Help getting MPC boom bap groove/swing in Ableton

A

apexxhiphop

New member
I've been slowly but surely making my transition from FL Studio to Ableton, so far its been great for sampling. Warping makes getting your samples on beat so much more easier! Anyways, I was wondering which template do I use to get that classic MPC groove? Usually I just manually do my swing, but I wanna see how these templates sound...I have no technical knowledge of the MPC what so ever since i've never owned one, so I don't know which groove setting to pick! All these percentages and stuff be having me lost lol basically i'm tryna get that 90s hip hop/boom bap groove. I've seen a video where ski beatz is talking about they have the mpc groove but idk which template it is :P Looking for some help!
 
oddly enough most in the 90s didn't use mpcs because they were expensive compared to other stuff. To get that 90s feel quantize hard to 1/16 tripplets. The gear many were using in the 90s were sp1200s and ASR10/EPS16s mainly. Neither of which had much swing. People had mpcs but just wasn't the majority until the later half to my understanding because the Emu and Ensoniq's were cheaper.

---------- Post added at 02:12 AM ---------- Previous post was at 02:12 AM ----------

well let me rephrase as I am not sure if the SP1200 had swing or not but I know the Ensoniqs did not.
 
Xabiton said:
oddly enough most in the 90s didn't use mpcs because they were expensive compared to other stuff. To get that 90s feel quantize hard to 1/16 tripplets. The gear many were using in the 90s were sp1200s and ASR10/EPS16s mainly. Neither of which had much swing. People had mpcs but just wasn't the majority until the later half to my understanding because the Emu and Ensoniq's were cheaper.

---------- Post added at 02:12 AM ---------- Previous post was at 02:12 AM ----------

well let me rephrase as I am not sure if the SP1200 had swing or not but I know the Ensoniqs did not.
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Thanks for the tip, that explains a lot. I didn't know that 90s drums were heavily quantized. So would you say it would be a good idea to while laying down my drums to have the quantization to 16 T and then apply the groove/swing templates? Im starting to think thats what most of these producers do because I be watching beat making videos on youtube and just be shocked how these guys can get they hi hats down perfectly timed and on beat on the first take while me my hi hats be all over the place and I have to go into the piano roll and correct them. Also, any idea a percentage range I should be setting the swing to?
 
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I wouldn't bother with groove templates. Just do the 16 Trips practice high hats and as I said the tools of that era mostly didn't have swing percentages or groove templates. it was really just 1/16t quantized at 100% and good playing.
 
Have you tried programming your drums with quantize off? Try this with your hats...it will give your track a natural swing you wont get from the groove templates.
 
I've often found that swing templates and their ilk are more trouble then they are worth for me. If you want some funk, I espouse a combination of playing live and moving outliers back into place by hand.
 
imo, the best way to get that feel is to play live. i use to quantize my kick and snare and play the hi hats live ( which can get you a good groove ). But since my playing has improved i don't quantize that much all all anymore. practice is key. play along with tracks that have the groove you want and you wont be worrying about getting the groove you want. you will have it in ur blood...
 
EL NOU MON said:
I've often found that swing templates and their ilk are more trouble then they are worth for me. If you want some funk, I espouse a combination of playing live and moving outliers back into place by hand.
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yea thats what I do, before Xabiton told me about the 1/16 T I never ever quantized. I did what you suggested. But is there a difference from just playing it live than just going into the piano roll and just clicking them in instead? would'nt just clicking them in be better than playing it live and having to going back and putting them in place anyways?
 
apexxhiphop said:
yea thats what I do, before Xabiton told me about the 1/16 T I never ever quantized. I did what you suggested. But is there a difference from just playing it live than just going into the piano roll and just clicking them in instead? would'nt just clicking them in be better than playing it live and having to going back and putting them in place anyways?
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No difference if you end up putting everything straight on the grid - but you can always just quantize something else than 100% (so it just nudges the affected notes closer but not exactly to grid) or just quantize/correct certain notes. And of course, you probably end up doing something a bit different if you play it in instead of just mousing around even if it's theoretically possible to end up with the same results. As a silly analogy, theoretically you could draw up a digital photo of anything just by clicking those pixels into place...so it's down to using the methods that produce the best results and feel the most comfortable to you.
 
krushing said:
No difference if you end up putting everything straight on the grid - but you can always just quantize something else than 100% (so it just nudges the affected notes closer but not exactly to grid) or just quantize/correct certain notes. And of course, you probably end up doing something a bit different if you play it in instead of just mousing around even if it's theoretically possible to end up with the same results. As a silly analogy, theoretically you could draw up a digital photo of anything just by clicking those pixels into place...so it's down to using the methods that produce the best results and feel the most comfortable to you.
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Usually I snap my hit hats and my snares on the grid. And I'll move the hi hats a bit to the right, leave the snares on grid, and have my kicks wherever
 
apexxhiphop said:
I've been slowly but surely making my transition from FL Studio to Ableton, so far its been great for sampling. Warping makes getting your samples on beat so much more easier! Anyways, I was wondering which template do I use to get that classic MPC groove? Usually I just manually do my swing, but I wanna see how these templates sound...I have no technical knowledge of the MPC what so ever since i've never owned one, so I don't know which groove setting to pick! All these percentages and stuff be having me lost lol basically i'm tryna get that 90s hip hop/boom bap groove. I've seen a video where ski beatz is talking about they have the mpc groove but idk which template it is :P Looking for some help!
Click to expand...

I didn't read everyone else comments so please forgive if I'm repeating things that have already been stated.

1. Use a Groove template then adjust to taste
2. Play it by hand (best way)
3. Get an mpc or find someone with one snatch the swing from it (make your own template)

Those are your only options..

I own an mpc 1000 and a 3000

I notice no difference with the swing on them or the ableton,reason or any other application that I have used.
 
derbs said:
imo, the best way to get that feel is to play live. i use to quantize my kick and snare and play the hi hats live ( which can get you a good groove ). But since my playing has improved i don't quantize that much all all anymore. practice is key. play along with tracks that have the groove you want and you wont be worrying about getting the groove you want. you will have it in ur blood...
Click to expand...

I think it depends on the kind of music you do. For this particular style i likely would stick to quantizing because I like the sound of quantized drums for boom bap. For G Funk or maybe some midwest hip hop (Detroit/Philly shit) I wouldn't quantize much if at all. Southern stuff imo doesn't sound quite right unquantized though
 
apexxhiphop said:
yea thats what I do, before Xabiton told me about the 1/16 T I never ever quantized. I did what you suggested. But is there a difference from just playing it live than just going into the piano roll and just clicking them in instead? would'nt just clicking them in be better than playing it live and having to going back and putting them in place anyways?
Click to expand...

Dunno, I find that my "mistakes" are often more interesting than what I planned to do. It also depends on the drum. I use Ableton, so I often program the kicks, play the snares/claps and whatever other samples live.
 
Cyko said:
I didn't read everyone else comments so please forgive if I'm repeating things that have already been stated.

1. Use a Groove template then adjust to taste
2. Play it by hand (best way)
3. Get an mpc or find someone with one snatch the swing from it (make your own template)

Those are your only options..
Click to expand...

Cyko has it best...

What I do is grab a song that has the swing I like. I then chop an instrumental part of the beat from that song and use Ableton's Groove Extraction to get the groove/swing from that chop. I then save it as a Groove template to use on other songs I create. It works GREAT.
 
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