Best method of planning MPCs. What the best do.

[music_maker_1010123]

I'm wondering what methods the best MPC users use when creating original MPC compositions.

On YouTube, I often see Mario Paint Composer music videos with the tempo changing regularly from high to low, echos, and the piece flows very nicely throughout. They are usually made up of long, high tempo songs, with large gaps between different notes, and sometimes many notes right next to each other, e.g. to give notes a sliding effect.

Imagination isn't the issue here. As you probably know, the program allows only a portion of a song to be visible at one time, so it's hard to keep track of what I'm doing (I'm forced to scroll left and right). I often can't put original melodies of mine into the program. When I try, some parts are almost always really quick, and so I need to make a separate song with a different tempo partway, which is really difficult when keeping track of the main melody and/or beat of the song while trying to make the piece flow well.

Do the best MPC users usually use programs other than MPC? Lately I've been thinking of buying a MIDI controller to use with a music composition program like Sibelius. I plan on improvising on the keyboard as I usually do on a piano, then arranging, editing, and adding parts later on. Once finished I'll put everything on MPC. If the keyboard doesn't have drum pads, I'll buy a small drum kit mat with a USB port to use on my computer (I love drumming) to create beats while listening to what I played on the keyboard earlier. Also, a USB audio recorder would probably be very useful, particularly for inventing original melodies.

Any other information on the topic of creating MPC compositions would be much appreciated.

[wingeddragonra75]

Nope. We use nothing but MPC for songs. Although others use soundfonts to change how the notes sound. Sometimes, people use other programs besides MPC for putting songs on, but then technically its not MPC Me however, I just use MPC with the original soundfont. You will just have to put lots of thinking. When doing fast parts, speed up the tempo. When putting more parts in one section on, speed up the tempo so you have notes next to each other. Just keep experimenting with it. You'll get someplace on a song sometime soon

[Mr. Sub]

Some composers transcribe their work into a scoring programme like Sibelius and then recreate it in MPC. Particulary with original compositions it helps to get a solid idea of exactly how each part of the piece goes, to then be able to make a more precise rendition in MPC.

[RehdBlob]

Whenever I do original compositions on MPC, I stick with MPC. I sometimes use Cakewalk Pro Audio 9 outside of MPC, but I haven't mixed songs that I made on each yet.
Basically, I usually have a pretty good idea of where everything's going to go in my MPC, and then I just do it. If I don't, I experiment on MPC until I have a good 'sound' and then go ahead from there.

[Rusty]

I would try to make sure each beat lines up with a numbered line in the program, because that way it will make working tempos a lot easier.

for 300 - 999 ish, the beats will generally fall on each numbered line, and each measure starts every 4 lines (1, 5, 9, 13, etc)

for most tempos in the 1000's, the beats will fall every 2 lines (1, 3, 5, 7, etc) and new measures will fall every 8 (1, 9, 17, 25, etc)

most of the high tempo songs you've seen probably fall in the 2000's to low 3000's, which each beat falls every 4 lines (1, 5, 9, 13, etc) and each new measure starts every 16 (1, 17, 33, 49, etc).