this post was submitted on 04 Jul 2023
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Synthesizers

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Getting MPC (soundcloud.com)
submitted 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) by [email protected] to c/[email protected]
 

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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[–] [email protected] 3 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (1 children)

don't get too caught up adding FX and polish until you have a pretty sufficient song written. It is easy to write a dope 4 bar loop and start messing with FX and whatnot, lose track of what you were doing and ultimately lose interest. The plague of this machine is how easy it is to churn out 4 bar loops and how hard it is to finish a track. Sketch the ENTIRE track first, THEN polish and you will be a lot better off. Look into song mode tutorials.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Sounds like good advice, thanks.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 1 year ago (1 children)

How's it going so far? It definitely takes some time to get the ground under your feet when you are new but I'm sure you are getting the hang of it.

I feel like I came off scary when I talked about song mode stuff, obviously there is nothing wrong with banging out a bunch of loops while you get the workflow figured out.

I haven't used an MPC in a few years but I'm sure I can answer some questions if you have any

[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Nah you’re good. A little kick in the ass (a Dutch saying) to get going is good.

My first impressions are mixed. I feel like the synth plugins are a little lacking compared to ableton world, but the ui is much better. I’m not that much into the sample chopping thing.

I like the idea of arranging in multiple sequences and then exporting to a single sequence before finishing a track by adding transitions and mixing. But the downside is that I get bored when I have to do all the nitty gritty in the end. I am more used to mixing and adding earcandy as I go in Ableton. But that’s hard in MCP due to the lack of a loop brace on the sequence. (I kept having to tap a tiny spot on the timeline to go back to the start of the section).

So it’s all just a matter of getting used to it.

In the end, it’s probably going to be an MPC vs Push decision because they are too expensive to keep both of them.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 1 year ago

Its totally valid to basically build all thr building blocks on the MPC, export stems and finish up in a DAW.