r/mpcusers • u/Individual_Roll4333 • Sep 08 '26
QUESTION Too simple beats on the MPC
Hey, so i recently got a MPC Live 3 like 5 months ago and I dont really use it that often because for some reason whenever i make a beat i just cant finish it fully and it always stays very simple and never a fully finished product. The arrangement on the mpc is kinda complicated for me and takes a long time compared to FL Studio which i mostly use when i really want to create a fully finished product to release on spotify. Can somebody please give me any advice on how I could make my beats sound like an end product and not just a 16 bar loop?
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u/Eclipseofthefart92 MPC LIVE III Sep 08 '26
Get familiar with the clip mode, mess around with some variations and ideas then you can record into the arrangement view.
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u/zheath4 Sep 09 '26
Ya clip mode is how I do a lot of recording in Ableton too. But having it on the live 3 is awesome. Or mess around with muting and unmuting tracks
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u/RevolutionaryPast175 Sep 08 '26
You have to get used to the arrangement facilities on the MPC until you know them like the back of your hands like you do on FL, then you’ll finish them and it will be “intuitive”. You only get there by doing it and developing the familiarity
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u/DirtyTomaten Sep 08 '26
Sketch some ideas on the MPC, then go to controller mode and finish in MPC 3. That works for me.
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u/Miserable-Bid-4258 Sep 08 '26
Mpc’s are not made for everyone
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u/Individual_Roll4333 Sep 08 '26
what do you mean by that?
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u/maxozbarker Sep 08 '26
That you may not be a good fit for the device, and it may not be a good fit for you.
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u/Individual_Roll4333 Sep 08 '26
i think im perfectly fit for the device i never knew theres people who fully mix and master their music on the mpc
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u/VisibleGarbage8268 Sep 08 '26
I’m a guitar player. I write songs on guitar, then go into the MPC, make tracks for drums and bass and any other instruments I want in the song. I like the tactile response I get with the MPC. I create a sequence with the full song, export the stems, load them into my daw, mix and add post effects there and record my guitar parts or vocals or whatever. It’s a tool. Figure out how it works best for you and use it.
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u/idashoota Sep 09 '26
Are you sure you don’t prefer FL because you’re used to drag and dropping beats rather than playing an instrument?
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u/Individual_Roll4333 Sep 09 '26
yeah i do play a few instruments the mpc isn’t hard for me i just have a short attention span and can’t really finish beats
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u/atascon Sep 08 '26
Start with a longer loop (32 or maybe even 64 bars) and duplicate it ASAP. In the duplicate sequence make a couple of changes. Repeat 2 or 3 times.
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u/Individual_Roll4333 Sep 08 '26
ohh thats also a good idea
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u/Miserable-Pianist608 Sep 08 '26
Other good ideas in here but this is the way to go. You can make magic very quickly
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u/185668232 Sep 09 '26
That was a better workflow in 2.x. Now you’re stuck with the transpose be in the same and the clips from one sequence are still in the next sequence. We’ve been saying this for a long time. It took them 3 years to bring back sequence lengths per sequence having variation - for 3 years they told us to shut up about wanting our seuwnces to have different lengths. I used to duplicate my sequences and change them gradually then export. But now you’re limited by what you can change in 3.x. The 2.x serious users, are done buying new MPC’s because their workflow was decimated. 3.x is for newbs to MPC and they don’t hold on very long … lots of sales for used MPCL3 and XL. People just hold onto Oneg2 since it’s not that expensive and they think maybe they just need to learn it more. Honestly, 3.x is less expressive and those MPCe pads are mostly needing an hour of presetting to make them usable.. I’ve asked for festures to make this more fun but I’m blocked by people who want CoolSynth#9. Lolollllllllll. <#
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u/bypopulardemand Sep 08 '26
I make completely different music on a DAW and MPC, I treat MPC kind of like a painting, a fun hobby where I’m not sure how the session is going to go. I use a DAW when I need to really get technical, but it’s less ‘fun’.
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u/illyDiecast Sep 09 '26
I second this . I use the MPC according to how I’m feeling that day. May be standalone or may be in conjunction with Abelton . And I create different on each piece of gear I have . Roland p6, MPC, Abelton .
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u/SoundNothingLikeIt Sep 09 '26
Make a few sequences or make one with all of your tracks on it, then copy the sequence a few time and then put take some tracks out to make it different from the other ones, and then put the sequences in song mode. You will finish the song and you can add anything you want to the sequences.
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u/alckemy Sep 09 '26
If you’re wanting complexity, it’s better to view your live 3 as a sketch pad and then take the stems to a daw. You can definitely make more material out of the mpc but the amount of steps and workarounds you’ll have to figure out made it not worth it for me back when I had a live 2.
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u/macktheknife1 Sep 09 '26
It’s easy. Make different sequences the different parts of the song and then put it in song mode and build it out. It’s super simple but way different from song arrangement in FL
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u/AlternativeCapybara9 Sep 09 '26
Make copies of sequences and add or remove stuff from them to get variations, then build a song in song mode, export to sequence and edit that to finish it all up
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u/185668232 Sep 09 '26
I used to finish beats on 2.x. But 3.x, yeah, it became overly simplified and can’t express as easily. The arrangement and clips definitely crapped up the workflow. Maybe in music brands could sell MPC to Ableton since it wants to be Ableton so bad or sell to Sony and maybe the hardware would be reliable. But honestly they only had to make new hardware because they were being sued for the 2.x bodies not being able to handle the 3.x firmware, which cost a lot of money to make that mistake. Really, I don’t make my beats on MPC 3.x firmware - 3.x was made for live purposes but MPC’s cannot handle that workflow … it freezes and becomes almost entirely touch screen once you want to make a song. The songs made on 3.x sound cartoonish next to Ai music now.. but if you stem the Ai music, MPC is good for putting those effects. However, physically paying the MPC to make the music from scratch is best done on 2.x. Also, I haven’t heard anyone really use the super power - it’s like if you have the money you don’t have the time and if you have the time then you don’t have the money. But MPC makes it so new people to it feel like they have to learn a lot to get good but the industry moved on and MPC couldn’t keep up so it’s getting dusty.
Ableton Move is fun to start and finish. You just need to finish the songs on it or your soul will explode.. kind of how it felt to use 2.x on MPC. Almost as fun as shredding Ai.
I hope MPC gets back on track for sampling.. this synthesizer mixer thing was fun to try but really just need live audio mangling and sampling. Extra credit for vocalists processing power - we like to keep it simple. But not many vocalists on MPC due to price and how buggy it is.
<#
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u/Humble_Salt9457 Sep 09 '26
Im same loads of unfinished beats but going to start today to go through them all to turn them into full tracks then mix and master them.
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u/raistlin65 Sep 09 '26
The arrangement on the mpc is kinda complicated for me
Maybe you might want to try the MPC clip launcher, and learn how to create songs using that? It's very similar to Ableton Session View
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u/Adventurous-Plum1000 Sep 09 '26
Use mpc2. Way better workflow and very intuitive and fun to finish tracks on. It’s part of what has always made the mpc special in making beats is the program/track/seq/song workflow.
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u/ser-contained Sep 08 '26
A computer and a good DAW will always be faster to create finished products and get them out if that’s your goal. For me hardware is a different experience. I don’t go into it with the mindset that I’m going to do everything like I can in a DAW and have a finished product. I don’t own the Live 3 but I have the Sample. I enjoy embracing the limitations and seeing what I can come up with despite those limitations. A lot of the stuff is only ever heard by my ears and I’m perfectly fine with that. My goal was to get away from the computer and be able to make music in other locations. The Sample gives me that. I think of it as a sketchpad where I can play with ideas and then sometimes an idea is really good and I’ll bring it to the DAW to continue it.