You guys seen the MPC Sample? Baby MPC. Looks pretty sick. Not sure exactly what they left in / out
Interesting. I have always loved the idea of the MPC but the file hierarchy really pissed me off on the MPC1000 and put me right off. If this is as instant as it alludes it could be fun.
Although I have enough samplers at the moment and just bought a couple of fun bots of gear.
Manifold antelope and Fieldtone Modular Weaver.
Cynical but I think they made these for Instagram audience to compete with teenage engineering and if you want an mpc you probably want a proper mpc. That said, I saw Jazzy Jeff demo it and it did look fun.
There’s a place for battery powered fun things to jam with on a log haul flight etc but I’ll wait until fuel prices drop ![]()
That’s the thing, I wouldn’t want an MPC to do it all, I have so much other stuff I use that it would never need to be the be all. I like the live playability to give more live feeling to the other things I have sequenced on a grid.
Yeah I think it would be best as a travel bit of kit or a second machine for use on the sofa etc if wires etc are a problem. Then again I bet some people will make great stuff on it, it has more features than a classic 60, 2000 etc and plenty of hits have been made on those things
Haven’t even heard of those! Sure you didn’t just make them up?
Trust Pete Rock to make a good MPC clip
That MPC samples a weird one, seems almost toy like compared to a 2000xl but it’s being proclaimed to be perfect for folks that don’t want an MPC with a DAW included
How you getting on with the Syntakt?
Hey got my first live set coming up. Any tips? Trying too keep it as simple as possible. MPC One, TD3, S1, possibly TR6S
Keep it loose and know exactly what happens when you turn a knob before turning it. triple-quadruple check every connection, especially midi and their channels. If you do screw something up, have a back up, even if it’s a segway track just to press play on to give you time to regroup.
That’s kinda what I ended using my MPC for actually. Little segway samples of tracks or dialogue that bridge the silence of setting up for the next track if something couldn’t be seamless.
Yeah i was thinking of having a tape or mp3 player + delay pedal for weird film samples and oddities as a between tracks interlude. The S1 is a good backup for panic mode, just a little arp or something with some lfo while I load stuff
Exciting!
I can’t imagine I can provide you with many insights mate. Still very green at this.
I’ve only done it twice so far and I leant heavily on my sampler both times. Considered taking more hardware out but decided it’d probably lead to overwhelm at this stage.
I found making some notes/drawing some diagrams helpful personally. I also think pre-planned interludes/segues/transitions make for an interesting listening experience and buy you some breathing time.
Got another live thing coming up next month, but this one’s more ambient/experimental stuff so I think I’ll be taking more kit out for that one, including some of the bits on your list actually.
Cheers, I have started making notes. I don’t really mind the odd pause between tracks, but it would be good to have a few transitions in there. DJing between the MPC and the TR6S might work. I also don’t mind if there are a few ad libbed bits in there, I don’t want it to sound too perfect, which is weird but it should sound live in some way. I guess I’ll just start recording my practice runs. How do you find the TR6S? Although I’ve used it a lot I still feel I could get more out of it
Agree that silence isn’t something that needs avoiding at all costs. It’s live after all. It can build a bit of anticipation and establish a reset for the audience too. I personally wouldn’t want it between every track, but it depends on the context…
I’m enjoying the TR6S a lot. I love step repeat. As usual I’m barely scratching the surface atm.
I’m putting a 45 minute set together currently for this event that is more oriented to ambient/drone/textural stuff, so not been using it as much lately whilst I focus prepping all that. But I will be using it a bit for that and getting back to more rhythmic stuff after June. Planning to deep dive it when I’ve got the bandwidth. I can see it being something I grow to love though, like the S1.
It’s very fun. I’ve not really been that much into electronic music recently so I haven’t been making tracks on it or using the sequencer very much. But it’s fun using it for sound design.
Last time I used it all I had my DS88 controlling Syntakt, Syntakt into Digitakt and my guitar amp straight into Digitakt over USB, works nicely. Fun for making stuff on the fly and having a jam. But I’ve found it hard to actually MAKE a proper track on the Digitakt gear. It’s fun for random jams and messing with ideas but I don’t think it will be a songwriting tool beyond sketching stuff or sound design.
Unrelated, I can’t make record anything on my laptop any more as I managed to bork my mac soundcard somehow with my audio interface. I think I made a feedback loop by accident somehow. One day I changed something and it made a horrible sound and hasn’t recorded anything since. Works fine for monitoring but all recordings are all mangled. Has anyone else had something like this happen?
just go into the preferences for your ins and outs and make sure it makes sense. It’s easy to mess up and forget how you did it as there are so many options. I don’t think you’d have fucked it, it’ll just be a setting you’ve flipped.
Best think to do with Elektron boxes if you want to make a track that is more than a static loop kinda track is to literally make different sequences but using the same kit/sounds. Just like you would a song on the guitar or whatever. Verse-chorus-middle 8 etc. Even just an A-B idea you can flip between. Then once you get you puter working, sync the box to your DAW and Jam for an hour constantly manipulating as you go. Then you can chop some great bits out and arrange it into a cohesive track.
It’s so easy to fall into the elektron loop hole where you can’t hear past the loop and break out into an alternative idea, so it’s best not to sit on one loop idea too long without working out some alternative ideas to link to it.
I’m rearranging my studio at the mo, possibly taking out my big mixer and concentrating on a smaller footprint so I can take something to an EMOM. Would be fun to travel about doing local EMOMS.
Mate if you ever fancy an EMOM and a curb sesh in Sheffield, just give me a shout.
Guy who runs EMOM Sheffield is quite keen for visiting artists to play.
Live set practice no.1 (only got 17 mins of it before recorder ran out of space)
Bit messy, and a bit of a clunky start to one or 2. I’ll try again when I get a chance