I'm not sure if this is the right procedure to request a new class but do you have any plans for a class on Akai MPC Beats DAW? If you don't know it, MPC system (hardware and software) has been around for ages but now Akai have made the DAW software only, available for free. It would be really useful to have a class on how to use it with a generic MIDI controller (or just the PC keyboard and mouse) to create beats. I'm just going through the MPC Software Explained and Explored course by Booker Edwards which is excellent but it's almost five years old and is designed for users of MPC hardware. If you could tempt Booker to do a new course with the latest release of MPC Beats, that would be great and I'm sure very popular.

Thanks Joe. Sorry, should have thought to check if there was a separate forum for new classes!

Hi All I've created a song with seven steps of 8 or 16 bars each and it plays and exports to audio perfectly. Now I'm trying to create a single sequence so i can export each individual track into Pro Tools so I can mix it better but the sequence it creates is corrupted and doesn't play properly. It seems to have mixed up the different tracks and programs and it's a mess. Is this a known problem or is there a limitation I'm running into? Or is it user error? I'm using MPC Beats v2.8.3 (64 bit) on Windows 10 Home with Scarlett Solo audio interface. Thanks Steve

Hi Joe Actually, I'm planning to export the rendered audio for each track not the MIDI. But the problem is before I get to that point. Because MPC Beats is designed as a series of sequences (verse/bridge/chorus etc), it should be possible to join them up into one complete sequence for the whole song, (like you would get in a traditional DAW) within the app before exporting each track. That's what I'm trying to do and where the app seems to have a bug, unless I'm doing something wrong. If this still isn't clear just let me know and I'll post a video of what I'm trying to do in the app. Thanks Steve

Hi Joe Yes, I'm following the details in the class (although it was Booker's class MPC Software 101 course, not Alex's - I accidently linked to the wrong class on this post, sorry) Anyway, I've worked around the problem by exporting each track from each individual sequence as a separate audio file and then reassembling them in ProTools. It was a bit of a pain having to do it seven times but worked fine in the end: https://soundcloud.com/user-522587607/cee-0-vee-1-dee/s-aklk6lnlgks By the way, how did you manage to paste a screen image to your post? I tried to do a screen shot from MPC Beats but this forum website wouldn't allow me to paste the image file (PNG). Is there a particular file format that you used? Cheers Steve

Hi All/Joe Another area I'd really like to get better at is creating better guitar/bass tracks using MIDI and a suitable virtual instrument. I'm not a guitarist so (in the short term anyway) I'm not going to invest in a guitar/bass, learn to play and then record an audio track. So I'm constrained to using a MDI controller or computer keyboard and whatever VI's I can get my hands on. I've tried using Xpand!2 in Pro Tools First but it just sounds like a harpsicord, as there is no option to add the all important articulations that make it sound like a guitar. I've also tried the excellent AmpleSound Guitar Martin VI which sounds excellent but then I'm limited to one guitar sound unless I buy a number of their VI's which is too expensive. I'm sure there are some 'tricks' to creating slides, pulls, mutes etc using standard MIDI commands which would give me a more realistic sound but also the flexibility to use different guitar VI's and/or virtual amps like Amplitube? If I can get 95% close to the sound of a sample based VI like AmpleSound I'd be very happy. Any immediate thoughts? Or is this big enough to justify a generic training class that could be used in any DAW? Cheer Steve

Hi Joe Just to finish this thread off, I wanted to update you that I found an excellent guitar VI (RealStrat by MusicLab https://www.musiclab.com) that has all the articulations, sound library and chord generator that I was looking for. It's available on VST/AU/AAX and although it's not cheap ($140) they offer a free two week trial that was long enough to convince me it was good value for money. If you have a moment check this video out that gives a fun overview of the articulations in the VI: https://youtu.be/ydkhg9Y7jvk Cheers Steve p.s. I think it was one of your colleagues who did an article recently about guitar VI's that made me aware of MusicLab. Thanks to them!

You are quite right Joe but as a songwriter/arranger/engineer I'm not concerned with ease of live performance but with being able to construct a realistic guitar part in my DAW, even if that means hand crafting every note, articulation and automation. In my opinion that is the strength of the MusicLab products, as they are not the most intuitive of GUI's and take some time and effort to learn. By the way, the manual, online tutorials and support are all excellent. Thanks again for you advice and guidance on this subject Cheers Steve

This is a great guitar VI with a multitude of options and configurations to explore to mimic real guitar sound and articulations. Well worth a lesson or two. Plus, as it's of limited use without an amp sim, MusicLab bundle it with Amplitube 5 CS, the free version of their product. I notice the only Amplitube training course on the site is v3 and looking quite dated now, so dare I suggest it's time for a new version? There's a world of guitar-related stuff you can do with these products in a suitable DAW so I'd think it would be a compelling course Cheers Steve

If there's no plans at the moment, I'd suggest Waveform is due an updated course. The latest version is 11.5.9 and as a free alternative to the mainstream DAW's it's well worth checking out. Any news Joe?