How To Get REAL Vintage MPC Punch From the MPC X SE / AKAI Force

The debate has ran its course, the old MPC's do sound different, BUT, it IS possible to get that vintage punch with the newschool clarity

What’s up Forum!

So the debate is tired, BUT, there is a ‘sort of’ solution right in your face.

Rather than focus on the ‘apparent’ problem how about considering this?

Akai hasn’t really explained how to use these MPC emulation plugins.

But I think I’ve found a way to make things work how we’d like them

So let’s dive in.

Remember, this also applies to those on the Akai force.

So the first place I’d like to start is giving a big shoutout to Chris at Airwindows.

He’s created some plugins that do some pretty good emulations of hardware AND they’re user-friendly and FREE.

the plugins that I use are
Mackity
Console8
Channel
Pockey2
**All of the reverbs

So I basically took his Console approach to the MPC emulations and I’m pretty happy with the results.

So let’s see what this sounds like step by step,
here is the drum loop I used to test this effect.

The first thing that needs to be done for ALL keygroup instruments and Drum tracks is to convert the filters to the MPC filter.

So this is what that sounds like

Not too much different event though I KNOW on a spectrum analyzer there is a slight low-end boost..

so

Second, add an MPC 60 emulation to the end of every pad mixer track AND/mixer track.

This is what that sounds like without the MPC 3kLPF

And then with the MPC3k LPF AND the MPC 60 effect on the channel

And you can do the same for the channel output.

So once you start stacking that’s when the magic happens..

here is the full effect. that means MPC3kLP filters on every pad, MPC60 emulation on every pad, AND MPC60 emulation on the channel mixer. too

WAAAAY more punch

Now what I’ve discovered for the main outputs (1-2) is that if you put an MPC3000 emulation ( or turn this on in the settings) it cuts out a bit of the low end but adds some punch.

But it’s not necessary.

So the reason behind this is basically to stack the effect or use it like the Airwindows console where it’s emulating the effect on every channel.

THE MPC3000 had the digital lowpass filter on virtually every channel AND it was dynamic. So this is the same thing.

that dynamic resonance is adding some

oomph to the low end and rolling off the highs in a nice way..

Also, if you want to add some oomph to your samples run them through the MPC 60 first.

Doing this prints the effect onto the audio and creates some really nice transient enhancement without adding compression or reducing the bitrate,

(if you’re loading samples, i highly recommend normalizing the sample and converting it to 12 ni inside of the sample editor)

So compare what we started with

With what we finished with

Now IDK about you, but the second example sounds more like an MPC to me


And this without using a transient designer with a 25% attack for a limiter on the master channel 😇