How to Install Plugin Presets Inside Native MPC Software Plugins

There are now many native MPC plugins available for use in standalone MPCs and the MPC Software, and we are now offering a growing library of custom presets for many of these plugins.

There are two primary ways to use our preset libraries in the MPC Software. The easiest method, and the one we’d generally recommend for most users, is to install the presets as part of an MPC Expansion, and we look at this in our ‘ Installing Plugin Preset Expansions’ article.

In this article we’re going to look at how we can install our presets directly inside the MPC Software versions of these plugins so that your new presets appear alongside the factory presets. Please note that this article is for ‘native’ MPC Software plugins, not the VST/AU versions which are intended to be used inside other DAWs – we have a separate article covering those).

There are two distinct options for installing presets into MPC Software plugins. Before performing either installation, you should close down The MPC Software.

• System Folder Installation – This provides the best plugin browsing experience as presets appear in their own group with sub grouping (‘bass, keys etc). However, if the plugin is updated in the future you may have to re-install the Crush presets after the update. Admin permissions are normally required for this option, and it’s definitely not officially supported by Akai.
  
  
• ‘User’ folder installation – presets appear in the dedicated ‘User’ group within the plugin; this folder is reserved for storing custom preset files so shouldn’t be affected by any subsequent plugin updates. However, ‘grouping’ is not supported in the User folder, so presets will simply appear in a single list.

MPC Software: ‘User’ Group Install

This option installs the custom presets so they appear within the ‘User’ preset group within the plugin UI.

• Advantages: No admin permissions required. Software updates to the plugin itself will not overwrite your custom presets
• Disadvantage: The User preset folder does not support organising presets into ‘groups’ (bass, pads, keys etc).

In this example we’ll be installing Fabric XL presets from our own Crush library.

Download Crush from your File Bank, unzip and open the ‘ MPC Software Install’ folder.

Open the ‘ User Folder Installation’ folder to reveal the custom presets folders. There is one folder for Fabric XL, and one for Fabric. These contain the same presets but Fabric versions use less RAM.

Copy the folder ‘[Pad Pimps] Crush - Fabric XL Presets’ to the following location:

PC: C:/Users/Documents/MPC/Plugin Presets/Instruments/AIR Music Technology - MPC - Fabric XL

Mac: /Users//Documents/MPC/Plugin Presets/Instruments/AIR Music Technology - MPC - Fabric XL

Repeat for the ‘[Pad Pimps] Crush - Fabric Presets’ folder, this time copying to the AIR Music Technology – MPC – Fabric’ folder.

If you have previously saved your own user presets from within the plugin, the above locations will all already exist. Otherwise you’ll have to manually create them (make sure you spell everything exactly as shown), but the easiest option is to simply open the plugins themselves and just quickly re-save the default preset to your ‘User’ folder; this way the plugin creates this ‘User folder’ path for you.

After copying the presets, re-launch the MPC Software, open the plugin UI and navigate to the User preset group:

As mentioned previously, preset ‘grouping’ is not supported in the User group, so we have renamed the presets to account for this (e.g. ‘[Leads] Crush Oriental Lead).

MPC Software: System Folder Install

If you would like the presets to appear in their own category with proper sub group organisation, we must use what we call a ‘System Folder’ installation.

• Advantage: Presets are organised into groups, just like the factory presets are (e.g. bass, keys, lead etc), for a sleeker integration.
• Disadvantage: Admin permissions may be required for installation. If the plugin itself ever receives a software update from Akai it’s possible that you may have to re-install any of the presets you copied here

Again, we’ll use our Crush Fabric XL library as the example. Locate the MPC Software Install folder and open the ‘System Folder Installation’ folder.

Copy the ‘[Pad Pimps] Crush - Fabric XL Presets’ folder here:

Mac: /Library/Application Support/Akai/MPC/Synths/AIR Music Technology - MPC - Fabric XL/Presets

PC: C:/Program Files/Akai Pro/MPC/Synths/AIR Music Technology - MPC – Fabric XL/Presets

These preset folder paths will already exist, but you are likely to need admin permissions to paste folders to these locations. Repeat for the ‘AIR Music Technology - MPC – Fabric’ presets folder, this time pasting the ‘[Pad Pimps] Crush - Fabric Presets’ folder inside it.

Re-launch your host DAW application for the presets to appear within the plugin. Now open the plugin UI and locate the preset group called ‘[Pad Pimps] Crush’ :

Don’t forget, if you customise any of these presets you can of course re-save the customised versions to your ‘User’ group, just like you can with the factory presets. you can also re-save any of these presets. Simply use the ‘ Save Presets’ option from the plugin UI:

If you have any problems installing your preset expansion, please get in touch and we’ll guide you through the process.