Intro
There are 4 different pad modes, accessed by the Pad Bank buttons A-D. Here’s a summary of all the modes and a full description follows below.
Pad Modes Summary
A - Session View
In this mode, the MPC Studio Mk2 functions similar to a Launchpad, where each pad represents a clip in the Session view of Ableton Live. If there is no clip in the corresponding slot, the pad light is off. Otherwise, it matches the colour of the clip. Playing or queued up clips blink with a green colour. Clips about to start recording blink yellow and then pulse red while recording.
You can navigate around your session in two ways:
- Using the +/- and Sample Start/Sample End buttons (next to the Jog Wheel) will move the selection window around. You can hold the Zoom button and to move the session ring in bigger increments.
- Holding the Zoom button also shows an overview of your entire session, and you can use the pads to select a 4x4 block to view.
Holding SHIFT allows you to launch scenes by using the rightmost column of pads.
The bottom left buttons can be used to perform operations on clips. You need to hold a button and then select a target clip using pads.
- Full Level: Create a new empty clip with a default length of 2 bars.
- Copy: Create a copy of a clip, paste it directly below. This will overwrite any existing clips!
- Pad Mute: Duplicate a clip length. This will also duplicate the notes in the clip.
- 16 Level: Select a clip without playing it.
- Erase: Delete a clip.
You can enable Fixed Length Recording by pressing the Note Repeat button - it glow up more and the note division lights will show up. You can now select the clip length by using the touch strip - the denominator of each note is the number of beats to record. Triplets do not matter, so the available lengths are 4, 8, 16 and 32 (or 1, 2, 4, 8 bars when in 4/4). Fixed Length Recording stays on (or off) when you switch Pad Modes - so you can still trigger Fixed Length clips from Notes or Mixed using SHIFT.
B - Notes
In this mode you can enter trigger notes in the currently armed MIDI tracks. The mode will automatically recognize the type of track and display a drumkit or a piano layout.
In drumkit mode, only the pads that have samples assigned will be lit up. The currently selected pad is marked and pads will present a visual feedback when pressed.
In piano mode there are two display options. The first, default one, is chromatic notes going right to left, bottom to top. Yellow pads indicate white keys and blue pads indicate black keys, i.e.:
| C | C# | D | D# |
|---|---|---|---|
| G# | A | A# | B |
| E | F | F# | G |
| C | C# | D | D# |
The second one is more similar to how a launchpad would display notes, split in half. Yellow and blue pads still indicate white and black keys:
| F# | G# | A# | |
|---|---|---|---|
| G | A | B | C |
| C# | D# | ||
| C | D | E | F |
The options can be toggled using the Erase key.
Holding SHIFT displays a Session Overview (like mode A) so you can quickly launch clips or start/stop recording.
The Full Level/Copy buttons can be used to switch drumkit banks or piano octaves up and down. In drumkit mode you can also hold the bottom 3 buttons and select a pad to access extra operations:
- Pad mute: mutes a pad
- 16 level: solos a pad
- Erase: deletes a sample from a pad
This mode can also use the Note Repeat button to keep entering the selected note, synchronized with the tempo. Hold down the Note Repeat button, the pad you want to trigger and use the Touch Strip to select the repeat interval.
C - Mixer
In this mode each column is a track, and each row is:
- Select a track
- Toggle track mute
- Toggle track solo
- Toggle track record arm
There is visual feedback for each operation, and it is always synchronized with the software. The range of tracks works just like in mode A, and can be moved around the same way (+/- and Sample Start/Sample End or Zoom).
Holding SHIFT displays a Session Overview (like mode A) so you can quickly launch clips or start/stop recording.
The buttons below the pad banks allow controlling the track routing and monitoring options:
- Full Level and Copy toggle the values in the Audio/MIDI From combo boxes. You can use them to toggle the input device and channel or track.
- Pad Mude and 16 Level toggle the values in the Audio/MIDI To combo boxes. You can use them to toggle the output device and channel or track.
- Erase toggles between the available monitoring options (In/Auto/Off)
D - Clip stop
This mode is momentary, i.e. it is only active as long as you hold the Pad bank D button. It allows you to use the bottom row of pads to stop any clips playing in that track.
Shift and the lower left buttons are not used in this mode.