MPC 2000XL SYNC

I'm tracking out a beat into Ableton from my XL with Ableton being the slave but it has a delay ( starts recording slightly late in Ableton ) it has become a huge headache, I used to do it through my audio inputs and just manually adjust it later but that was annoying as hell and I figured MIDI would be easier... I've adjusted the delay in Abletons preferences but it hasn't made a difference really... Any tips on how to sync it properly on time?

get rid of the mpc and make the whole beat in ableton.

Is the delay just at the start of recording or all the way through?

*Pilchard* wrote:Is the delay just at the start of recording or all the way through?

Just at the beginning

mr_debauch wrote:get rid of the mpc and make the whole beat in ableton.

Not sure if you're trollin... But why in the hell would I do that lol

Cedronius wrote:
Just at the beginning

Add an extra blank bar (or blank sequence ) to the start of your song
This will give ableton and the mpc time to synchronise before the song proper starts.

Incidentally , it's more usual to make your software the master and mpc the slave. It tends to work better that way but do what you feel.

*Pilchard* wrote:

Cedronius wrote:
Just at the beginning

Add an extra blank bar (or blank sequence ) to the start of your song
This will give ableton and the mpc time to synchronise before the song proper starts.

Incidentally , it's more usual to make your software the master and mpc the slave. It tends to work better that way but do what you feel.

I'll give that a try thanks man!

Pilchard is right about the blank bars. When tracking in NUENDO, I always add 2 blank bars at the beginning of the song in the MPC.

However, I do this with the MPC being the master and the PC being the slave and I have to problem at all.

rhythm-x wrote: I do this with the MPC being the master and the PC being the slave and I have to problem at all.

It should work fine.
The main reason I mention it is that if later down the line when you have your mpc stuff layed down in the DAW. You may by that stage not need/want your mpc to be connected to the computer. When playing back or dubbing into the DAW you may want to synchronise other external equipment. Now you wont want to be setting up your mpc at this point just to be a source to synchronise from. Naturally you would synchronise from the clock put out by the DAW.
So if you are still with me......
Why not use the clock from the DAW from the start (mpc as slave) to save messing about at a later stage and doing things the opposite way round.

As I said, mpc as master should work fine for you, especially if you don't have much eqiupment at this stage. But if you are like me, the equipment you use will expand over time. Using accepted techniques from the start could save you minor headaches later on.

Hope that explains...

*Pilchard* wrote:

rhythm-x wrote: I do this with the MPC being the master and the PC being the slave and I have to problem at all.

It should work fine.
The main reason I mention it is that if later down the line when you have your mpc stuff layed down in the DAW. You may by that stage not need/want your mpc to be connected to the computer. When playing back or dubbing into the DAW you may want to synchronise other external equipment. Now you wont want to be setting up your mpc at this point just to be a source to synchronise from. Naturally you would synchronise from the clock put out by the DAW.
So if you are still with me......
Why not use the clock from the DAW from the start (mpc as slave) to save messing about at a later stage and doing things the opposite way round.

As I said, mpc as master should work fine for you, especially if you don't have much eqiupment at this stage. But if you are like me, the equipment you use will expand over time. Using accepted techniques from the start could save you minor headaches later on.

Hope that explains...

Pilchard u da man! Ableton as the master is a lot better IMO because of what u just said... Just sucks I have to manually line everything back up after but..meh... I love my XL but tracking out beats is such a god damn turnoff.. Almost makes me wanna start messin with maschine..

Cedronius wrote: Just sucks I have to manually line everything back up after

I'm not really computer minded (strictly hardware) so I may be wrong but, with the mpc synced, adding a couple of bars to the mpc should correspond to a couple of bars in the DAW. Therefore can you not just cut off the first couple of bars in the DAW to line up?

I'm actually asking because I don't actually know and would like to learn.( tbh. I'm far too old to get my head around software but a little knowledge could be good).

*Pilchard* wrote:

rhythm-x wrote: I do this with the MPC being the master and the PC being the slave and I have to problem at all.

It should work fine.
The main reason I mention it is that if later down the line when you have your mpc stuff layed down in the DAW. You may by that stage not need/want your mpc to be connected to the computer. When playing back or dubbing into the DAW you may want to synchronise other external equipment. Now you wont want to be setting up your mpc at this point just to be a source to synchronise from. Naturally you would synchronise from the clock put out by the DAW.
So if you are still with me......
Why not use the clock from the DAW from the start (mpc as slave) to save messing about at a later stage and doing things the opposite way round.

As I said, mpc as master should work fine for you, especially if you don't have much eqiupment at this stage. But if you are like me, the equipment you use will expand over time. Using accepted techniques from the start could save you minor headaches later on.

Hope that explains...

Using the DAW as master clock actually causes more problems than it solves in many cases. When I got back into using my 2k, I noticed that the DAW's master clock would cause timing issues with the swing, playing everything straight regardless of how much swing I'd applied. Switching over to the MPC as master sorted it, so now I use MPC as master & just add the necessary 2 blank bars before the start of the song.

Cedronius wrote:I'm tracking out a beat into Ableton from my XL with Ableton being the slave but it has a delay ( starts recording slightly late in Ableton ) it has become a huge headache, I used to do it through my audio inputs and just manually adjust it later but that was annoying as hell and I figured MIDI would be easier... I've adjusted the delay in Abletons preferences but it hasn't made a difference really... Any tips on how to sync it properly on time?

Hey, back in the original first versions of Ableton, it used to do this, and for some reason they never fixed it.

Soon as you pressed play or record on Ableton it sounded like the MPC was on catchup!... My version would catch up after 2 secs or so, but always sounded off in the starting.

Does your do this? if not .. then it just needs off setting in the MPC itsself.. by the way are you using, MTC or Midi Clock mode?