On the MPC, MIDI and the Pads are inextricably linked. Each pad is linked to a MIDI note, and when using a plugin instrument with a chromatic input, the pads will all light up across all the banks. 

However, Pad perform settings are not always linked to those MIDI notes- Pad banks for drum programs consist of the individual samples, loops and effects applied to the pads, and as such it's easy to know when you've just run out of sounds mapped to that bank- the pads have no light under them, so there's no sound to the note.

Plugin programs run the spectrum of being able to play every note available in MIDI. Every note that runs through a plugin instrument is a pitched sound that can be played on the MPC across it's pad banks; but some users may find that some pad banks are unavailable, much like when they run out of samples within a drum program. In this article, we'll address what's going on, and how to fix it.

First off, this is normal behavior. MIDI is made up of 128 notes that make up the range of human hearing(0-127), and while a plugin itself will attempt to use every note on these across the pads(16 padsx8 banks), there are factors that will limit what pads across the banks are functional. 


In these cases, since a note or chord cannot exist or sound to a human ear, they will not be available, and since it's a plugin program, other sounds can't be assigned to those pad banks.

For example, if the MPC is set to chords being played across the pads instead of individual notes, then the amount of range it has is limited (because obviously you can't play a chord based off note 126 and have notes above it to make a chord. That's a hard limit.)

Similarly, your access to notes is going to be limited by the other pad parameters- even if you have individual notes on each pad, if the pads are setup to play diatonic notes within a scale, then each octave only has 7 notes per scale instead of all 12. Doubly so if the pads are setup for a different key, which will start the notes on the pads higher(for example, A0 being a higher note than C0, and thus cutting the top off by 8 notes)

Finally, at default the pad perform sets the MPC's starting octave at C0, while MIDI actually starts at C-2, which takes off about 24 notes from the pads, or an entire bank.

All of these parameters are setup inside the MPC Pad Perform once the actual plugin is selected. This can be found on the right side of the plugin track.

To test and see every note within MIDI, lets jump into Pad Perform.

Set the note to C, drop 2 octaves by the touch parameter on screen and making sure the pads are set to chromatic in the top right. Once setup in this fashion, you should then pop back out into main mode and see all pad banks are available; though it may not be useful to have the pads setup this way for music making.

For more information on the pad perform and the parameters inside it, please review your user guide and the video below: