I'm starting a little collection of using the MPC in live situations.

Track Mute `Notes`:

If you are like me you may spend a lot of your time in the Track Mute screen. With hours of material and countless hours of practicing, you still may have some tasks to perform on some outboard equipment that you cannot or do not want to automate in the MPC (like playing a few keys or changing programs on outboard equipment). Something I do to help me remember what to do is to make notes in the MPC using the Track names. I'll leave a few unused tracks in each Track Mute screen and just name the tracks with a note. For example, if I need to change a patch on an outboard piece of gear, I'll just name a blank track `Q-PC-16`, signifying that I need to change the Q to patch 16 for that sequence or `Pro-EC5` to remind to play notes E5 and C5 on a particular piece of gear. Now that `note` is visible on the Track Mute screen. I try to cram it in 8 characters since that is all that is visible in the Track Mute screen, but you can see a longer names on the track from the Main Screen.

Sending Progreram Changes:

There's a few things I do to make sure the MPC changes kits. Setup an empty track assigned to the proper DRUM(x). Set the Prg: field for the program change number for the kit you want to use (each kit should have a unique program change number and is described in the manual). Turn this track ON. This is important since the track needs to be ON for the MPC to send a program change. This way I can just turn off all other tracks except the ones that have the program changes and just leave the sequencer running. When I finish one sequence, I can change to the next with the sequencer running and the programs get changed. This works for sending program changes to the outboard midi modules/keyboards also.

This is a simple method, but I actually get little more complex with the sequences and programs changes, since for the style of music that I play there really can be no `dead space`. Sometimes I put intermediary sequences between 2 sequences that is a hybrid of the two adjacent sequences. Basically the tail end of one song and the intro of new song. This allows be to send program changes for some equipment spread across two sequences. That way I do not have to completely kill one song to start another (kind of reminds me of DJ'ing)