Exchange tips and tricks for the Akai MPC4000
By thegasman Sun Mar 27, 2005 12:43 pm
Hi,

I'm havin a problem thats doing my head in!!

As my pc is currently sick, I am having to use my mpc as a recorder for the finished track, as well as a sampler/sequencer.

Anyway, when i start the song in record mode, the mpc is taking it upon itself to ignore the song structure set up in song mode, and it's just looping the intro sequence of 32 bars (and no, i haven't got that sequence set to more than one repeat in song mode), meaning that i cannot record the track i have spent ages finishing. I know i can do this as it has worked perfectly well before, so i reckon it must be a bug....in fact it worked just the other day, but the mix wasnt right......AAAAHHHHHHH!!!!

Being a analogue desk user, i have to get the f****er recorded before i can start a new one.

Please advise a desperate man.....

Thanks
By thegasman Sun Mar 27, 2005 2:19 pm
As soon as i wrote the above i thought of an answer!!!

Have a blank bar or two at the beginning of intro......start song in song mode then once running go into record mode and press record before the music starts...now it palys back whole song while recording.....this works but seems an unecessary pain, and i dont remember doing this the last time it worked.....

any other ideas are welcome

thanks
User avatar

By Summer2000 Sun Mar 27, 2005 3:38 pm
You're doing this all wrong man.

This is the right way to do it:

1) Once all your patterns (sequences) are completed
2) Press the "Song" button and arrange all your sequences there as a song
3) Next, press "F1" which is used to convert all the sequences into one linear sequence, hence --->your completed song!
4) From the "Main" screeen, select that converted sequence
5) Now go into record mode to record your song.

Hope that was clear. Good luck!

By misterv Sun Mar 27, 2005 3:41 pm
yeah that s the right way to do it

works like a charm

By glide Sun Mar 27, 2005 5:58 pm
no your both doing it wrong :)

misterv I'm suprised that your 2blank bar method worked actually,
&
gasman is right on the converting song to seq just make sure when you convert the mpc is set to account for mute on/off

but if some patterns are set up to play differant instruments per patterns its going to mess things up once you've converted the song ...
so

the best/ most hassle free way to resample your song is:
to set the Song up to play as a 2nd sequecnce in a blank pattern
:idea:
By thegasman Sun Mar 27, 2005 7:08 pm
hi,

thanks for the input.

the thing is....i tend to be a very messy track writer who makes tons of sequences, each containing tons of tracks, and after a couple of hours tracking, i never have matching instruments on corresponding tracks in different sequences, and as far as I am aware, you have to have this in order to make use of the "convert song to sequence" function properly, so that is no use to me, but thanks anyhow

I realise my method with the blank sequences isnt ideal, but it works just fine, and soon enough ill be recording on the soundcard again, and it won't matter.

However, can you elaborate on the "record as second sequence". I'd like to get my head round it...

thanks

thegasman

By thegasman Sun Mar 27, 2005 7:13 pm
i meant to elaborate on the following:


"the best/ most hassle free way to resample your song is:
to set the Song up to play as a 2nd sequecnce in a blank pattern"



Thanks

By glide Sun Mar 27, 2005 8:23 pm
in Main (on the bottom of the window (press block cursor all the way down
there's an option for simuntainus play: set it to ON
(seq must be stopped for this)

a pattern will show up somethingt like this :
simuntainus play ON : seq : (name of pattern)
now just move cursor on : seq : field and change it to "song", so now it will look something like this

simuntainus : ON : song : (name of song)

this function allows you to play two pattern together or a song + pattern together, do a search, there are some very nice post on how to utilize this feature ...
By thegasman Sun Mar 27, 2005 8:38 pm
Thanks man....

never knew you could change that to "song" from "seq"...

Will check it out

By renegadebliss Sun Apr 10, 2005 8:26 pm
glide wrote:in Main (on the bottom of the window (press block cursor all the way down
there's an option for simuntainus play: set it to ON
(seq must be stopped for this)




As an FYI, what you described above is a bug. The MPC 4000 prior to OS 1.70 was able to allow one to turn on and off the Simul Play feature while the Sequencer is playing. This was a great tool for those playing live sets. You could be playing one song, turn on the
Simul Play and select a song/sequence that would start playing underneath (but one doesn't have direct access to Track Mute's), and then while both tracks are playing then switch the
the main sequence to a new sequence. This was a nice feature, as you could load "transistion songs" in to the Simul Play section to kind of segue the 2 songs that you were playing together, so it wasn't an abrupt Jump between each song, it allowed one to do more of a dj like set, where you would be blending songs rather then abrupt transitions. Unfortunately, with OS 1.70 a number of bugs showed up with the Simul Play feature (#1 you can't turn it on when the sequencer is running, #2 Can't switch songs/sequences while the sequencer is running , & #3 Can't turn it off while the sequencer is running) so it's not as useful as it used to be.

I did file these with the [email protected] address before it started bouncing (several months ago) but I do NOT know if it was ever recieved other then the automated response that we got. And with them just removing the address for all I know, all of those emails were going to an account that has since been deleted. Not sure if Akai really ever fully got them. I guess, I'll have to take some time out of work this week and call up their support number since there is no email address any more to report bugs to. It'lll be fun reading 5 1 page bug reports over the phone :) Can't wait...

Dave

By glide Tue Apr 12, 2005 7:23 pm
good to c you one the case sir Renagade, :wink:

the best/ most hassle free way to resample your song is:
to set the Song up to play as a 2nd sequecnce in a blank pattern



Now I have to tramp my own words here,
I was going to pull this one off last night, but my song use'es dif time signitures and tempos, so running the entire song as simuntanius play through 1 bar pattern isn't no good...as that pattern will only follow its own tempo and the song will follow that patterns tempo ...

so far the only thing I can think off is to convert the song into a seq and erase all tracks on the converted seq, now you have a pattern that uses the same tempo and time sign structure as your song so the song should play flawlessly in simuntainus play now...

again this is only if your tracks aren't alligned per each pattern,

!!!be orinized, then you can just convert the entire song to a seq hassle free

but for uss unorginized sample heads that are tripping over snakes and laptops in the studio bedroom at least this is a workaround