I concur with the super logical first half of that, but the last half was poppy cock 
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I’ll take it, glass half full.
I’ll toast to that 
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Haha I feel somewhat responsible for this, I think I helped sell you on the Live II?
Agree with the people praising its physicality, I love the button feel, pads, and speaker. And also agree about the MPC bible! I haven’t read the new edition yet and have barely scratched the new OS b/c family stuff, but that’s definitely how I’ll retrain myself.
Oh also I absolutely love OP4X, the platform’s
FM synth, and the drumsynth.
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This post is about 6 weeks old and I’m still having trouble with this thing. It is, by a mile, the single most unintuitive, clunky piece of music hardware/software I’ve ever owned. I’m still having trouble doing very basic things, like sampling audio off YouTube and chopping up the sample etc without accidentally doing something I don’t want to do and having to troubleshoot for 10 minutes while trying to make music. I’ve been using Ableton since 2007, have had multiple music-making machines, and I just can’t believe how stupidly clunky the UI can be. Does anyone have an MPC video tutorial they swear by? Like, something that just clearly explains all its functions from start to finish (that isn’t a manual— I learn better visually). Every video I’ve encountered is stuff like “8 HACKS to do Lo-Fi Hip Hop on the MPC!” or other crap like that. That stuff has its place, of course, I’m just looking for something very straight and narrow.
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I like Tubedigga’s tutorials. They are done in an unflashy way and go both wide and deep.
Pick the ones that you need to investigate:
https://youtube.com/playlist?list=PLyQnSIWkPm1289ewb2bHrfLhXXm2X1gUC&feature=shared
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I really always felt like most tutorials for this machine are done by people who like to talk too much. Not focused enough. Too much chit chat about nothing. Too much posturing. Not enough clear direction.
That said, there are a ton of them which makes the information easily available, but sometimes the method is questionable… regurgitations of what they learned on other youtube channels. Which is fine, but I almost always extract information from multiple sources when I question what I learned in the first video. It’s the only way to be sure that you’re getting the best explanation for you specifically.
Also, while I don’t know if he did a full tutorial (because I never looked for it) NearTao has a few specialized procedural and workflow-oriented tutorials that I found helpful.
For me though, I tend to read a bunch of excerpts and then use a video or 2 to confirm the information. The reason this is useful for me is that the way I watch videos, I prefer to look for the specific information that I want rather than waiting for them to bring up what I want to learn, so if I already have an idea of what I’m listening for, then it makes the information that I’m looking for stick out more and I don’t spend a bunch of time listening to people BS their way through a bunch of self-promotion and telling you about other videos that they plan to make etc.
I think I might have mentioned before that when I’ve wanted to learn something new on live 2, I usually google a specific question, read a few links, sometimes rephrase the question using mpc specific terminology, and then I watch the relevant parts of a couple different MPC tutorials. From this combination of tactics, I usually am able to extract a reasonable method for doing what I was out to do in the first place.
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I have the 404 Mastery ChatGTP erm, thing by Charles Johnson. Super useful and for me better than any video or manual for getting a specific question answered with context. I wonder if there is something similar for MPC?
You could just use ChatGPT…
This thread is totally bogus, man! I came here for an argument, and all I got was polite interactions! Stupid!
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I don’t have an MPC, was offering advice.
Jae Freshman also does the best practical “here’s how to do [x}” tutorials out there. and usually works on the Live II to demonstrate
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Just wanted to add to this that I think using a small midi keyboard with your MPC is a good workflow enhancement. It seems like a no-brainer, or that it wouldn’t have very much impact on your output (especially in regard to learning the ins and outs of the device itself) but I think it’s worth mentioning.
Making fluid, chromatic note input simple and logical, and giving it a format which is familiar is something which the hardware lacks (for me at least). Also, by making the composition process easier, you have more time to explore the technical side of the machine because you’ve given yourself something to work with.
Not to say that the MPC isn’t fine as it is, but I think adding an element which lends itself to input of “everything which is not a pad performance” helps break the mold of “This is an MPC. We make hip hop with this device” sort of workflow / mentality that smacking pads and sample chopping bring to mind.
Hope things are coming together for you, it sounded like you were pretty frustrated before.
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@bartlebytaco Basically the thing is about the MPC is how much more slow and arduous the MPC is compared to any of the Elektron boxes.
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Slower at what in particular, the only thing slower for me is the live tweaking happy accident-ing… but everything else seems to be fluid in my experience?
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…Care to expound upon that idea a bit?
I’ve had a couple MPC’s for around 18 months now. Sold the Live II and kept the One+ only because the Live II was too big for my live board and because I use MPC’s in the most limited way ever. In truth, I have nearly no idea how they even work except in the use case I employ. Still on MPC 2 and doubt I’ll be moving up to MPC 3 any time soon. I really just put a bunch of loops into a drum program and sequence them from a Syntakt. The sound quality on the MPC is stellar as are the many fx. This allows me to change arrangements on the fly and sounds great doing it.
All this to say, you don’t need to know every piece of gear inside out for it to have value in your setup. I got an MPC for a very limited but valuable purpose and it serves that purpose very nicely
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They’re two different composition tools.
Elektron boxes for very sophisticated step-sequencing with conditional trigs and plocks.
MPCs for recording, then editing, live performance of finger drumming from the pads, or melodies/basslines/chord progressions from a keyboard controller.
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Hey, I really appreciate this comment & follow up! And your kindness/helpfulness in general on these forums, you have been a very generous spirit. I’ve been working on finishing a new novel and so haven’t been making music at all for a few weeks. Come August I’m going to go through the MPC Bible and try to learn it as best I can. Will report back!
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I’m actually thinking of selling my Force and probably getting a Live 2 one day. I’ve come to realize that Force excels at live performances, and I’m strictly a composer, and the idea of a truly self-contained device with speakers that I can use anywhere in the house is so compelling.
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