Adding Depth to Beats on an Akai MPC Drum Machine

Series Summary

DJs, or disc jockeys, play prerecorded music for an audience at a party, club or on the radio. There are different types of DJs including turntable DJs and radio DJs. Turntable specialists use actual records or discs, while radio DJs use music files, CDs or jingles. Turntable disc jockeys use different techniques to often manipulate the sound of the record including mixing, phrasing, cutting, scratching and beat-matching. Radio DJs are known for their personalities and often host radio programs that feature the music they play on the radio. The first DJ to play music on the radio was Reginald Fessenden who played Christmas music over the radio from Brant Rock, Massachusetts.

Are you an aspiring disc jockey? Do you need tips on mixing and turntables? Watch these informative videos and learn how to DJ from an expert! Learn from expert disc jockey DJ Brasby how to use the MPC button functions, editing, muting sounds, copy and variations, programming the MPC pads, sampling sound, saving beats, setting up a sequence, setting up cables, and adding depth to a beat.

Video Transcript

" This is D. J. Brasby here for Expert Village. We are going to go over making beats with the MPC and we have a simple high head snare going, say 90 beats. We are going to spruce it up a little and make it into more of a beat. We are going to use this piano here. We have a vocal sample here, note of and we have a little breath sound and that’s a piano roll. So we hit record play start and we are going to lay in this. On the top we are going to lay in that piano head track plus, lay in piano roll, hit track plus again and the breath in, hit the top and the middle still needs a little something so we will add this vocal sample into the middle. There is no kick yet, hit track plus again that is F6 and there is our kick; we will just add in a simple kick right now. You can play covered up, now it is three chords. Now we have a simple beat. "