Y’all are some salty mofos…
I own multiple MPC devices myself, including the MPC sample, but I also recognize that this is a forum run by my fellow users.
Threads are consolidated all the time. Perhaps there is indeed good reason to break out the MPC Sample into its own thread, but statements like “lame af” and “Do better Elektronaut” smack of entitlement.
Have some grace and patience for the overworked mods…
There was a MPC Sample thread but it was closed after 30 mins??
I cut salt out of my diet years ago! Can’t stand it anymore!
Yep. Ironically, they overreacted 
*for the record, there were a few attempts by several different apparently entitled members to create seperate discussions. Also, many diplomatic comments about confidence in Mods ultimately finding the right course— including my own above.
However, it’s all hard to find because they ruined the thread.
I thought it was weird.
I like it because I’m in this MPC thread learning about my MPC3.0 all the time, and now I don’t have to go anywhere to read about the Sample. Winning.
And the thread had been quiet for a while because the excitement of the L3 died down, a little dead cat bounce from XL. Give it a couple weeks and everyone will stop all the banter. A bunch of people will return theirs because it doesn’t do this or that. Workflow and such.
Then when they are back in stock another uptick from second wave adaptors. Then the newest gen Keys will come out and it will be all about that. Then the new One. I mean the Two.
I’m enjoying the ride. I even like hearing about those barebones ancient machines from last century Akai used to make.
Can anyone say how the new mpc sample compares to the old mpc500? The 500 was a rock solid sequencer. Was wondering if the new one the same workflow?
The MPC Sample workflow is closer to the SP404MKII than the MPC500. It’s been said before. There is one track and you load a single program per project. Obviously, all the rest (effects, timestretch, sampling, auto-chopping, sample edition) is better than on the MPC500, but the 500 is a generic MIDI sequencer like regular MPC.
tried recording some live melody playing from the opxy and had a good time with it. same kind of stuff i used to try with the 404 but having the easier sequencer on the Sample makes it way easier.
Yeah, sample by fixed bar lengths was a game changer for me on the SP, so the Sample’s sample by sequence length is such a good feature. It definitely looks quicker for this kind of thing on the Sample. Looking forward to trying it myself.
From the tunes I’ve clicked on from people I know on here that use an SP, the drums sound a lot more like what I associate with an MPC. Not a bad thing. Just makes me think that the SP/MPC mashup has its own flavor. Arguably the drum groove is one of the best things about MPCs.
Loving your new avatar by the way. Blue Note Records vibes
i need to try the sample by sequence length, i just used Recall to grab the noodles i liked and then sequenced in the recordings. the live looping stuff looks fun too
nice wonky track. Out of interest can multiple MPC drum pads be triggered from the opxy’s midi and be recorded on the MPC or does it only capture transposed pitch information for a single pad on the MPC?
I’m not gonna jump all over the mods for doing their job, but also it’s more work for them to keep closing attempts at making a MPC Sample Users thread.
On the topic of the MPC Sample, I’m finally getting somewhere rhythm-wise that I like, but I’m rediscovering that I’m absolutely ass at using melodic samples in any meaningful way. I always get annoyed when looping a pad and hearing the obvious loop points, or when playing a melody in 16 levels mode I find that the way the sample pitches up/down frequently doesn’t sound good. Should I be simply chopping melodies I made in other devices instead of trying to play oneshots?
Broader question - how do you people make interesting music with samples, aside from drums? I’ve always synthesized all my melodic bits and this is a completely alien skillset for me that I simply can’t wrap my head around.
Wow, hard to distill into a few words. Conceptually it’s more like making collage art than painting. Another thing that comes to mind is the difference between say long continuous shots in a film and a series of jump cuts.
So yeah, a totally different skillset. I guess the first step might be listening to music made with samples and get some inspiration. After that, it’s years of practice and trial and error.
Some of the challenge is figuring out what things go together well. Another thing is, how much do you want to change the source material. Some people want the source to be completely recognizable, others like to mangle it beyond recognition. For instance, with the 404’s resampling and effects technique, which the Sample employs, you can make things into completely new sounds if you wanted. It’s a lot of trial and error.
Another way to go about it is sample your playing of your synth into the MPC and then arrange them and apply effects. Jon Makes Beats latest video on the Sample showcases that technique. He also has a long-form video coming soon, he said.
The other recommendation, which is sort of how I made some progress, is to take part in some of the beat battles. It’s a humbling experience, but you will learn loads each time. The best part about those is that you have to work with set content. Samplers are limitless, which is one of the hardest things of working with them. Having a limited number of samples to work with really breeds creativity and helps you learn core technique.
yes you can trigger multiple pads and record it to the Sample sequencer, the punch ins i tried were recorded in as well. but you cant actually play single samples chromatically via midi.
Creating seamless loops of complex, sustained samples can be very difficult at the best of times, there are a few things you can do to make it easier.
Mostly, though, seamless loops are a combination of properly selected patches and a lot of hard work. I’ve spent many a long night zooming in on samples, looking for those perfect loop points. I’m still looking for some of them. 
I’m not an expert but there are a few basic approaches to sampling a synth. You can find a synth sound you like, sample a one shot, then play it melodically or polyphonically on your sampler. One problem is that as you play higher, the envelope of the sound gets shorter which might sound weird.
So the second approach you can take is to eliminate the envelope on your synth and just record the sound as a long continuous tone, then use the envelope in your sampler to shape it. This has the benefit that when you play higher or lower the different stages of the envelope stay a consistent length like they would on the synth.
This could be true with your filter too so you could think about how to work with the combination of the synth’s filter which gets baked in and the sampler’s filter which remains live. For example you could use a hpf with some resonance on your synth to give it a bass bump which then gets baked into your sample and essentially gets keytracked as you play melodically. Then your sampler’s filter can do lpf with envelopes that again stay consistent when you play up and down the scale.
You can also sample whole phrases or longer loops which retain more of the character of your synth but then you can still chop it up, filter more, reverse, add fx, etc. in the sampler.
Technically not true. All the MPCs were combined.