitch options and set the footswitch to act as f6

peace jo

selecta jo wrote:goto mode pad 10(other) - footswitch options and set the footswitch to act as f6

peace jo

How funny, i went through the different option (start, overdub) then when I saw "pad 1" "pad 2" I expected to end at "pad 16"... Little did I know that "f1" "f2" [...] was next.

It's the second time you help me jo, thanks alot!

Is it just me or does the delay from the time when you hit the footswitch till it engages the MPC seem a bit too long to be useful? I have only tried this once for play start. But I worked horribly!

to be honest i have never tried to use the foot switch for play start - i mainly use it for recording in direct recording mode and sometimes for next sequence if i play something live and want a switch.
in direct recording mode i usually start the recording slightly ahead of bar 1 to make sure the sample does not glitch - this is no problem, because the mpc does not only sample the live input but also stores timing data, so when i insert my sample to the sequence it is spot on. if i need the sample to loop perfectly i can always trim it later. the pedal i use is a zoom fs01, which has a travel of about 1cm.

peace jo

selecta jo wrote:in direct recording mode i usually start the recording slightly ahead of bar 1 to make sure the sample does not glitch - this is no problem, because the mpc does not only sample the live input but also stores timing data, so when i insert my sample to the sequence it is spot on.

Doesn't that mean the sample will be inserted at the end of the sequence, so on the first loop of the sequence it won't be triggered yet?

^^^^ that may be the case if you let the loop run for one or more times before starting to record - but in my case i hit record+play so the mpc starts with a four bar preroll with only the click and then i start the direct recording with the footswitch on the last frames of bar four of the preroll. at the end of bar four i stop the recording with the footswitch again - the window pops up if i want to store that sample, i hit the pad on which i want my sample - and then i hit play again and the sample sits perfect. when i get home this evening i will have a closer look at step edit where the sample gets actually inserted.
akai is a bit short in explaining how direct rcording should be used in a real world scenario...
also there is no real explanation of the continous sample track, which in my understanding alows to trigger samples before bar one.

peace jo

selecta jo wrote:also there is no real explanation of the continous sample track, which in my understanding alows to trigger samples before bar one.

peace jo

I think you might be right, I havn't actually tried that function but I'm thinking it will work along the same lines of the Korg Kaoss Pads, where the sample is constantly playing in the background, the on/off so to speak actually just unmutes it. That way if you have a sample thats 4 bars long starting on bar 1, normally if you hit play at bar 2 the sample won't play until the loop goes back to the start and bar 1 whereby triggering the sample, with the continuous sample track if you hit play on bar 2, it will play the sample immediately, but not from the start.

I might be wrong though.

selecta jo wrote:^^^^ that may be the case if you let the loop run for one or more times before starting to record - but in my case i hit record+play so the mpc starts with a four bar preroll with only the click and then i start the direct recording with the footswitch on the last frames of bar four of the preroll. at the end of bar four i stop the recording with the footswitch again - the window pops up if i want to store that sample, i hit the pad on which i want my sample - and then i hit play again and the sample sits perfect. when i get home this evening i will have a closer look at step edit where the sample gets actually inserted.

Yes, do that. The recorded sample gets inserted exactly at the position where you start recording, which in your explanation should be at the end of the sequence. So when you start back your sequence, the samples doesn't get triggered right away. Maybe it's perfectly in sync, but not playing on the first loop. That's one reason why in my opinion this feature is pretty useless.

From my experience I would have to agree with Stilo. pretty tricky to get this function to work usefully.

_Stilo_ wrote:which in your explanation should be at the end of the sequence. So when you start back your sequence, the samples doesn't get triggered right away.

please re-read my explanation (sorry i´m german so my english lacks sometimes): i start my direct recording on the last bar of the preroll - that means on bar 0 or -1, and the playback is there from the start not only after the first turnaround of the loop.
the picture of the continous track feature in the manual shows something like that. and this is what is confusing me about these fatures - the manual says you need to use the continous track feature to start a sample before bar one, and the settings allow only to define one track as continous - but in direct rcording i can use several tracks in the same sequence and it works on all of them.
i have to send akai a bunch of emails untill they respond with a real statement and not only autophrases.
the direct recording function was one of the features that brought me to the 2500 in the first place.

peace jo

selecta jo wrote:please re-read my explanation (sorry i´m german so my english lacks sometimes): i start my direct recording on the last bar of the preroll - that means on bar 0 or -1, and the playback is there from the start not only after the first turnaround of the loop.

Hm, ok...you mean you have bar 1-4 play once, then have say bar 5-8 loop around? Ok, then you would have the direct recorded sample on the first run....but when you loop around to bar 5 it wouldn't be there anymore, because it sits at the end of bar 4

selecta jo wrote:the picture of the continous track feature in the manual shows something like that. and this is what is confusing me about these fatures - the manual says you need to use the continous track feature to start a sample before bar one, and the settings allow only to define one track as continous - but in direct rcording i can use several tracks in the same sequence and it works on all of them.

I just found the paragraph in the manual you're referring to...I haven't tried it, but I think that means you could set one track as Continuous to make it run properly and, well, the others not.

_Stilo_ wrote:Hm, ok...you mean you have bar 1-4 play once, then have say bar 5-8 loop around? Ok, then you would have the direct recorded sample on the first run....but when you loop around to bar 5 it wouldn't be there anymore, because it sits at the end of bar 4
I just found the paragraph in the manual you're referring to...I haven't tried it, but I think that means you could set one track as Continuous to make it run properly and, well, the others not.

no, i don´t have an eight bar loop, just four bars and a preroll of four bars (this is called count in, as i just learned, and can be set to different values in the click options).

so now i did a simple test: loaded up a drum program, did a little boombab on track one to have a basic rhythm.
then i plugged in my bass and did three direct recordings. all of them are spot on and all three are starting on bar 1.
now i looked at step edit - my direct recorded samples are all placed at bar 001.01.00, they are (in this example) on tracks 2, 3 and 4, all three samples are in one program on pads 1 to 3, all samples are set to one shot.
all three samples are longer than four bars which i can see in trim mode, but since the mpc knows where to place them only the exact four bars of the samples are played. now comes the bad part: i can mute those samples anywhere in the sequence (and unmute them aswell), but only if the mute/stop of oneshot samples is set to immediate in mode - pad10 - misc.
that itself is no problem, but there is the old bug again that my midi tracks can no longer be properly muted in this setting. now this is what renders the feature almost useless for me, because i mostly make sequences with many midi tracks and some direct recording tracks of live instruments. untill akai repairs that bug i always have to decide if oneshot samples or midi tracks are more important for my sequences. if you read my old posts in the forum you´ll see that i explained that bug several times - i also informed akai in germany and nukai about it but they never fixed it.

so bottom line: the direct recording can be useful, but there are bugs in the os that make it useless in some settings.
and akai should do another addendum to the manual where they properly explain how to use the direct recording function and the continous sample track (which was set to off in my example, by the way) and the difference in those two.

all of you please have a try and test the direct recording function and the continous sample track feature - post your findings so we can all benefit of the knowledge and maybe understand what akai implemented to the os but not wrote in the manual.

peace jo

selecta jo wrote:no, i don´t have an eight bar loop, just four bars and a preroll of four bars (this is called count in, as i just learned, and can be set to different values in the click options).

so now i did a simple test: loaded up a drum program, did a little boombab on track one to have a basic rhythm.
then i plugged in my bass and did three direct recordings. all of them are spot on and all three are starting on bar 1.
now i looked at step edit - my direct recorded samples are all placed at bar 001.01.00

Now it makes sense...when you start Direct Recording during the count in, it only starts recording once the sequence starts. So of course the sample is then always on 001.01.00, and as long as you're not starting to play too early, it will also sound right. I didn't know it worked like that before.

I don't see where you can set the count in to 4 bars though...

you are right again ,my bad, the count in is set to one bar at 1/4 in my case, so i confused it.
a four bar count in would be a little long, wouldn´it?

peace jo