MPC One Learning Update

I bought MPC Bible from the MPC Samples website and have been using it to learn how to use the MPC One. I bought the Revision 17 version a few months ago. I just downloaded Revision 18.

So far it has been an excellent resource. However, it does leave out some vital pieces of information. Two that I found today:

• A keyboard controller plugged into the MPC's USB port will not produce any sound unless you enable Global in its Input Port settings in the MIDI/Sync section of Preferences, or arm it for recording in the Track View.
• The instructions to get to the Key Ranges view is totally wrong. MPC Bible mentions a "left hand pullout menu" that does not exist in Track View. Instead, follow the example in this video, which covers the same topic in MPC Bible too, which is setting up layers and splits.

To be clear, I do not intend to use this blog to only post complaints about MPC Bible. I still think it has been worth the money and time spent reading it and working with the tutorial projects, samples, etc. provided with it. I just thought it would be useful to log my experiences as I learn.

I do like electronic drum sounds, but I also like to have a sampled acoustic drum kit on the MPC that both sounds great and are responsive to finger drumming on the pads. The 1977 Session Kit looks promising, with 45 different articulations and 12 velocity layers. It also comes with multiple "snapshots" which tailor the kits to various genres such as neo-soul, funk, reggae, etc. and over 120 MIDI patterns.

Some interesting tutorial videos: