by Primeloops

Get to grips with Chopshop 2.0 on your MPC

The all new MPC 5000 has arrived, and yes, it’s bigger and badder than ever! One of the new features everyone is raving about is the newly added Chopshop 2.0 feature. While we are on the subject its worth mentioning that all our MPC samples & loops are now pre-sliced in .wav MPC Chopshop 2.0 format…. So you can automatically load each individual element of the sample onto your MPC pads for total control!! So, let’s continue….

OVERVIEW

Essentially ‘Chopshop’ files are similar to REX2 Files. If you haven’t heard of REX2 Loops & REX2 Files, they were originally produced by the Swedish company ‘Proppellerhead’ for use with their ‘Reason’ Software. Chopshop .wav files work on the same concept as REX2 Files, for example, a .wav drum loop could be chopped in your MPC, or sliced so that each part (or region) of the loop is a separate slice, e.g. the Hi-Hats, Snares, Bass Kicks and so on, would be sliced at the start and end of each individual sound.
This means you could speed up the overall tempo of your track, and the sliced loop would sync along because your music host/programme now has detailed info on each part/slice of the drum loop, and therefore only needs to play the relevant length of each region.

When speeding up our your track containing your chopped drum loop you will not lose any quality whatsoever! This is because you MPC5000 is now playing smaller and smaller chunks of each slice/chop the more you speed up the track….if you slow down a sliced loop to far though you may loose some quality, due to time-stretching, or it may sound a bit jolty….

USING CHOPSHOP 2.0 - Basics

OK… so if you want to use the chopshop feature on the MPC 5000 to slice up a .wav file, here are some basic instructions on how to use Chopshop.

1. Import your sample (For the sake of demonstration we have imported a drum loop)
2. Select the sample you have imported
3. Once the sample is up on your screen select ‘Chop’
4. You can either select ‘Auto’ Mode, which automatically chops the file for you, or you can do it manually (more advanced) in this tutorial we are going to use ‘Auto’ Mode.
5. Also on your screen, you will see some other options ‘Recovery Time’ which we will leave at 50. Threshold determines to what amount you will be affecting the loop, I would also leave this at 50, and the ‘Sensitivity’ determines how sensitive Chopshop will be to finding each slice, for example, if you have it on 0, Chopshop will not slice anything, the higher you put it the more samples it will chop. We have left the ‘Sensitivity’ at 50 also. The best way to learn these settings is simply to play around with them with a variety of samples. Each sound/sample is different, and will need different amounts of each setting. You will get better as you practice, and they are very easy to use!
6. Once you are happy with your settings select ‘Do It’
7. The Chopshop feature has now chopped up your drum loop into different regions (slices) and you now have control over each individual part of the drum loop.
8. You can now choose the start and end points of each Region by highlighting any specific region if you want to do so.
9. Now you want to create a new program to map the regions across your MPC pads, you can do this by selecting the ‘Convert’ Button, and then selecting ‘Sliced Samples.’ And then by selecting ‘Yes’ in the ‘Create new program section.’ Once you have don’t this select ‘Do It.’

Now go back to the main screen, and Chopshop has converted your sample onto your pads on your MPC…genius!

Have fun!

All our Loops & Samples are pre-chopped into MPC Chopshop format and ready to go, no messing around!