The auto save intervals need to be longer, I turned it off as it interrupted too often

Even Logic makes you pick your tool type when editing on the timeline. You probably don’t notice it because it’s generally set to “select tool” and you use menus to choose the action. In the Touch UI on MPC, there’s no menus, so you set your intended action by having to select the tool first.

How do people use the MPC Live in their audio chain?

I use it as one channel in my mixer, but I was wondering if there would be any advantages in having the mixer feed into the MPC, which would then directly feed out to the speakers.

Obviously, it would make recording easier, but any other advantages? Am I right that the internal fx cant be applied to any live feed, just samples and looped recordings?

Don't have much gear, so I've got the Montage main output going directly to the MPC inputs.

But if I had a mixer and more synths/fx, I'd route either an aux send or preferably a bus output to the MPC inputs for sampling and then output the MPC back into one or more mixer channels.

Effects can be applied to the inputs.

I always assumed it wouldnt. Game changer. Man, the MPC just keeps giving at the moment.

Actually, thats a really good idea and I hadnt thought of running it through the bus (the aux send is crammed with fx but the bus should be perfect).

Another thought, by running the output through the MPC, you could have two instances of the same synth/drums running in realtime, one clean, the other EQd, filtered, glitched, sampled and hacked up or whatever. Anyone have experience doing this on the fly and are the results good or messy?

Sorry if seems like a schoolboy question. Previously I would deal with this in a long and painstaking way, sample in, take time to process and carefully layer, but the immediacy of the machine is only now dawning on me. Duh...

What kind of mixer you using? Make sure you dont have the MPC mixer channel going back into the MPC itself or you'll get feedback.

Still fairly new to the MPC but I used to regularly do the wet/dry thing in software: Basically sliced up a mangled loop with all kinds of crazy effect going and also sliced up a clean loop. Then start randomly triggering slices from each one. Layering mangled over clean never sounded good to me.

Its a Yamaha MG10 but due an upgrade as need more channels, aux and bus options. Good point about feedback. I guess the options are to either have the MPC after the mixer and before the main speakers, or have monitor sends to MPC and have it run to a second separate set of speakers.

Another workflow question. I should get my Vermona DRM today and want to sequence it from the MPC as well as route the audio through the MPC Live and apply internal fx. My questions are:

1. Anyone sequencing external drum machines with midi, and any issues in setting it up? Assuming that it is relatively painless, but I have only used it with synths so far, which has been relatively plug and play, and not sequencerless/padless drum machines...

2. Is it possible to route individual fx to pads when using a midi program, so that I can apply compression to the kick, delay to the snare, and other options, so that the fx is applied to the relevant track as it comes into the MPC? Obviously, this is possible with samples, but I imagine that it won't be on midi for obvious reasons, and that you can only apply it globally to the incoming audio. Just wondered.

On a different point, I have been giving serious thought to getting a Squarp Pyramid to manage sequencing, given it has midi fx, polyrythms, euclidian sequencing, tighter timing, and cv, and use the Squarp as a master sequencer. The MPC is good, especially for building linear tracks, but the more I play with the sequencer, the more I think it isn't really geared to more experimental play (although it's a different story where samples are involved). However, if anyone has achieved some snazzy tricks with its sequencer, feel free to share.

I'm an Maschine User for a few years now and the Live made me nostalgic, because I had the AKAI S01 and the S2000 back in the 90s. So I got me one.

I'm used to throwing sounds and effects around in Maschine, with VSTs left and right, but without a real focus and always kinda stressed. Using Maschine I always cheated by looking at my iMac for some functions and especially sequencing. Not a good way to get a hardware workflow going.

Now with the Live I'm super focused on my sounds and the music, because the whole process is a lot slower and more abstract, in a way. I only use it in standalone mode because a first look at the MPC 2.0 software made me wish Maschine back

There is still a steep learning curve before me and I'm also not sure if I will keep the Live or if that's all nostalgia and novelty effect

Playing an external drum machine from MPC is the same as playing external synth. If I remember correctly, the DRM even has a very simple and convenient method for setting which note each channel responds to.

As for the efx question - you want to apply audio efx to a midi event???? You can apply audio efx to the MPC’s input, but that would be for the entire DRM output. Or you can sample the DRM and apply efx to the samples.

Euclidean, and other polyrhythms can be played on any drum machine or instrument. Put a kick every four beats and a snare every five. Set the sequence to a multiple of five. There’s your polyrhythm.

I've been a Maschine user for a very long time and have used it for pretty much everything in my music production except multitrack drum recording. Partly through frustration at the slow development of Maschine and partly wanting a new challenge/toy, I started considering my options and went for an MPC Live.

After about a month of reading the ******* manual, as well as any reviews, articles, and guides, watching videos, asking questions, and, importantly, actually trying to use an MPC Live (on 2.3, standalone only), I'm at a bit of a crossroads...

I'm split on whether I just don't yet understand the MPC workflow or whether its workflow is just not for me.

Perhaps ironically (coming from Maschine), the main issue I have with the MPC's workflow is arrangement: I find it so much easier and quicker to put structures together to make a piece of music in Maschine. While Sequences can be strung together (much like Sections can be in Maschine), creating those Sequences and variations of them is very different, often cumbersome and almost always requiring several more button pushes than Maschine to do the equivalent. As some examples: grabbing and re-using (MIDI) content from other Sequences seems a lot more tedious than I feel it should be, the parameters that can be automated are more limited than I expected, changing sounds (drums/instruments) on a Track is not a direct switch.

To me, the MPC Live has an amazing feature set, but an often awkward workflow, while Maschine has many unacceptably-missing core features, but a workflow that allows it to excel at what it can do. I think that Maschine has ruined me...

If anyone could give me any pointers, I'd be most appreciative, as I want to make this MPC work for me and not to give up on it! Thanks.

Also on the fence. Coming from a Yamaha Rm1x/rs7000 background, now ableton with push, and an electribe sampler on the side. With push i miss the immediacy and logical flow of my rm1x. With electribe I also feel it’s illogical and limiting. Hope that the MPC live has a nice sweet spot inbetween, although I’m not sample-heavy, so the built in synths are important for me. Any thoughts/pointers to help me decide?

The "built in" synths are ok, but nothing to write home about. Pretty standard bread and butter stuff really. If you were planning on using it with the computer in controller mode though, you've got the world of AUs and VSTs open to you..