EFFECTS ??

HI, I have had my mpc1000 for about 5 weeks now and Ive made several beats til now but Ive never used any kind of effects of any sort. Before I experiment I was wondering if someone would give me some suggestions on what to do first ...I dont know anything about effects and all the other stuff that makes a track complete...so I dont know how to go at it..THANKS

Just experiment! every sample and every song is different. There are no rules. Just go by what sounds good. It's also very easy to overdo effects so be careful. Compression and reverb are cool but there can be too much of a good thing.

Also keep in mind that a lot of times the stuff that your sampling already has mastering effects so you may not really need to use any or much at all!

That's pretty good advice --^ , I know from experience using Fruity Studio just how you can overdo effects. You can get lost in them in that program, I like the limitation in the MPC although a few more effects chains would be nice.

Integrating external effects via MIDI also works, using the extra outs 1/2 and 3/4. I have a Korg DL8000R on 3/4, thinking about a reverb like the TC M300.. Both let you use Program Changes, plus Control Changes to dynamically modify parameters e.g. delay levels, reverb times.. You just add the MIDI PC and CC commands to sequences on their own Track, set to the MIDI out/channel used by the device.

Do you know of any good sources of info on how to apply external effects via midi using the MPC sequencer. I have a Digitech TSR-24S, but i don't know how to use it and controll it with the MPC via midi.

Looks pretty straightforward from the manual * ... here's how I imagine it might work:
Audio: you've hooked the TSR up to Outs 3/4, and routed a couple of Pads to 3/4 (Mixer page) .
MIDI: you've connected MPC Out B to the TSR MIDI IN.
The TSR MIDI Settings are detailed in Section 6 (Manual pg 59)
- MIDI Channel defaults to 1
- set up the CCs as per the manual. e.g. create a Link from CC# 1 to "Chorus Level" as in their example.
The manual talks about using Pedals to send CCs, which is fine, but we can also use the MPC for this:
- dedicate a Track in your sequence to TSR control, give it the correct MIDI settings (e.g. MIDI 1B = channel 1 on Out B)
- use Step Edit to insert the right CCs at the right places. In this example, set CC#1 to 127 for full Chorus level, or 0 for no chorus.
And so on.
If you have a pedal that sends CCs, you can use that too, and record the MIDI in to the sequences as you do - just set MPC Soft Thru = "As Track" (MIDI Mode), and the sequencer Track to the correct MIDI channel. Then, what you send in from the pedals is sent straight out to the TSR, and recorded if you want that too.

Howzat?


* http://www.digitech.com/ftp_mirror/PDFs ... TSR24S.pdf

Search this forum for effects, there was a thread on this a couple months ago.