How to Use MPC MIDI Patterns
We now include MIDI patterns in many of our expansions and have also recently released an expansion entirely dedicated to MIDI drum patterns; ‘Hip Hop Drum Patterns’. In this article we’ll take a closer look at how to use MIDI patterns in your MPC projects.
What are MIDI patterns?
A MIDI pattern is a ‘snippet’ or ‘clip’ of MIDI events. It’s effectively a self-contained ‘midi track’ file, but in a proprietary MPC format with the extension ‘.mpcpattern’, and as such can contain some non-standard MIDI data such as ratchets, 16 levels and probability events.
MPC pattern files can be used with any modern MPC, the MPC Software, MPC Beats and the Akai Force.
Just like normal MIDI files, an MPC pattern file contains no actual audio, only MIDI event data, and has to be paired with a suitable MIDI based audio source such as a drum kit, keygroup instrument, plugin instrument or external MIDI instrument. The events stored in the MIDI pattern will then trigger the sounds in your instrument.
MIDI patterns can be used to trigger any type of performance such as drum patterns, melodic loops, riffs or even chord sequences.
The MPC can already load standard MIDI files but these are imported as a completely new sequence in your project (which is very annoying!). MIDI patterns on the other hand can be loaded directly to a track in your current sequence. In the Akai Force, a MIDI pattern can be loaded directly to any clip on in your current project.
How do I load a MIDI pattern?
Go to BROWSER > Expansions and select one of our expansions which contains MIDI patterns. In this example we’ll use the 1977 Session Kit, which is a multisampled acoustic drum kit expansion which also contains lots of MIDI drum patterns covering a number of different musical styles.
First let’s load a drum kit from this expansion, this is the kit that the MIDI pattern is going to trigger drum hits from. Enter the ‘ Drum Kits’ folder and browse the available kits. Remember to select the ‘PROGRAMS’ filter on the right hand side of the screen, this way only programs will be visible:
Single tap a program to hear an audio preview of the kit. To hear this preview, make sure AUDITION > AUTO is turned on:
Double tap a kit to load it into your project. Now go back to the root location of your expansion. In this expansion, all the MIDI patterns are contained within their own ‘MIDI Patterns’ folder, so enter this to view the various pattern groups.
Enter the ‘Funk’ folder. If no files are visible, make sure you select the ‘MIDI’ filter on the right hand side of the screen – the browser will now only display MIDI files such as patterns and sequences:
Just like our kits and instruments our MIDI patterns are also configured to play a brief audio preview when they are selected (as long as AUDITION > AUTO is turned on).
Listen to the patterns until you find one you like. To load a pattern, either double tap the pattern file, or single tap to select it and press LOAD.
The MIDI pattern will now be loaded to the first available ‘unused’ track in the currently selected sequence . So, if tracks 1 and 2 are already in use, the MIDI pattern will be loaded to track 3. At the time of writing it is not possible to pick a particular ‘target’ track to load to.
Please note that in standalone MPCs, patterns are loaded quietly in the background with no on-screen confirmation!
How Do I Work With My Loaded MIDI Pattern?
After loading a pattern, go to MAIN and the track containing the new MIDI pattern data will already be selected:
At this point, make sure this track is set as a DRUM type and, on that you’ve assigned your previously loaded drum kit on the ‘PROGRAM’ row.
Press PLAY START to hear the drum groove. Adjust the tempo of the sequence to whatever BPM you wish. As this beat is entirely controlled by MIDI data there are no restrictions to which tempo you set. That said, some grooves simply work better when played within certain tempos ranges; our MIDI patterns have the originally recorded BPM added to the file name, use this as a guide to the kind of tempo ranges that may work best.
To view the events in your loaded pattern, head over to GRID VIEW:
Here you can make edits to the MIDI events themselves. Alternatively you can use LIST EDIT:
Or use the various editing options found via the ‘pencil’ icons in the MAIN screen. Plus you can of course use ‘OVERDUB’ to record additional notes in real time, along with all the many other sequencing tools the MPC has to offer (e.g. swing, quantize, humanize etc).
For detailed tutorials covering sequencing techniques and workflows, check out the MPC Bible.
Why Is My Drum Groove Playing the Wrong Sounds?
MIDI patterns have to assume that each particular drum sound is assigned to a specific MIDI note, for example a closed hi hat could be MIDI note 42, the snare could be note 38, and so on. If the drum kit you’ve matched with the MIDI pattern makes different assumptions (e.g. the snare was assigned to MIDI note 44) then the pattern will trigger the wrong drum sounds.
There’s no standardized MIDI mapping used for MPC kits, each developer picks their own; Akai themselves employ at least three different MIDI mappings across their sample and synth kits. This makes it impossible to create ‘universal’ MPC patterns, so instead MDI patterns are normally built to work with a specific kit (or range of kits).
In our drum expansions, all the provided MIDI patterns are pre-configured to work perfectly ‘out of the box’ with all the drum kits found in that specific expansion, so no tweaking required. In our Hip Hop Drum Patterns expansion we created multiple versions of each pattern to match with many common kit layout types, including DrumSynth, the various Akai factory kits and all our own kits.
If you have tried matching a pattern with a third party or custom kit and some of the sounds don’t match, we suggest you either edit the MIDI mapping of the kit to match the mapping used in the patterns, or just use the TRANSPOSE option in GRID VIEW to move the events in the pattern itself.
What About MIDI Patterns For Instruments?
MIDI patterns are not just for drums, they can also be used with melodic instruments such as plugins and keygroups. The pattern loading procedure is the same, but this time you’ll have to configure the track to a melodic type of MIDI track, such as PLUGIN, KEYGROUP or MIDI and then assign a suitable MIDI instrument to that track. Melodic MIDI patterns have the advantage of not having to deal with different kit mapping as all melodic instruments use the same chromatic note order.
We hope to create some ‘melodic’ pattern expansions soon.
What About the MPC Software/MPC Beats?
MIDI patterns work the same in the MPC Software and in MPC Beats. Here you need to go to the Expansion browser and double tap or drag the pattern into your project. The pattern still insists on loading to the next available unused track, just like it does in standalone mode, so you can’t drag it to a specific track. Hopefully Akai will address this in a future update.
Can Legacy MPCs Read MIDI Patterns?
No, ‘mpcpattern’ files are not recognised by older ‘legacy’ MPCs (such as the MPC1000 or MPC200XL). For these MPCs you would typically use standard MIDI files (if our expansion supports legacy MPCs we’ll normally include separate standard MIDI file versions of all MIDI patterns).
How Do I Move the Imported Pattern To a Different Track?
You can use the MPC’s built in sequence editing functionality to copy entire tracks or portions of a track to other locations in your sequence (or to any other sequence). For example, in MAIN, hit the pencil icon on the SEQUENCE Row and select COPY > EVENTS to copy a range of events from the current track.
In the MPC Software you can easily copy and paste selected sequence events across tracks using standard copy/paste/cut keyboard shortcuts; e.g. select some events on track 2, copy using CMD & C (or CTRL & C on a PC), select track 1, set the playhead to a specific time and paste the events there using CMD & V (CTRL & V on a PC).
I can’t hear The Browser preview For my patterns?
A midi pattern on its own does not have any form of baked in audio preview, these must be manually added by the MPC expansion developer.
If your expansion is advertised as having pattern previews, make sure you have enabled AUDITION > AUTO in the browser and that the output volume is not muted. Now single tap a pattern to hear the preview. Alternatively hit the ‘play’ icon to trigger a preview on the currently selected pattern.
How Do I Make My Own MIDI Patterns?
You can convert any existing MPC MIDI track to a MIDI pattern. In a standalone MPCs just go to MAIN and hit thepencil icon on the track row. Select ‘Export as Pattern’. In the MPC Software, select ‘ File > Export > As Pattern’.
