By
trupro
Fri Jan 16, 2004 6:37 pm
Yeah, the midi messages that flow through the midi cables are strictly commands twlling the sequencer in the MPC to record you hitting the pads, triggering the internal samples, or playing keys on an external synth, whatever. The messeges are recorded, and when played back, trigger the device of your choice, the internal sampler, or external sound source, whatever you selected. With protools, I set the midi to come out the Digi 001, and start the MPC, if you don't have a particular sound card or recording device yet, It's difficult to give you the exact technique, because the screens will be different in that daw program, so I don't know. Lets put it this way: In the MPC shift+midi sync, that screen, has a field at top right, that lets you choose midi in 1 or 2, or smpte analog in, for recieving timecode. Once that's active, and you push play/ start or play in song mode or main mode, it's gonna wait for timecode from the 'master' device, in my case, protools. If you want exact instructions for syncing to protools, just say so and I will paste my post from a couple months ago. Other [programs and hard disk recorders go by the exact same protocall: sending midi timecode out of them to start and constanly update the external sequencer, refered to as the 'slave'. Pharoe, let my people go.
Doveski, I feel you. When you have a 4 bar loop or whatever, then lace it to protools, if you have sounds that overlap the loop point, they will be cut off. With midi, obviously, they will sustain, but once the outputs record the actual audio, the loop is going to cut off. What I do is, for example, say I got a beat that has a main 4 bar section. I check out what needs to sustain and overlap, and what is just a clean loop. Usually all drums are looping fine, but I may have a synthline that needs to carry over on the wraparound. So, I set the record in protools by highlighting the four bars, leaving the PreRoll on one bar. So, I highlight from bar 2-6, making 4 bars. In song mode, I make a blank one bar seq and insert it as the first step, tom match my preroll and give it a bar to lock up the sync. I know you know all this probly, but just in case. Anyway, I actually put two steps of that main sequence in that song mode, and highlight FIVE bars in protools, so I have an extra bar in the seq. Then I cut and loop as normal in PT, but after my main arrangement, I just pull out the end of the sounds that don't loop right. I pull the end out al little with the staple tool, make a crossfade if needed, then consolidate that whole region for the length of the song when Im satsfied, locking in those odd cuts (obviously doing it in slip mode). I know it's tedious, but it's better to me cus I have total control over each track once it's all tracked. And if you set the BPMs the same, the grid should be tight. I know for a fact that you will get a different shuffle from protools than from the MPC, so I agree, it sounds different,but only if I arrange in PT to a grid and have repeating sounds. THen, you can hear the difference in the shuffle from machine to machine. However, I only grid new sounds to the already the beat when I can pull it off. If not, I got the mpc synced up, and can just sequence more ish with the mpc sequencer, then track it in. Protools 6 is sick for making beats, cus it auto time stretches to the bpm grid. You could track from the mpc, then pull in samples from anywhere, and they snap to grid, and auto flux to fit, without changing pitch. That's what I mean when I'm on that, 'best of both worlds' ish. Right now, I use PT 5.2 32 track, and timestretch with serrato pitch'n'time for timestretching, but I'ma bout to hop on 6 in a minute.
-one
