Getting MPC
Getting MPC
I’m receiving an MPC Live II in the mail today. Any tips or resources on getting started?
EDIT: Just made a first attempt at a tune: https://soundcloud.com/thomasbiesaart/learning-wav/s-QW3gkTQgRJM
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I print and bind the manual for any hardware I buy. Whilst undoubtedly I can discover a lot of the functionality just from experience, there's usually some stuff that you discover from the manual that just isn't the sort of thing you find out by chance 😊
Never tried the MPC stuff though (beyond a day with the Force before it had disk streaming), so can't give any specific recommendations..
My first evening with MPC has been promising. I’ve been able to create a nice loop and get to know the workflow. Still unsure about finishing entire tracks but I think that’ll just be a matter of practice.
I was worried that I had to get into the whole sample chopping thing but even with just the built in synths I think I’ll be able to build something awesome.
Resampling is easy, so building sfx using the synths and sample layers has been a breeze.
I don’t get the point of separating programs from tracks yet but maybe I’ll figure it out. So far I’ve just been manually mapping them one to one so far.
One reason I make a lot of programs per track is for mixing purposes later.
When you do an export of your song as stems it's uses programs as the grouping for each stereo track rendered.
So if you load an entire pre-made kit then when you export each drum sound ends up in the same 2-channel file. I prefer each being in separate tracks so as I build my drum kits I make a new program for each drum (kick, snare, hat, etc). Hats usually have 3-4 different samples so those all go I to the same project. Kicks might have 2 or 3 as well.
This also makes it more fun to jam out on using program muting. You can build you drum part up on the fly, process the groups differently, replace them with less effort.
Wait, then I think I misunderstood programs and tracks. As far as I can see I can only have 1 program in a track right?
Oh man..my bad. I don't know why I was thinking you were talking about something else. Now I see what you're saying. You probably do understand it and I'm over here just making it more confusing.
1 program in a track right?
Yep, one active program at a time per track. It does come in handy like when you can't decide which instrument you want playing a certain part. Just set up some options and then switch through them for comparison. Also, it's a nice ability for when you want to send the MIDI data of a track to an external device. For the most part though I'm keeping it 1:1.