How do I rearrange the pad layout of a drum kit?

There's several ways to rearrange the layout of an MPC kit, and in this guide we'll show you the most common options. For a more detailed guide with downloadable examples, check out my Rearranging Pad Layout tutorial.

Quickest Method: MPC Software

Without doubt the easiest way to re-arrange the pads in any drum kit is to use the graphical pad UI in the MPC Software DAW. This method works in all versions of the MPC Software (and MPC Beats), but I'll be using MPC Software 3 in the following example.

Fire up the MPC Software and load a drum kit to track 1. As you can see, the current pad layout is shown at the bottom of the main screen:

To rearrange pads you have three options: 

• move a pad - hold down the 'shift' key on your computer keyboard and drag the pad to a new location.
• swap pads - hold down CMD (or CTRL on a PC) and drag the pad over another pad. The two pads will swap positions
• copy pad - hold down the 'OPTION' ('ALT') key and drag the pad to an empty pad. This will copy the pad into the new location, leaving the original pad where it was.

So to move pad A02 to A05, hold down 'shift' on your keyboard and use your mouse to drag A02 over to A05:

If you need to completely delete a pad, the easiest way is to simply 'shift and drag' an empty pad over this pad.

After making your changes, right click the track file in the PROJECT panel and select 'Save' (or use 'File > Save Current Track'). 

Copy Pad (Standalone & MPC Software)

In standalone MPCs we must perform a mix of copying and deleting operations to move pads around. One way to do this is via the physical [COPY] button.

Hold down [COPY] so the COPY PAD screen appears:

With [COPY] still held down, hit the pad you wish to copy (for example pad A03) - you should see it turn green and simultaneously you should notice the background of the dialog box turns a lighter grey with a red outline:

Now hit the pad you wish to copy 'to', for example, pad A09:

Now just release the [COPY] button and the entire contents of A03 will be copied to A09. Now carry on copying pads around until you have the layout you wish. 

To delete a pad, press [SHIFT] and [COPY] to bring up the DELETE PAD dialog:

Tap on the pads you wish to delete and hit DO IT.

Save your track via [MENU] > SAVE > Track (or via the physical [SAVE] button if you have one).

The 'Copy Pad' function is available in the MPC Software via the 'Edit > Track' menu.

Copy Pads (Standalone & MPC Software)

This option has a similar name (copy 'pads' instead of 'pad') but offers several different copying functions. The one of most interest here is the ability to copy pads across different kits. With this workflow we'll create our new pad layout in a separate copy of the original kit.

First go to [MAIN] and hit the 'Duplicate track' icon to create a duplicate of our current track:

This will create a perfect copy of our track, including any track FX and MIDI configurations. Give this new track a unique name (and track colour) so you can easily distinguish it from the original track.

Now select the original track (not the duplicate) and hit the track 'pencil' and select Copy Pads:

Leave COPY TYPE as 'Pad'. 'FROM TRACK' should be the original track. Hit the pad you wish to copy (and as the track is selected you'll hear it play back).

Makes sure the 'TO TRACK' is set to the duplicated track you made. Finally, set the destination pad using your data wheel. So in the above example, we're copying pad A04 from the original 'horizontal' layout kit to pad A10 in the new 'vertical' layout kit.

If you intend to carry out several copying actions, just hit APPLY; the pad will be copied but you'll stay within the COPY DRUM PADS dialog so you can quickly configure it to copy another pad. Continue copying pads from the original kit to the new kit until you have your new kit layout. Remember to save your new kit.