Good Tips for sequencing on (mpc2000xl)

C

courey

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What up people i just wanted to know what are some good tips and tricks u can give me for sequencing beats on the mpc i like to make my tracks by seq and then put them together in song mode what are some other tips for sequecing tracks thanks?
 
Thanks a pretty vague question ... what do you need help with?

I mean ... "save your work often" is a tip alright, but crap are people supposed to list random tips?
 
well here is a basic but very very useful tip that i'm supresed that a good bit of mpc users never use.
why laceing your drums, you don't need to record track one kick, kick , kick, track two -, snare-, snare ect...
record your kick and snare boom bap one 1 track at the same time, to get that live vibe. then if you want to be able to drop em out seperate all ya have to do is copy the boom bap track to another track. go back and erase the snare from the first track and the kick from the second track and viola seperate boom bap tracks... so simple but you'd be suprised how many heads don't do this.

i got more tips if ya want em.... just thought i'd drop a basic one for starters.
 
Thanks for the tips keep em coming and to dansgold i really dont need help i just wanted to know from the mpc2000xl users what tricks they use to sequence thier beats my friend told me the best way is to make the whole song on the first sequence and copy and paste that sequence to another seq. and just mute and unmute different tracks do u know a better way let me know thanks.

anyone?
 
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that is my main way of doing it as well....
don't have time to give more tips just yet , i'll hit ya back in a bit...
 
If you find a particular part too hard to play, turn the tempo down to half of what it was.

Any loops or samples that relied on the tempo of the song will still play at their original speed, but at least they'll line up with the metronome in some way so it won't completely mess you up.

Record your part at half speed. Then when you're done turn the tempo back up.

This applies to any sequencer, btw, not just the 2000XL.
 
a pretty obvious feature that people don't seem to use is the mute screen. when i master my finished sequences I'll often use the technique flux mentioned (which is sadly true, a lot of people DON'T use that trick and end up consistently muting the, for example, Kick and Snare from a track simultaneously. this gives some finished pieces a kind of jagged "dropping out" sound), and when i'm putting a sequence on my multi-track I usually do live mutes.

if you have a method to your madness, and isolate your drums and other samples on individual tracks consistently from song to song, you'll develop better communication with your mpc. you can save a template with renamed tracks to help you keep organized. i.e., save a blank sequence and rename the first 8 tracks to drum sounds you often employ: kick, snare, o-hat, c-hat, rimshot, etc... then everytime you make a track, load up the empty sequence to start and save it under a different name when you're done laying your samples.

once muting tracks with the pads live, you'll get a feel, like pad 1 is always your kick drum. you apply this to all your songs and you'll start muting them all in the same fashion.

this all may sound elementary, but until I learned tricks like these I don't think i was "playing" the mpc as an instrument.
 
to go along with big ryans route, i'd say not to over look step programing. lets say you know your sample is 8 beats an you wanna make it loop on your 4/4 time sig. but wanna do this quicker then lacing it in real time. all you have to do is go to the track ya want then hit the step button, then on at the beginin hit your sample pad then bars >> twice so now your on 3:01 hit one more time and it should loop flawlessly.

heres aanother nugget of truthiness.
when lacing a loop on your beat make sure you drop your decay to 0 so as not to cut off the last bit of your sample.

and here is a real gem. if you find your sample even though it says it's the correct empo it still has this slight pause when it loops on the beat, go into trim and turn loop on. then go to time stretch sample. lets say it's at 94.0 bpm... time stretch it to the same bpm again (94.0 bpm time streched to 94.0 bpm) this should get rid of any gap.



and i'm spent..... lol.....
 
flux302 said:
i'd say not to over look step programing

Definitely, learn how to use the STEP EDIT function. It's not that hard. I use it to double up my drums sometimes to add more punch.

Also, don't always use quantization, because you might lose the live feel.

This has nothing to do with sequencing, but you should allways turn off your MPC when your not using it, because the LED screen will eventually stop working.
 
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