MPC X, MPC Live, MPC One & MPC Key 61 Forum: Support and discussion for the MPC X, MPC Live, MPC Live II, MPC One & MPC Key 61; Akai's current generation of standalone MPCs.
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By richie Thu Aug 17, 2017 2:13 pm
Danoc wrote:Well thats the thing l don't wanna do is record out analog into a DAW. My2000XL use to mess up on midi in PT after the 4th bar.
I don't plan on recording out. EXPORT/BOUNCE all day baby!


That's just the "thing" man. The point I believe I tried to make in the post is that the clock on the Live is not accurate. The issue you spoke of with your XL is the same thing we are talking about with the Live. Although at least with the XL, it was found that the timing became a bit tighter when running sequences in song mode. Still, it was not as accurate as the 60/3000/4000.

The example I made about recording with the analog out and getting phasing would hold true if you used digital out or even if you used the MPC as a midi sequencer for external hardware. It was not meant to be taken literally that this issue is only applicable to those who record their analog outs. :Sigh:

Export and bounce on the Live would be internal so it would be very curious to see if the internal export has varied clock timing or not.
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By Danoc Thu Aug 17, 2017 3:36 pm
richie wrote:
Danoc wrote:Well thats the thing l don't wanna do is record out analog into a DAW. My2000XL use to mess up on midi in PT after the 4th bar.
I don't plan on recording out. EXPORT/BOUNCE all day baby!


That's just the "thing" man. The point I believe I tried to make in the post is that the clock on the Live is not accurate. The issue you spoke of with your XL is the same thing we are talking about with the Live. Although at least with the XL, it was found that the timing became a bit tighter when running sequences in song mode. Still, it was not as accurate as the 60/3000/4000.

The example I made about recording with the analog out and getting phasing would hold true if you used digital out or even if you used the MPC as a midi sequencer for external hardware. It was not meant to be taken literally that this issue is only applicable to those who record their analog outs. :Sigh:

Export and bounce on the Live would be internal so it would be very curious to see if the internal export has varied clock timing or not.


Well I use the Export/Bounce technique and it's on point. Hey did you update with the firmware? I'm about to do it tonight when I get home. Maybe that might solve your midi clock issues. I wonder how many others are having this problem with the midi.
By Cockdiesel Thu Aug 17, 2017 3:44 pm
I'm assuming he did the update, if he went through all that trouble. I asked earlier if it was something a firmware update could fix or if it's tied to the hardware. I'm not real good with the internal computer stuff but I would also be interested if the sam issue occurs I the 2.0 software, even if the bounced track is clean.
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By Danoc Thu Aug 17, 2017 4:04 pm
Cockdiesel wrote:I'm assuming he did the update, if he went through all that trouble. I asked earlier if it was something a firmware update could fix or if it's tied to the hardware. I'm not real good with the internal computer stuff but I would also be interested if the sam issue occurs I the 2.0 software, even if the bounced track is clean.


Hey that's where I bounce from primarily, from the 2.0 software, and I drag and drop my four bar loops into Reason or Studio One and I have absolutely no problems. But when you bounce out in the 2.0 software, its called "Explode" and it works fine. That's one of the reasons I bought the live for its technology to do that, couldn't do that with the 2000XL lol Now with that the midi would go off in certain programs when connected. I couldn't stand that, so when Reason had the exporting and bouncing out I loved that and left that world of Midi sinking. That got on my nerves!
By Cockdiesel Thu Aug 17, 2017 7:00 pm
Then what Richie is talking about would still effect you. If it bounces out tracks with loose timing. Might be not be noticable all the time either maybe just under certain circumstances.

I'm wondering if it's just the hard ware, or if it's everything software included. This will be addressed somehow, I seen on the akai forum an employee was going to test himself.
For all we know the guy got a buggy one and we are all good. We won't know until further testing is done.
By analoguebubblebath Thu Aug 17, 2017 9:27 pm
Yeah that was me who wrote the original post on the Akai forums which the employee just responded saying he was going to test this out himself. Eagerly awaiting his test results.

Lets hope my unit is just unreasonably buggy for some reason and that others do not experience the same 12ms Jitter issue!
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By Danoc Fri Aug 18, 2017 4:31 am
When l bounce out the 2.0 there's no loose timing at all. Every track is hitting on time and all l have to do is look at the grid and my audio wav file is on point. If it wasn't you would of heard me beafin. I am straight up enjoying the technology.
So l really can't confirm a loose midi whatever.

Cockdiesel wrote:Then what Richie is talking about would still effect you. If it bounces out tracks with loose timing. Might be not be noticable all the time either maybe just under certain circumstances.

I'm wondering if it's just the hard ware, or if it's everything software included. This will be addressed somehow, I seen on the akai forum an employee was going to test himself.
For all we know the guy got a buggy one and we are all good. We won't know until further testing is done.
By Cockdiesel Fri Aug 18, 2017 5:37 am
I hear ya. I have no complaints either in fact, this thing just knocks out beats. Shocked to hear this thing might not look so good under a microscope, but whatever. I really enjoy its work flow.
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By Danoc Fri Aug 18, 2017 3:16 pm
Yes sir. If the OP is talking about the timing of the squencer being out place that might means he has ti set up the timing "TC" on the MPC live.

Cockdiesel wrote:I hear ya. I have no complaints either in fact, this thing just knocks out beats. Shocked to hear this thing might not look so good under a microscope, but whatever. I really enjoy its work flow.
By analoguebubblebath Fri Aug 18, 2017 6:23 pm
Danoc wrote: If the OP is talking about the timing of the squencer being out place that might means he has ti set up the timing "TC" on the MPC live.


Just to make it clear, this "internal clock drift" issue I am referring to really has nothing to do with Timing Correct mode. It's much more a measure of looking at the accuracy of the MPC's clock as a whole, by measuring the exact millisecond distance between beats (in this case Metronome clicks).

AS an example, think about a simple hardware metronome. It only has one job, to keep solid accurate time. This is how drummers train themselves to develop good time, by playing along with a metronome endlessly. If that metronome does not have solid time, lets say random 1/4 notes are coming in early or late, how can that drummer develop his solid time when the source he is using is inconsistent?

Almost all metronomes will not have this problem because when they are designed, their ONLY job is to be accurate. Simple as that. Now when a music sequencer is built, in my opinion its biggest and most fundamentally important task is for it to be accurate. With all the effort going into fancy features these days, it seems the importance of accurate timing has taken a back seat, which is obviously more than a bit disappointing.

So, with this understanding, hopefully it makes sense that the metronome quarter note beat timing is not affected by any sort of time correct, since you cant time correct the metronome.

Also, people posting in this thread are correct by stating the MPC Live sounds fine when making music by itself without any other external timing based gear connected. You likely wouldn't hear the "clock jitter" timing issues when either bouncing out audio or recording its output. I didnt. So as a result, the clock jitter is not going to be noticeable for the most part when used in this manner (which im guessing is about 90% of use cases).

However once you start to use the MPC alongside other gear (software or hardware) you will then surely notice its timing inconsistencies when sync'd with other stuff. This is when the issue came to light for me, and after all the testing I have done, its completely unacceptable from Akai that under the microscope, their clock jitter is measuring at up to 12ms in every use case.
By Cockdiesel Fri Aug 18, 2017 6:49 pm
If been syncing a bunch of gear to it without noticing any issues. I haven't tested it yet but I'm thinking yours might be buggy. There is sometimes a small .1 jitter but nothing seems out of sync. I could be wrong but this is the biggest midi setup I've had so far and actually expected some issues. Nothing noticeable but I'm not a pro with these things.
analoguebubblebath wrote:
Danoc wrote: If the OP is talking about the timing of the squencer being out place that might means he has ti set up the timing "TC" on the MPC live.


Just to make it clear, this "internal clock drift" issue I am referring to really has nothing to do with Timing Correct mode. It's much more a measure of looking at the accuracy of the MPC's clock as a whole, by measuring the exact millisecond distance between beats (in this case Metronome clicks).

AS an example, think about a simple hardware metronome. It only has one job, to keep solid accurate time. This is how drummers train themselves to develop good time, by playing along with a metronome endlessly. If that metronome does not have solid time, lets say random 1/4 notes are coming in early or late, how can that drummer develop his solid time when the source he is using is inconsistent?

Almost all metronomes will not have this problem because when they are designed, their ONLY job is to be accurate. Simple as that. Now when a music sequencer is built, in my opinion its biggest and most fundamentally important task is for it to be accurate. With all the effort going into fancy features these days, it seems the importance of accurate timing has taken a back seat, which is obviously more than a bit disappointing.

So, with this understanding, hopefully it makes sense that the metronome quarter note beat timing is not affected by any sort of time correct, since you cant time correct the metronome.

Also, people posting in this thread are correct by stating the MPC Live sounds fine when making music by itself without any other external timing based gear connected. You likely wouldn't hear the "clock jitter" timing issues when either bouncing out audio or recording its output. I didnt. So as a result, the clock jitter is not going to be noticeable for the most part when used in this manner (which im guessing is about 90% of use cases).

However once you start to use the MPC alongside other gear (software or hardware) you will then surely notice its timing inconsistencies when sync'd with other stuff. This is when the issue came to light for me, and after all the testing I have done, its completely unacceptable from Akai that under the microscope, their clock jitter is measuring at up to 12ms in every use case.
By Cockdiesel Fri Aug 18, 2017 6:57 pm
I'll record my metronome in a couple hours here. Not sure where I would find it readout of milliseconds. But ill do a mix of tempos, synced and standalone. You're the only person to raise this issue, it's a big one and hopefully you're the only one.
By analoguebubblebath Fri Aug 18, 2017 7:51 pm
Thats good to hear yours sounds ok with external gear But if you are syncing your other gear TO the MPC Live, with the MPC as the master clock, it may just be that the entire clock sync you are sending out has a bit of jitter which means that all other devices syn'd to it would be following this jitter as well. It might be hard to notice in this case.

Regarding the actual measurement technique, there are fancy oscilloscopes that can do this for you but I took the harder route and manually measured the distances with my recorded audio in my DAW.

I recorded straight into Ableton Live, turn the grid off, manually zoomed in on the recorded audio to find the waveform start points, and measured the distance between these start points. The info panel at the bottom of the screen would give me the distance in seconds, 0.404, 0.394, which translates to milliseconds when you are getting a decimal in the thousands. Again I recorded at 150BPM, which should be exactly 400ms per quarter note pulse.

Just make sure you are consistent where you measure your waveform start points.
By Cockdiesel Fri Aug 18, 2017 9:17 pm
I'm going to upload my findings somehow and then people can see for themselves. Maybe if mine if off other people can test theirs. Even if both mine and yours are still off it's still hardly a scientific fact. Not sure how akai's midi clock could go from as tight as a 4K to a and get worse on the 5k then to crazy numbers like you posted. Yea I've been using my live as the master, I'll check the digitakt as well. It's the only other hardware metronome I have.
By analoguebubblebath Fri Aug 18, 2017 10:02 pm
Cockdiesel wrote:I'm going to upload my findings somehow and then people can see for themselves. Maybe if mine if off other people can test theirs. Even if both mine and yours are still off it's still hardly a scientific fact. Not sure how akai's midi clock could go from as tight as a 4K to a and get worse on the 5k then to crazy numbers like you posted. Yea I've been using my live as the master, I'll check the digitakt as well. It's the only other hardware metronome I have.


Cool thanks! For everyone's sake I really hope it's just a problem with my unit!!!