17
001 Audio Connections
Knowing how to hook up your MPC for sound is perhaps the most vital step for
beginners – in this tutorial we look at the major options available to you.
Outgoing Audio Connections
In order to sample and play back sounds on your MPC, you'll first need to hook up
the audio outs to your sound system. You may already have a small home studio
with a mixer and amplifier/speaker system already set up - or perhaps you just have
a home stereo system. It's not too important at this stage how advanced or basic
your set up is, just so long as it allows you to hear your MPC in all it's glory.
I. Connecting to a hi fi system
Whether you have a single unit system or a set of hi fi separates, you'll need to
locate the 'AUXILLARY' input - typically, this is called 'AUX' and on most sound
systems will consist of a set of white and red RCA female connectors located at the
back of the amplifier. This is the best place to connect the audio outputs of your
MPC.
Unfortunately your MPC does not feature RCA sockets.
RCA connectors are the standard connectors used in
domestic audio and video systems, while your MPC
features 1/4 inch jack sockets - these jacks are more
typically found on semipro and pro audio equipment. The solution is to
buy an RCA - 1/4 inch jack lead (which features two RCA connectors at one end and
two ¼ inch jack connectors at the other), or buy two RCA-1/4 inch jack conversion
connectors, which look like the picture to the right.
Remember, you need two connectors as your MPC outputs sound in stereo. Your MPC
actually has several outputs – the two stereo outs (STEREO OUTS), the 4 individual
(mono) outputs (ASSIGNABLE MIX OUTS) and a digital (stereo) output (DIGITAL
OUT). We will look at all the outputs later, but initially we’ll look at what we would
consider the ‘main’ outputs of your MPC – the STEREO OUTS. These are two unique
outputs that carry separately carry the left and right hand output signals of your MPC
and are the default outputs that are used.
What does stereo and mono mean?
A mono signal is simply a single channel of audio, with no panning information. A
stereo signal is actual comprised of 2 mono signals, one panned hard left, the other
panned hard right – this is the signal you will hear when playing a record or CD and
by using two channels, we can play with the panning of sounds so that they appear
louder on one side compared to another – for example, in a drum loop, you may
notice the hi hats are louder on the left hand side – we say the hi hats are panned
more to the left in the stereo signal. We’ll look at this in more detail later in the
book.
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