MPC Madness

mpc=fingers

Controllerism is fresh and all, but we most certainly were not the first folks to bang out samples using buttons or pads. There are legions of hip-hop producers who spend hours perfecting multi-finger drumming techniques on their MPCs.  To put it simply, these guys rock rubber buttons. You will find a few of my favorite MPC video clips after the break that might inspire a DJ routine or two. Add your favorites in the comments, and we will compile all the videos into a mega-MPC banger archive.

OK: up to this point I am thinking the MPC has some really nice input quantize function, but then this guy busts out the crazy tempo changes.


  • Ian T

    These are really excellent.

  • junejhunkie

    EGADZ! yeah… love to see him live too.

  • russell477

    …The Araab Muzik Promo vid blows my mind, his finger speed seems surreal…Awesome collection of vids altogether…

  • Anonymous

    the last video is an mpd, a midi controller, not an mpc. still very nice

  • midijay

    yipee i have an mpd24. can i do this? hell no! but pre-midi fighter release it made an excellent purchase giving me a 4×4 plus really nice knobs and faders for traktor. an old product now but highly recommended. i pretty much use a tailored midi-fighter mapping right now too.

  • Taz

    Thank you so much for showing me these.

  • The-K

    Was wondering if there is anything, what an mpc (2000xl) can do, what the NI Maschine can’t?
    Thanks

  • midijay

    [quote comment="28106"]Was wondering if there is anything, what an mpc (2000xl) can do, what the NI Maschine can’t?
    Thanks[/quote]

    i guess the mpc can burn a really big hole in your wallet, but on the plus side, it doesn’t consume a 2nd laptop.

  • midijay

    you know, these videos are great, and i even have nice mpc pads on my controller, but i was figuring this is all done with 1 hits not cue pointed songs. so there’s not much a can bring into a traktor set. although i have played around with cue-pointing the amen brother break with mixed results

    i’m sure a lot of people reading this will be inspired to play around with bfd/guru et al, but seeing as DJTT has ignited 8 button controllerism has anyone got suggestions of tracks that suit the golden style?

    e.g. aerodynamic, renegade master, planet rock, technologic, run dmc

    these songs are SO cool when cue jumping, i feel like the folder i created especially for these kinda tracks is still a bit empty.

  • midijay

    this guy looked pretty good, the video lead to me buying mpd
    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tA1lZjFzgI8

  • CerebralExcretion

    Playlist of some of my fav MPC vids:

    http://www.youtube.com/view_play_list?p=B12E1A2CE43FFDAE

  • http://www.youtube.com/user/djdubadutch Double DutchDj

    What great idea for a post! Here’s one of my favorite button mashers, David fingers Haynes. On this vid he completely dominates an old Alesis? HR-16.
    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oThXwURLLhs
    If your impressed you should check out his other vids, truly amazing!

  • http://www.youtube.com/user/djdubadutch Double DutchDj

    Oh if u wanna laugh check this dude and his truly awesome keyboard erm…. keyboard out! Don’t turn off half way thru, he pulls out some impressive skills towards the end.
    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JcY2r-sUcHg

  • Grizu

    My favorit still is “DJ Shadow, Cut Chemist & Numark – Pushin’ Buttons” from DJ Shadow’s In Tune And In Time DVD.

  • Fyoog

    [quote post="5151"]has anyone got suggestions of tracks that suit the golden style?[/quote]

    Hustler by Simian mobile disco works quite well?

  • Strategy

    My favorites (not all are MPC some are MPD24/32, Roland SP 505 and Roland HPD Handsonic):

    1.) SP 505 – Lil Wayne “Remix”:
    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Wb3KT-_12W0

    2.) MPC – Wicked Multifinger Drumming:
    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iC3OU7mfQj8

    3.) MPD32 – LiveLoopPlay
    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tE7GHgbmlP0

    4.) DiViNCi explain how he played his awesome guitarsolo on an MPC:
    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j42SdmiU0kg

    5.) Live Production On The MPD24
    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tA1lZjFzgI8

    6.)Roland HPD Handsonic + Axiom 25 + Behringer Controller:
    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6i9x4UHCgQg

    Enjoy…

  • midijay

    [quote comment="28116"][quote post="5151"]

    Hustler by Simian mobile disco works quite well?[/quote]

    cool! cheers

  • ridim

    this guy might not be the best… but he does ROCK the party

    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RazNuNZO0eY

  • http://www.myspace.com/maxledaron Max le Daron

    Rio de Janeiro MPC peeps are quite good too:

    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=35XK_9ZyVgE

  • http://www.jinja-ninja.co.uk/mixes Big Al

    That was awesome! More please :)

  • Carmai

    Pushing Buttons – DJ Shadow, Cut Chemist, DJ Numark (2002)

    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IQcyLMa716k

  • Fyoog

    Also..not sure if anyone has tried this yet but the other night we used my mates Vinyl/ MP3 converter to upload a few of his scratch battle packs and now we have these super long MP3′s full of samples which we have added 16 cue points on using his maschine with Traktor and you can just and and remove which ever you like for lots of sample madness!!!!

  • jacknpoy

    [quote comment="28106"]Was wondering if there is anything, what an mpc (2000xl) can do, what the NI Maschine can’t?
    Thanks[/quote]
    as of now i don’t think you can layer sounds on a pad in maschine

  • Akarub

    So, what is MPC exactly is?

  • Star5

    Look at this guy: http://vimeo.com/9509971
    He uses 3 MPCs at the same time!

  • phil france
  • Kybosh

    Exile runs the show
    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q1e-zxgtSLM
    with funky shit

  • http://www.tonsystem-klangkunst.de/blog/554/links-der-woche-01-03-07-03-2010/ Links der Woche 01.03. – 07.03.2010

    [...] MPC Madness – Ean Golden hat ein paar sehr geile MPC-Videos zusammengetragen. Da fehlen mir einfach die Worte! Shiznit! [...]

  • do 4 love

    funky drummer brayk on launchpad @ 2:12!

    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nl_YS2q7IJA

  • http://none Kilown

    Star5 that DiViNCi video – lacks style …. pecking away at beats with a face is not even talented more like a desprite plea for attention , where is the music ???? it was in the first 20 sec , ill tell you that.

    Big ups to araabmuzik – fast fingers and style , sounds good , and i am not even a hip hop / rap fan !

    keep it up djtt

  • DJ Rock Well

    Check out Jel – supposedly he bought his first drum machine with proceeds from a teenage weekend job at a garage, practised like mad and never looked back…
    http://www.youtube.com/watch#!playnext=1&playnext_from=TL&videos=256ulxGsRyg&v=XWsX6X2TaYQ

    This vid has another great bit of David “Fingers” Haynes – his solo part comes in at about 3:00 mins and will blow you away!
    http://www.youtube.com/watch#!playnext=1&playnext_from=TL&videos=e6Q7h_D3_9A&v=cK6ldC07n5o

  • DJ Rock Well

    Sorry, I didn’t post those last two vids as proper links – but they’ll cut and paste into the web address on your browser ok

  • JM

    Daniel Johnston, FTW.

  • http://www.highculturelowclass.com/ HCLC
  • COOLOUT

    I think that Shadow video is about as good as it gets.

  • http://www.paulbono.com Paul “Bono”

    really cool vids thanks ean.

    IF ANYONE WANTS AN AKAI MPC 1000 im selling one on the forums. check it out here: http://www.djtechtools.com/forum/showthread.php?t=11975

  • http://thereverand.com The Reverand

    This is among the craziest things I have ever seen:
    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PuIrGdGls68

  • xbcn
  • Mudo

    Bon Doc “The Classic”

    Big Up!

    ;)

  • http://dronasound.free.fr/ Drona

    Flavor from france :

    http://vimeo.com/4061070

  • http://www.chromatouch.wordpress.com Leon Trimble

    liking the jel stuff and those japanese guys most, davinci’s technically brilliant but not enough groove for me; but i can’t believe no-one posted jeremy ellis yet see here:
    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WQGJTSLdrRc
    and:
    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WQGJTSLdrRc&NR=1
    and even some tutorials:
    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LmDHosdPjns&feature=related

  • Dj Kurt

    Wow! This stuff is amazing! Not my style of music but you have to appreciate it… I swear its like some of these guys took the “pitch fader” on the video and pulled it down. Fast doesn’t begin to describe some of these guys…

  • http://www.jacoblysgaard.com Totem

    great with a little inspiration, but you gotta have some serious lack of hobbies to go to arab music’s level.

    Keep in mind, you can do a lot with just a nanopad. Cheap way to try it out.

  • Damian

    Could we have some VCI-100 (not SE) tutorials? Layout is quite different to VCI-100.

  • http://www.gabivegas.co.il Dj Gabi Vegas

    It’s amazing

  • clj nicko
  • Mudo

    Tooltablism!

    Yeah!

  • gnarkil

    soooooo sickkkkkkkkk

  • Mr.MB

    IM AT WORK AND CANT SEE THE VIDS!! AAAAAAAAA! Im dieing to get home!!!

  • http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p-Z_YjsAIuk Some_Dj

    Madness! this is MPC Madness lol

  • http://www.policja.pl Damek

    arab was zniszczy? palanty jebane hehehe i to ja damek mówie wam

  • http://facebook.com/djmrwhiskers Mr. Whiskers

    Dope. I really dug araab and egadz.

  • http://www.soundcloud.com/elgyeah El Gyeah

    Hey yo

    You got to check Fulgeance from France, he’s really good at MPC rocking :

    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ft0xJVKOirs

  • Chaga
  • Ed Schneeblie

    j depina is still definitely one of my favorites.

  • http://www.myspace.com/themanfromthemountain Grizzly Adams

    here check this out…

    keys and drums on the same buttons

    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1RFWjEL-5Bw

  • http://blog.rebellen.info/2010/03/25/mpc-wahnsinn/ MPC Wahnsinn | Blogrebellen Kreuzberg

    [...] davon bei DJTechtools, einer hervorragenden Seite für Digital DJing, aber das ist eine andere Geschichte und soll ein [...]

  • Anonymous

    [quote comment="28126"]So, what is MPC exactly is?[/quote]

    MPC: music production centre. They are basically a totally awesome sequencing sampler with really wicked drum pads for triggering samples! They have been round for ages and used by dj’s and music producers. MPC’s played a huge role in the hip hop revolution as well as heaps of other electronic music genres.

  • Delo.

    I have been messing with MPC’s for a long time…. yep just cant do that hahaha

  • http://pyrotechniq.org Mark
  • http://92bpm.com mymanhenri

    LEON! You took the words RIGHT from my fingertips. The 1st and only person I was going to mention is JEREMY ELLIS aka AYRO. It doesn’t really get much better than his work. I’ve seen him live a bunch of times and have been in awe always.

    dude is bananas.

  • whoof pack
  • http://www.soundcloud.com/djrobotix ROBotix

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