Exchange tips and tricks for the Akai MPC4000
By foge1 Sun Apr 13, 2008 10:59 pm
I have moved onto the sysex for sample editing and am struggling to find the right way to format the qword commands on my edirol.

in the manual it says qword is b1 b2 b3 b4 b5 b6 b7 b8
and that this coresponds to 0-72, 057, 594, 037, 927, 935

I can't find an explanation of this in the manual of how the b1 coresponds to the numbers 0-72 etc.

So i have tried simply guess that
if I enter this F0 47 5F 00 1E 20 00 00 00 00 DT 00 00 00 F7 for
hoping that that data will allow me to vary a medium sized number.
As u can see I have no idea what I am doing as this comically sends a value of 63thousand!

I was guessing tha qword mean't send 8 bytes of data and hoping if I wacked the data part in it would vary either the hundreds, thousands, millions etc of the sample parameters such as start.

I have obviously guessed wrong.

How do you use a qword command to allow a knob to vary the amount sent eg vary sample start, and whats the relationship between the b1 b2 b3 b4 b5 b6 b7 b8 and 0-72, 057, 594, 037, 927, 935 to the numbers I see on the sample screen?

just when it all makes sense I get stuck on the next bit.
Any help appreciated, this thread is doing amazing things to my 4k gonna have to buy a spare now as this is soo freakin hot!

g
By foge1 Sun Apr 13, 2008 11:41 pm
"Sysex CAN be recorded on the MPC, thats one of the reasons why this thread is important. You should be able to just hit record like you would for any other incoming MIDI device. The easiest way to test to make sure it is working is to go into step sequence record and see if the commands show up. To play the commands back properly you have to set that track to output on an INT channel."

Using just midi in a
when recording I can get it to work if I set the midi 1 in to sequencer rather than sampler but then I can't hear the recorded changes until I play it back afterwards. So I can't hear what I am doing as I am doing it.

Simple solution I am using a midi splitter box, to input same signal to input a and b with one set to sampler and one set to seq.
is that how u are doing it?
This is freaking incredible.
g
User avatar
By McSmooth Mon Apr 14, 2008 5:47 pm
foge1 wrote:I have moved onto the sysex for sample editing and am struggling to find the right way to format the qword commands on my edirol.

in the manual it says qword is b1 b2 b3 b4 b5 b6 b7 b8
and that this coresponds to 0-72, 057, 594, 037, 927, 935

I can't find an explanation of this in the manual of how the b1 coresponds to the numbers 0-72 etc.

So i have tried simply guess that
if I enter this F0 47 5F 00 1E 20 00 00 00 00 DT 00 00 00 F7 for
hoping that that data will allow me to vary a medium sized number.
As u can see I have no idea what I am doing as this comically sends a value of 63thousand!

I was guessing tha qword mean't send 8 bytes of data and hoping if I wacked the data part in it would vary either the hundreds, thousands, millions etc of the sample parameters such as start.

I have obviously guessed wrong.

How do you use a qword command to allow a knob to vary the amount sent eg vary sample start, and whats the relationship between the b1 b2 b3 b4 b5 b6 b7 b8 and 0-72, 057, 594, 037, 927, 935 to the numbers I see on the sample screen?

QWORD is 8 bytes, starting with LSB going to MSB at the end. This allows for a huge number(72057594037927936). You would change b1 for tiny changes (0-127), and b2 for small but noticable changes (128-16384), then so on for larger numbers. If you don't know how to do the math, you can use MIDI software to retrieve the current value from the sampler. That should help give you a better idea for the proper values.

foge1 wrote:Using just midi in a
when recording I can get it to work if I set the midi 1 in to sequencer rather than sampler but then I can't hear the recorded changes until I play it back afterwards. So I can't hear what I am doing as I am doing it.

Simple solution I am using a midi splitter box, to input same signal to input a and b with one set to sampler and one set to seq.
is that how u are doing it?

Yeah, that is annoying, so you have to send it to sequencer to record AND sampler to hear changes. The B3X has 2 MIDI outs, so I just send one to each. This is also helpfull so I can send MIDI notes and CCs to the sequencer as well.
By foge1 Mon Apr 21, 2008 12:17 pm
Thanks for that mcsmooth got it working this weekend.
I have also started creating a logic environment as I use the mpc4k alongside logic pro, with all of the sysex stuff in, it feels like having aksys as an environment layer in logic which is cool.

This is making me think I may move away from drum programs as this make controlling keymap programs so easy. Also I like doing sample editing now in the sample root page, its cool for quickly messing around with start and loop points of different samples. Wish the sample edit parameters worked as offsets rather than absolute values, as I have three sliders for each.
for ex sample start fine, medium and really big numbers.
wish they we offsets though.
thanks for your help keep us posted if you have any new sysex thoughts
g
By djredhead Tue Apr 22, 2008 4:20 am
A posting of an example Logic environment for the sysex options of the 4k would be most excellent. ;)
By foge1 Tue Apr 22, 2008 8:26 pm
Yep.
give me a couple of weeks to put it into a format that would make sense as I am still entering in the parameters. Got most of the keygroup parameters in there and working. Adding the sample ones currently.
I am thinking it will be best to have screens for different uses, so different environment layers. WHich can be called up as screen sets. For example one for samples one for keygroup editing.

I also need to label it up so it would make sense to another person. But u can pretty much put the whole of aksys onto an environmetn layer in logic as I believe I am correct in saying aksys is simply the 4ks sysex over usb.
It also provides an easy way to select keygroups via sysex to then use real time controllers to control the parameters such as tune, attack,decay,cutoff etc.
Its been tricky but the time saving in the long run is worth it for me.
g
By foge1 Mon Aug 25, 2008 9:06 pm
Had a bit of spare time over the last few days to look at this again.
Been playing with logics environment.
heres a picture
http://i489.photobucket.com/albums/rr26 ... onment.jpg

kinda a budget aksys in logic.
Allows editing per pad, or whole program,

whats really cool is that any pad that is hit the sample start point can be changed no menus, hit a pad move the slider to adjust sample start.

Pads are for pad/keymap selection necessary for changing parameters in the synth section.
strangely the sample start etc work by last hit and the synth has to be told which pad to edit.
its all kind of cool.
this and a touch screen!
got the same thing programed on my keyboard sliders too.
will try and shoot a vid at some point showing it working.
geoff
User avatar
By konc3pt Thu May 21, 2009 1:41 pm
Lord Toranaga wrote:care to share your environment?



Lord Toranaga wrote:1) hook it up to your computer

2)run ak.sys

3)control ak.sys with your touchscreen monitor.


simple as that.

not too bright are you?
By chopchop Tue Oct 05, 2010 4:02 pm
hi foge1 this is what i am trying to do, control my mpc 1000 via sysex commands connected to my computer. i have bome's midi translator which can send sysex strings to my mpc 1000 but i do not know any of the commands to send as i can not find any sysex list that the mpc 1000 can receive. do you have a list of these commands that you would be willing to share? thanks
User avatar
By JUKE 179r Sat Dec 01, 2012 2:52 am
I saved McSmooth's website as a favorite years ago:

SysEx Tutorial for the MPC4000 / Z4/ Z8
By Clint Sat Dec 01, 2012 1:38 pm
Thanks Juke, never saw that in the first place.

I'd love to get a midi controller box with faders and knobs to try some of this, one day...