Tech Talk | AKAI MPC 2000 XL & Ensoniq ASR 10 MIDI Sync

[@raykane2063]

Where were you when I needed this information in the 90's and early 2000's. The way you are hooking up your equipment is 1000% the way it's done by the pros for the pieces you have. Your information is insanely valuable and it comes from experience which is often not the case on many other channels. Thanks for taking the time to post.

[@freeplaysamples]

I appreciate you and I'm happy to be of value. I also wish this was around when I was trying to figure it out. it took me many days of reading through a couple of different forums, the manuals of both machines and watching some producers working on this combo (mainly short Kanye clips) before I can fully put this together about 9 years ago. I am just giving back what I wish I had at the time when I was figuring it out myself. Also, trying to fill in the gaps with some of the things I see missing in some other videos that try to address this combo and how to make them work well together. Peace family! 🙏🏽💯🫡❤️‍🔥

[@raykane2063]

@@freeplaysamples I am seeing many producers who have started in the Box with a midi controller branching out or just trying to get a better sound & also using older gear no doubt your channel will blow up really soon.

[@freeplaysamples]

I'm happy to see the music producer community getting out of the box and exploring the original art form. Hope to be here providing value when they show up. bless up! 🙏🏽🫡❤‍🔥@@raykane2063

[@evoproducer]

Always great seeing another producer using the ASR & MP. We got similar setups, dope to see how others use this setup.

[@freeplaysamples]

That's dope! thanks for rocking with me and the channel! 💯🫡🤘🏽

[@ritofuturito]

I don’t use any of those machines but I find these videos very entertaining

[@freeplaysamples]

this is so dope. I just assumed it was only vintage sampler obsessed music geeks like myself that would find these useful or entertaining. glad you vibe with the channel. appreciate you! 💯❤️‍🔥🤘🏽

[@NinoTritone]

This is the weiiii. I still need to sit down and learn the asr sequencer but this is the method I always used outside of daw integration lol. I’m now hooking them up to the modern mpc for all of its midi manipulations and sequencing as the brain. Drums on 2000xl samples and instruments asr, main sequence live2. This also gave us more outs w out expanders😂 The real power of this setup though was asrs chops spreading the wave without memory used, for just a loop it’s fine to just use mpc but if you wanted a ton of chops asr made it possible without memory limitations. The asr sound mangling and manipulation is also light years beyond 2k. Drums on 2k and sequencer is the shit though. Perfect marriage.

[@freeplaysamples]

FACTS bro; once you get this way of working with these samplers it's hard to use them any other way. I sometimes work on the MPC or ASR without the sync just to get better at them or discover new ways of solving things production wise or just to get a different vibe. Bringing this into the modern day workflow has many possibilities and potential. But, a classic combo for sure! thanks for sharing your perspective bro; appreciate you 💯🙏🏽❤️‍🔥🫡

[@AceBoogieProductions805]

Dope video, especially how you compressed it. For sure it would be a longer video if you went in depth. I do the same setup, linking my korg triton rack to my mpc X. But instead of going straight to the daw, I go into my tascam model 24.

[@freeplaysamples]

Thanks for sharing and I love the Korg Triton. Those Tascams look beautiful. So are you completely "dawless"? Once you get your recordings into the Tascam do you just transfer a .wav or .mp3 once you want to share or bring your music into the "digital world"? I'm always curious to know since I've mostly used a hybrid setup. 🙏🏽🫡

[@AceBoogieProductions805]

@freeplaysamples Yea, basically. If I'm sending work to an artist. The Tascam will create a stereo wav file along with all the separate tracks wav files to the SD card.

[@freeplaysamples]

this is dope and truly DAW-less set up. thanks for sharing! 💯🙏🏽🫡@@AceBoogieProductions805

[@saren6538]

Can I ask what advantage would using ableton be for having it as the master and triggering the mpc ? Wouldn’t you loose the swing (bypass the mpc swing) having ableton as the master ? Just curious as I’m getting into all this now and in my mind I was gonna use the mpc as the master and triggering the asr10 / s950 Or whatever and then record 8 outs into ableton for processing

[@raykane2063]

He is just using ableton to send MIDI Machine Control, or MMC messages to the MPC. These messages are STOP, START, FF, REWIND, PAUSE, PLAY & RECORD just like a tape recorder. He is using the "Sequencer of the MPC" (not the sequencer of ableton) so he still gets the MPC feel like he said when setting the tempos to those numbers like 92.3 or 78.6 .He is using Ableton as if it is a Old school reel to reel tapes machine it won't affect the swing at all. Hope this helps.

[@freeplaysamples]

@raykane2063 is absolutely right I'm using Ableton as my "tape" to send MMC and as I was taught in my apprenticeship in major recording studios this is how producers came in to track their beats from their MPC's. I had the honor of being a fly on the wall on a Salaam Remi session when he was tracking out of his MPC 4000 at Chung King Studios with his personal rack of 8 Neve 1073 preamps that he carries and runs his 8 outs through. As far as I can hear, the groove of the MPC remains when you track out this way; it just makes it easier to hit record in Ableton and have everything triggered. If you have multiple inputs in your interface and a lot of nice preamps then you're in an even better position as you can multitrack record into your DAW and not have to go to the trouble of lining things up the way I had to in my ASR tracking video. There's different ways and none is "wrong"; this is a standard way that has been used for quite some time except that in this example we're replacing SMPTE and tape machines with MMC and a DAW (in this case Ableton); same can be done in Pro Tools and any other major DAW. Experiment and see which works best for you and your workflow. Hopes this helps. 🙏🏽🫡💯

[@rawedginnah]

Subbed…🔥💯😎👍🏾

[@freeplaysamples]

appreciate you! and hope this is of value to you 💯🙏🏽🫡❤️‍🔥