Everybody Using the MPC 1000 for Live Performance share your

Methods please.

what's your method for doing what you do and please go into as much detail as you can, a thread like this can benifit all of us quite alot.

i dj in a hop hop joint in belfast, ireland.

i use two pioneer cdj1000s, a djm600 mixer, a korg kaoss pad and i'm gonna use my mpc1000 aswell,

don't get me wrong, i didn't buy my mpc for just my djing, i bought it cuz i'm a producer too, and thought of it as one of my missing elements.

i use the mpc for sound effects, for crowd interaction and shyt, u know like claps or adding gunshots and other sounds to songs, my friend recorded my intros and shyt and now i can just trigger it anytime.

its gonna be fiyah!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

firstly gotta say i'm not doing this live just yet - still working on the process...

but like most users who have these boxes for a while, i've been through a few
different setups and have tried a few different ways to integrate the MPC into my layout.

after playing a couple of sets with basically everything sequenced and pretty much
just taking a dub style approach - mixing effects at the board etc - i've kind of realised
that it's not that entertaining for audiences... without visual cues, uneducated audiences
struggle to engage with the music. (by uneducated, i just mean that most cats don't
know what you're actually doing and thus just think you're playing CD's or something.)

so for now i'm trying to get my live chops up to speed and layer elements on the fly.
at the moment i've only got the MPC and a small multi timbral synth (micron) but
between these two and a bit of forward planning i'm managing to create quite dense layered
tracks that I can jam on and extend by playing bits live etc.

one thing that's really helped is being able to assign the click track to one of the outs.
I use 123 for kick hat snare, and i was using 4 for bass lines, but now thats for the
click - headphones direct - and all other samples on the stereo outs. synth parts on two
channels of their own.


so nothing amazing there, basically just using it as it was intended! but it's a paradigm shift
for me as i've been so much more focused on recording and production.


if you want more details, monk, ask some more q's. happy to help if i can.

for sure man, i was following some of your post and it seems like you might be doing some live looping, are you sequencing your micron in realtime with the mp?.. how have you got that set up and if so how are you going about bringing tracks in and out?

thanks for reaL

i am always looking for new techniques to improve my live performance.
so here´s my setup so far:

mpc1k maxed as sequencer
microkorg and mfb-synth 2 as soundmodules hooked on the 2 midiports of the mp.

as a mixer i use the allen&heath xzone92

mp goes with mainout and 2 seperate outs on the mixer.
all main parts of the song are routed to main out.
kick and snare are routed to seperate out so i can drop in and filter.
microkorg goes stereo to another mixerchannel.
mfbsynth (mono) goes to auxiliary in of mixer.

a korg kaosspad mini is connected to the send of mixer and comes back on the second aux in.

the liveset is arranged by dividing every song into 3 to 5 or more sequences (parts)

i play mainly in trackmute window. here the certain sequences are subdivided in their musical relevant parts (like maindrums, bass, samplekeys, percussion..) so i am flexible in mute/unmute and can interact with the audience.

for special "punkrock" parts i go to next seq window where i can play wild headbanging breaks in immediate play by pushing the pads.

the microkorg is in local on mode, so i can improvise and it does not matter on which track i am on the mp.

additionally i place special drumsonds on certain pads to drop them in and play with the not repeat function for example to hit the people with machinegun snares. in all programs the sliders are set to realtime control of tune and decay (sometimes attack) to build various breaks also in combination with the noterepeat function.

the whole setup is built more for dancecrowds and drunken improvising than to play a concert with vocalists and songs with a certain structure.

does anybody have experience in hooking up the mp to a computer and syncing to play preproduced songs from the daw and just improvising on the finished structure? atm i play unsynced as i recognized midiclock not beeing too stable and funky. when i sync the mp to a computer the groove is different to my ears and the sync gets wobbly time by time.

with the os2 i have the possibility to sync the daw via mtc.
but i tried once and did not get the trick of switching the sequence and the computer following to this certain part of the song. any experiences?

Mpc_Monk wrote:for sure man, i was following some of your post and it seems like you might be doing some live looping, are you sequencing your micron in realtime with the mp?.. how have you got that set up and if so how are you going about bringing tracks in and out?

thanks for reaL

well...

just got the micron midi'd up the MPC - simple enough. the main thing here is
to set up all your tracks in the sequence before hand. have each track already
named and with the right program (or midi channel) lined up and ready to
go.

that way i know which elements are coming in next - flip to the next track,
then bang away.

haven't got the live looping thing happening just yet - i really want to, but haven't
tested any products yet so... yeah, still straightening that bit out.

does that cover it? not sure if i'm being detailed enough...
again, any more q's just let me know.

yeah that is great man, i really appreciate it, I'm trying to go from using ableton Live to using only ableton for production and the mpc for live performance and it's not easy to get the hang as i'm just beginning this.

and thank you too briancares that's exactly what i'm talking about i hope everybody doing what you guys are doing post up cause this is really the next level for our type of artist that don't want to heavily rely on the computer for going Live.

but that doesn't mean there's anything wrong with computers so if you're using a computer in conjunction with your mpc for live performance please post up the details of how you do what you do to and thank you.

I´m playing with a band live, not doing much on the mpc itself aside from qlink fun. Got like 8-20 parts of a song lined up as sequences and trigger them via the pads. I´m still working on the best way to do this, right now i set it to immediatly start and hit the pad when the part has to kick in. I´m busy on stage doing live dub with my A&H mixwizard, the instruments run into that and im controlling the sound/fx and mostly crazy feedback stuff. Still need a bandecho, but they are quite expensive.

Also i really would appreciate being able to hook up a footswitch to a "next sequence" function, i know this is able in song mode (footswitch ->f6) but then i cant use the qlinks. Maybe JJ can squeeze that one in for me, would be mad dope. Right know i jneed a 3rd hand sometimes..

Mpc_Monk wrote:but that doesn't mean there's anything wrong with computers

yeah totally - this is sort of what i was talking about the 'educated audience'
thing... cat's who know what ableton is can happily watch some guy staring
at his laptop screen for an hour or 2... cat's who don't lose interest pretty
quickly...

maybe i'm underestimating the general awareness of folk with regards to this stuff...

but what's your plan to adapt it Monk? one thing i've realised is a good idea
is to complete and mix the track and then resample it for live use... it's really
quite difficult to get a great mix just using the MPC. so lot's of resampling!

those are my thoughts as well, in my opinion if you're using nothing but samples then it's cool doing everything in the mp, but even though i'm strictly sample based, they aren't samples that have already been mastered together like a standard chop and reorder so i'm basicly going in circles between the mp and ableton and doing all the final mixing in ableton
then exporting the parts for the mp, i pair the mp with a mixer, one turntable and a kaoss pad. i'm really trying to figure everything out for the mp right now, the best way to mutes and triggering. it's funny cause i'm an expert Live user but Live completely spoils you compared to the mp.

and i totaly agree with you about the audience thing, they dont give a **** about someone twisting a filter cut off/res and people are starting to get tired of those over emotional faces our types make when twisting knobs, they want to see us really making a connection

rinseout wrote:I´m playing with a band live, not doing much on the mpc itself aside from qlink fun. Got like 8-20 parts of a song lined up as sequences and trigger them via the pads. I´m still working on the best way to do this, right now i set it to immediatly start and hit the pad when the part has to kick in. I´m busy on stage doing live dub with my A&H mixwizard, the instruments run into that and im controlling the sound/fx and mostly crazy feedback stuff. Still need a bandecho, but they are quite expensive.

Also i really would appreciate being able to hook up a footswitch to a "next sequence" function, i know this is able in song mode (footswitch ->f6) but then i cant use the qlinks. Maybe JJ can squeeze that one in for me, would be mad dope. Right know i jneed a 3rd hand sometimes..

but rinse out how are you keeping everything in sync with the band?

^^

I (and my MPC) am the drummer

ahh, i see. so they gotta keep time with you...


ok so whats up live performance cats on the mp 1000 hit up the thread.

yep, live is definitely where it is at for the MPC.

I play the drums live on the MPC, with the first 8 pads being taken up with percussion and the other 8 pads usually having some melodic chops or bassline elements that i can play over the top. so usually at least 2 and sometimes up to five pads at once are getting hit to make all the noises come out. The important thing is i NEVER hit play on my MPC.

So i'm guessing it's a bit like jel does it, but i go from hip hop, through nu-skool breaks and all the way into drum 'n' bass. Hectic.

Then the other member of the band is a synth player, so between us we make a fair bit of noise, all totally live.

The secret weapon in our arsenal is having the MPC linked to a laptop, which is running a visuals program called resolume. Basically certain pads on my MPC have certain video clips attached to it. For example, every time i hit a kick drum you'll see a video of a guy hitting a kick drum, or every time i hit a guitar chop, you'll see some guy wailing on his guitar on the screen.

Love the MPC for live use.

Yo Bruxism,

Where are you in Oz? Sounds like a good show. Any Sydney gigs coming up?

Also, I wouldn't be afraid of that play button. Not using the sequencer on a sequencer seems odd to me. I appreciate the commitment to live performance but we only have so many hands and pads. I just hope you don't sacrafice anything composition-wise for the sake of not "cheating".