How do you make YOUR programs?

Whats your M.O. for choosing the sounds you group in programs? Do you just throw a bunch of random things together, and add as you go along? Do you download packs and put those packs together in one program? I'm just curious. When I look @ the big name guys using their MPCs and going through programs, they all the sounds seem so random sometimes.

Well for me it depends ...

My drums kits are well organized cause i mostly always use the sames.

But for random sounds i make new programs & add the sounds as i go along.

I try to make these new programs organized by type of sounds ( bass, scratchs, fx, synths etc...) but sometimes i just trow everything in the same one .

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thanks for the generosity, tomazzi

I set mines up how needlz taught me... When I purchased my 4k from him he taught me that instead of mixing programs with different sounds like kicks and snares, hi-hats and stuff like that, just make programs based on types of instruments. So one program would be nothing but the best drums. Another would be the best snares and so on and so forth. Like how tomazzi does his.

It didnt make sense when he first taught me, but after while, I found that it gives you better flexibility when trying to match the best drums with the best snares....

^^^^^ makes sense yes...but it would kill the whole aspect of playing little test grooves, wouldn't it?

in my case no.


What I do is lay down the kick first. From there I go to track two and start messing with the snare programs. As that kick is still going, im tweaking the tempo and thinking of how to mesh the snare with the kick pattern layering and testing grooves like that.

Like I mentioned before, at first it was complicated, but it was the only system I knew, so I stuck with it and got used to it

BxJaze wrote:^^^^^ makes sense yes...but it would kill the whole aspect of playing little test grooves, wouldn't it?

You gotta do what works for you, but I have to agree.

The way I do it is to audition the sounds and then assign all of my selected samples across the pads so that I've got the whole kit built.

I normally try and assign the same types of sounds to the same pad position as I build the kit, so that your fingers instinctively know where to go when you're playing a live beat - you can't do that all the time but for a basic drum kit I always tend to put things in the same place.

Then I can play my beats in real-time and if things need tweaked or I want to change the sounds then that's no big deal - but I build the whole Kit together so everything is grouped into a single kit - then save that as my program. (I normally include a couple of different kicks and snares in my kit for layering to fatten up the sound)

I couldn't work by having all kicks, then all snares etc. as I need to get a feel for how all of the samples sit together in a groove - and I prefer to do that in real-time by playing a beat from the pads.

I've seen those dudes on youtube building beats with sounds on their pads that look completely random..lol That wouldn't work for me - but I'm not saying it's wrong. Each to their own I guess.

Ps. I obviously group the samples stored on my Hard drive into categories and have kicks, snares etc. grouped together, but even then they're all organised into sub folders with the types of kick etc..lol It's a lot of work setting it all up ( I have 30gb of choice samples on my HDD), but I like to be structured and know where everything is, so that looking for a type of sound doesn't interupt my workflow too much.

here's what i do. ....8 kicks on the bottom 8 pads, ...8 snares on the top 8 pads.
...next page, 8 hats, and on and on.

...then what? ....keep making it better, ...i already have enough kicks, hats, snares, shakers and toms to make many different beats, ...but if i'm bored of making beats but still want to do work?
...find ways to make the drums better, by either resampling most everything, or creating new from scratch, or mixing both, ...and then only keeping the best 8 of everything, ...and then creating a new program...

...so basically, i'm always opening and playing with my best.

..if i project calls for something specifically different, you can always make a seperate program for it, ...like i do as well.

diegoeskryptic wrote:I set mines up how needlz taught me... When I purchased my 4k from him he taught me that instead of mixing programs with different sounds like kicks and snares, hi-hats and stuff like that, just make programs based on types of instruments. So one program would be nothing but the best drums. Another would be the best snares and so on and so forth. Like how tomazzi does his.

It didnt make sense when he first taught me, but after while, I found that it gives you better flexibility when trying to match the best drums with the best snares....

I actually like your method.

Normally, I just go to my kik folder, preview a few kick drums, and load the ones I want to use. I do this next for the snares, hihats, etc and assign these two a new program.

Askia Shaheed wrote:

diegoeskryptic wrote:I set mines up how needlz taught me... When I purchased my 4k from him he taught me that instead of mixing programs with different sounds like kicks and snares, hi-hats and stuff like that, just make programs based on types of instruments. So one program would be nothing but the best drums. Another would be the best snares and so on and so forth. Like how tomazzi does his.

It didnt make sense when he first taught me, but after while, I found that it gives you better flexibility when trying to match the best drums with the best snares....

I actually like your method.

Normally, I just go to my kik folder, preview a few kick drums, and load the ones I want to use. I do this next for the snares, hihats, etc and assign these two a new program.

I've given this some more thought and this method may actually help in some situations, I'm gonna give it a try this weekend and see how it goes - You get used to one way of working - but it's always good to take a fresh look at things sometimes.

Askia Shaheed wrote:

diegoeskryptic wrote:
Normally, I just go to my kik folder, preview a few kick drums, and load the ones I want to use. I do this next for the snares, hihats, etc and assign these two a new program.

But are these programs you save to load up when u turn ur mpc on for new beats, or is that just your method for creating programs on the fly for the track at hand? Because my goal is to have some good kits that i can just load up each time i fire up the mp but i've got so many sounds, previewing each one at a time (especially since MPC's dont have frickin autoplay) is murder for the workflow.

I

BxJaze wrote:

Askia Shaheed wrote:

diegoeskryptic wrote:
Normally, I just go to my kik folder, preview a few kick drums, and load the ones I want to use. I do this next for the snares, hihats, etc and assign these two a new program.

But are these programs you save to load up when u turn ur mpc on for new beats, or is that just your method for creating programs on the fly for the track at hand? Because my goal is to have some good kits that i can just load up each time i fire up the mp but i've got so many sounds, previewing each one at a time (especially since MPC's dont have frickin autoplay) is murder for the workflow.

I

BX, thats for creating on the fly... and you just gave me an idea!

Tomorrow imma spend a good amount of time going thru my best sounds and getting rid of the ones I would never use. 100 good kicks. 100 good snares. 100 good hi-hats etc etc.

No more using rapid share to download samples. everything is coming off CD or vinyl. and placed into a kit and converted to PGM as I go along.

sure glad I purchased a 5k with a bigger HD and more memory ... Cant wait until NAMM!!

It seems like you all know where to go. You take n kicks, m snares...I never come up with a ready to use texture like that. Maybe I find a catchy tune when sitting in front of a huge advertisment or a car goes by and there's this sound snippet from the sound system...

Sometimes I create sequences containing not a single program at all, only Midi events send to other synths. I'd say it's a pitty to use something like the MPC for 8 kicks, 8 hats and 8 snares and so on. As said in other posts I group sounds to tracks, one for the kick drum (if available) or basic rhythm, supporting rhythm (congas, claves and "native's instruments"), a bass track...

My programs follow the GM (General Midi...where to place base drums, opened and closed hat - adapted from my MC 505) pattern as close as possible. So I can switch programs among sequences to achieve astounding new textures. I bought the MPC to have a different sort of interaction with my music work than keyboard and mouse. Kicks and snares could be recorded by simply using a cheap master keyboard - except coolness while recording a boing-bum-tchak for youtube.

While organizing all programs using the same layout I can mute pads more programmatically without writing down all the different samples and what they sound like.

What do I use to create my programs on the 5k?

here is my methodology:

1) audition and label samples using a Program called SampleCatalog.exe
2) Once all of them are labeled and classified I export them by their classification (all kicks in one folder etc)
3) After that I get BlueBox and just batch load my samples and create a program then I transfer to the MPc and load it.

This process work really well for me and I find it to be pretty efficient. So basically I am using the technique explained up there were all your kicks are in one program all Hihats in another etc etc.

This process to my has several advantages (sounds are easier to find, everything is more organized, easier to send all kicks to one output, hihat to another etc etc)

The one disadvantage I have with this process is the fact that substituting sounds for the same kind of sound is a bit more difficult. For example, sometimes you want to try out how your song would sound if a different snare was used. If you had all your programs laid out with different sounds you could go program by program substituting your snare (that is considering you always leave your snares in the same pads) thus making it easier to test different variations of the same beat.

I don't know if you guys understand what I am saying but when you make programs that have kicks and hi hats and snares all in one sample and you always put the same kinds of samples in the same pads, then you can make a bit with a particular program and just by switching to a different program you can hear how the same beat sounds with a different set of samples, which is quite wicked! As mentioned above, making programs this way also lets you make beats "live" a lot easier.

NorthernElite wrote:I've given this some more thought and this method may actually help in some situations, I'm gonna give it a try this weekend and see how it goes - You get used to one way of working - but it's always good to take a fresh look at things sometimes.

Hmm. yeah tried it... didn't work out for me!