is there drum machine program like the MPC?

aquaman · Post by **aquaman** » Fri Apr 06, 2007 7:01 pm

i used to use an MPC 2000 but now i am using the drum editor to creat beats. i really miss the mpc's ability to spread a sample over 12 notes and the way I could arrange songs with it. is there a program out there that is similar? i would use the MPC but I like to keep portable with my laptop.

wasnot · Post by **wasnot** » Sun Apr 08, 2007 8:12 pm

I use battery 3 with the akai mpd16 as a trigger.

davel6332 · Post by **davel6332** » Sun Apr 08, 2007 10:23 pm

i really miss the mpc's ability to spread a sample over 12 notes

To my knowledge the MPC 2000 has 16 pads so I'm assuming you're referring to some other way of spreading a sample.

...... and the way I could arrange songs with it. is there a program out there that is similar?

I'm also assuming you're using DP since you're posting your thread here. DP is highly customizable in the way you can set your own personal work environment, and use it. With some effort on your part you can set it up to make it act very similarly to an MPC machine. Then you can save your work setup as a template. If taking the time to do that is worth it to you in terms of portability then by all means, do it. To customize the program you have to make it work better for you will be more cost effective than buying an additional one as well. If there's times when you don't need the portability why not just keep the MPC as part of your rig? Working speed, ease of use, and comfortability with your gear should be the most important thing to have when you need to creative. I've gone back and forth between MPC's, DP, and Pro Tools for years, and I just tend to grab whichever one is the most handy for the moment. It's not particulary difficult to transfer information between them either.

MegaDPuser · Post by **MegaDPuser** » Sun Apr 08, 2007 10:35 pm

Battery 3.

J.Daniels · Post by **J.Daniels** » Mon Apr 09, 2007 4:41 am

Fxpansions Guru for sure. I was an mpc junkie until i tried it out and eventually bought it.

Theres also an option to enable chromatically playing samples across a MIDI keyboard. It works well because you just hve to click the sample pad in guru with the mouse and then that sample can be played chromatically on a MIDI keyboard. This means that you have access to all your samples and control their individual pitch at the same time. You might wanna check out DP5's nanosampler which instantly maps everything across a keyboard(and even graphically resembles an akai sampler!)

Problem is that there are some major CPU problems with guru within DP and they cant be loaded at the same time. Atleast thats the case with my 2gig core duo macbook and ultralite interface.

davel6332 · Post by **davel6332** » Mon Apr 09, 2007 1:50 pm

Hey J,

I saw your post about Guru and went to their site to check it out. It looks like a really interesting program and fun to use. Since you said you were having problems with Guru and DP loading together, I was wondering how you use Guru. Do you use it as a stand alone application? If so how well does it work like that? I'm curious too if you're able to map the individual sounds from guru to the individual outputs on your ultrarlite.

Thanks in advance.

HeadMaster · Post by **HeadMaster** » Wed Apr 11, 2007 8:12 am

davel6332 wrote:Hey J,

I saw your post about Guru and went to their site to check it out. It looks like a really interesting program and fun to use. Since you said you were having problems with Guru and DP loading together, I was wondering how you use Guru. Do you use it as a stand alone application? If so how well does it work like that? I'm curious too if you're able to map the individual sounds from guru to the individual outputs on your ultrarlite.

Thanks in advance.

I have no probs running GURU, just make sure you DL the latest updates on the FXPansion user area when you have purchased it.

It rox, I use it A LOT!

. . .
HM

J.Daniels · Post by **J.Daniels** » Wed Apr 11, 2007 6:25 pm

^^Really??

Ive been trying to fix this cpu problem and have constantly been visiting the fxpansion board and updating it as soon as i have been able to.

Whenever i use around more than 4 of Gurus engines(which is most of my projects) it overloads the cpu whenever the whole dp project is loaded. Ive kinda had to get around it by making a ghost guru bundle with nothing in it and loading that before i end a dp session.

HeadMaster · Post by **HeadMaster** » Thu Apr 12, 2007 2:27 am

J.Daniels wrote:^^Really??

Ive been trying to fix this cpu problem and have constantly been visiting the fxpansion board and updating it as soon as i have been able to.

Whenever i use around more than 4 of Gurus engines(which is most of my projects) it overloads the cpu whenever the whole dp project is loaded. Ive kinda had to get around it by making a ghost guru bundle with nothing in it and loading that before i end a dp session.

Strange, though, I seldom use more than one instance, but most often I use at least 2 or 3 and sometimes more engines, iBook 1,42 GHz (Last generation).

. . .
HM

aletheian-alex · Post by **aletheian-alex** » Sun Apr 15, 2007 10:42 pm

+1 on Battery. It is very similar to the AKAI hardware unit, and pretty glitch free. i have not upgraded mine yet to work with my new Intel machine though, so I can't say how it works with DP5

mhschmieder · Post by **mhschmieder** » Mon Apr 16, 2007 12:00 am

Yeah, I wasn't sure whether to respond at first, as I wasn't completely clear on whether it was the pad layout that was of most importance, or specific looping capabilities of the Akai series.

I find Battery 3 very easy and quick to work with, and love it how everything is laid out in one screen and you can select different details to come forward without delving into menus. It is trivial to assign pads and create kits, and to examine note assignments for each pad. The pads do not have to be laid out in note order, which can be convenient for arranging an ideal mapping for playability purposes while maybe sticking to GM Drum Kit note assignments.

Although I haven't delved into the looping capabilities of Battery 3, I've looked at the GUI for that stuff and read the manual, and it seems quite capable. Others here have already commented on that aspect of it, but it may be that Guru is more what you'd want if you really want to be working in Akai MPC mode or the equivalent.

It looks like Guru has a more intuitive way of working with setting up beats and patterns than the DP drum editor, and that it is more fleshed out than Battery as well in this regard (as Battery is first and foremost a drum-oriented sampler, but certainly has a lot of advanced features).

In that light, Guru seems to be a pretty close emulation of the MPC series, as I look at it further, and this could be both good and bad, depending on your specific needs. For instance, it seems to be limited to a pad grouping corresponding to a typical MPC control surface; whereas Battery 3 is more oriented towards a comprehensive and flexible graphical layout that is fairly agnostic as to whether it is going to be triggered by a keyboard, a drum pad controller, or pre-recorded MIDI parts. In some senses it serves more as a clean way of organising one's way of working with drums and percussion, swith lots of visual cues for quick referencing.

There is a demo available for Guru, so you may as well try it. It can be used within DP, but I'm not sure how the beat and pattern mode gets saved, in terms of whether it converts to a MIDI track within DP (or whether you can export it to a DP MIDI track if you only want to use it for creating a pattern and not for later triggering it).

macsterdam · Post by **macsterdam** » Mon Apr 16, 2007 12:24 am

Could this be what you're looking for: virtual mpc

mhschmieder · Post by **mhschmieder** » Mon Apr 16, 2007 1:20 am

Pretty cool, and the price is right

.

For those looking for actual Virtual MPC's, this seems to be the ticket.

Maybe not for sounds at that price, but certainly for workflow, and for importing projects from actual Akai MPC hardware.

digeorge · Post by **digeorge** » Mon Apr 16, 2007 7:07 am

Looks interesting! Can you still achieve the famous "swing" vibe via the software emulation? I thought the MIDI clock of the actual PMC has to do a lot with the way interprets the beats. As far as I know mpc's MIDI is tighter than any PC/MAC.
Correct me if I am wrong. I am simply looking for a similar solution. I'll have to take check those out. I am considering a real mpc because it's a great tool to have anyway.
There's something I read about the mps' pads - they get more sensitive with time as they wear a bit, which is good thing I guess. For some reason the pads on my Kontrol 49 are not good at all.

playonbrother · Post by **playonbrother** » Mon Apr 16, 2007 8:45 am

this is just a stand alone app but it is the closest i've seen to an mpc...

http://homepage.mac.com/seishu/ssworks/rs16x/rs16x.html

al