MPC5000 reviews, bug reports and fellow user support on the most recent standalone, hardware MPC from Akai
By mpc5k_cgn Mon Jan 19, 2009 11:45 pm
hello forum from germany,

i got a question about remixing or vocals over beats...

how would you get started?
is it possible to handle it all in the mpc or would you use additional tools like auditon or ableton for eg?

pls gimme a feedback because a friend of mine choose me for a battle...he said beatmaking on pc is easier and more effective then on a groovebox like ours...an i will show him what an mpc could do...

beats and samples are easy for me...but a whole vocaltrack to overdub is a secret for me...

maybe with hd-recording?
can i embed a long accapella without recording it? just simple load via usb on the hd-drive and paste it in a track?
or must it be sampled and chopped on the pads? shoul i trigger the whole 2min vocals with the first note and playbacked it in complete? questions and bad english...what more can i say...top billin ;-)

greetz from cologne


ps: wenn hier jemand deutsch kann...lasst mich nicht hängen
By oneday2one Tue Jan 20, 2009 2:28 am
well, ..yes, you can load your accapella via usb to the internal hard drive, and then load it like a long sample.

but the main thing is this, ...either you are going to have to build the beat 'around' the accapella vocal sample, ....or you are going to have to "time-stretch" the sample to fit the speed of the beat.

if you do not already know the BPM of the sample, this is where the tap-tempo feature will come into play.

the reason i say "time-stretch" is because it will not effect the pitch of the vocal sample.

also, ...because this is a tedious process, and samples that get time-stretched too far can sound choppy, ...the MPC 5k has offered us users several options of different forms or choices when using the time-stretch feature, ...so you should take the time to go through each of these as you try to achieve the cleanest vocal sound possible.

good luck, ...and if a little choppiness cannot be avoided, ....i would suggest a slight reverb effect, as well as good mixing skills, and the slight fractoralness of the time-stretch should become buried forever.
8)

-oneday2one-
User avatar
By Askia Shaheed Tue Jan 20, 2009 3:06 am
You have two options:
1. Load your accapellas as a long sample as suggested or
2. Import it as an audio track in the hard disk recorder
User avatar
By Jauly Tue Jan 20, 2009 1:53 pm
one sample that covers all vocals for the whole song is not good for remixing, even in ableton or whereever.
chop phrases and choruses (or more detailed vocal snippets) to pads in front of you to get the best overview.
the thing is, that you have a certain structure in the sample division.
then you can arrange the vocal parts how you want. naturally, it would be best you know the exact bpm.
otherwise you can get it, as proposed by oneday2one, via tap tempo.
By sparco Tue Jan 20, 2009 2:43 pm
totally agree with Jauly, ive just received my MPC 5k and working on a remix of a biggie track... ie chop phrases and different parts of the song and then load them as different samples. makes it a lot easier and gives u much more scope to play with rather than having the whole acapella as just one long sample..

what i find frustrtating is 5k's ability to chop up one long sample but that probably just comes down to me not having read the manual properly.. i find it much easier to use external software and monitor given can get into a lot more detail (personally i use Peak Pro 6 which absolutely rocks). then save them as wavs and then import using USB command on to my 5k.

cheers. :mrgreen: :mrgreen: :mrgreen: