Which cables go where?

Hey, I'm sure this question has been asked and answered before, but I'm having trouble with cable connections. I've tried the manuals, tweakheadz.com, and searched some pages on here, but can't find anything that helps. So, I've been messing around with the mpc for a little while and decided to get a novation rack to hook up to a m audio midi keyboard and record it on the mpc, but I needed to change my setup. I have the mpc 1000, and a turntable, a tape deck, and a cd player hooked up to a numark 1050, 2 channel mixer. I wanted to keep what I had and just add the m audio and the novation, so I got a behringer 802 and am totally confused with what goes where. I have the m audio midi out to mpc midi in and the novation midi in to mpc midi out, but I'm confused about which mixer the cables from the monitors go to and how to hook both mixers up to each other. Also, I have these balanced cables that I was told I needed, but I don't know where those go either. I'm completely out of my league...

Also.. where do the outputs of the rack go to in the mixer?

I would leave the sample source(s) hooked up to the 2channel mixer. I'd plug the MPC and Novation up to the Behringer. I would plug the record out of my 2channel into the MPC. I'd plug the main outs of the 2channel into the Behringer. Lastly, I'd plug my monitors up to the main outs on the Behringer. Thats what I would do.

Hey man, I appreciate the response. I did exactly what you said and everythings working. Thanks a lot.

Also, I have these balanced cables that I was told I needed,

You were likely told wrong. Most MPC's are unbalanced, and I imagine most of that other gear is, too. They will work, but you need to do some research before you buy whatever somebody tells you....the wrong equipment can cause things to actually malfunction and then you'll really be screwed.
But I think you will be ok in this case.

Also, instead of a paint-by-numbers 'how do i hook it up' just try to alter your perception a bit...think of each piece of gear as a 'sound source'...and now just figure out where you want each source to go. Both of those mixers combine many sources in one, so anything coming out the mixer is one source instead of many. Thinking that way, it's easy to visualise:
1) MPC
2) DJ Mixer (with tape deck cd deck turntable etc)
3) Sound module (novation)

...each as an individual source all going into the master Mixer, which goes to the monitors.

Hope that helps.

then hook up midi cords

nogginj wrote:

Also, I have these balanced cables that I was told I needed,

You were likely told wrong. Most MPC's are unbalanced, and I imagine most of that other gear is, too. They will work, but you need to do some research before you buy whatever somebody tells you....the wrong equipment can cause things to actually malfunction and then you'll really be screwed.
But I think you will be ok in this case.

Also, instead of a paint-by-numbers 'how do i hook it up' just try to alter your perception a bit...think of each piece of gear as a 'sound source'...and now just figure out where you want each source to go. Both of those mixers combine many sources in one, so anything coming out the mixer is one source instead of many. Thinking that way, it's easy to visualise:
1) MPC
2) DJ Mixer (with tape deck cd deck turntable etc)
3) Sound module (novation)

...each as an individual source all going into the master Mixer, which goes to the monitors.

Hope that helps.

Thanks for the response. I knew I was asking for someone to hold me by the hand, but it wasn't until I plugged everything in that I was able to connect the dots. And it's still a lot for me.

Yeah, the only reason I bought the balanced cables was because the sales guy at guitar center told me I needed em to hook up the novation to the 802, but since I forgot what he said when I got home... I looked at everything I have then called probably about 5 other guitar centers and found out I didn't need them (I don't think I need them).

Also, if what I already asked wasn't enough, I can play the novation through my midi controller and lay a track down on the mpc, but I have to have the novation turned on and set to the exact program I recorded for the saved sequence to play the program. So, the mpc records and plays the notes, just not a specific program on the novation. Another thing is with the m audio keystation, when the octave shift is on the default setting, different keys trigger different pads, but I've only noticed it triggers different pads in pad bank A. Is there something I missed in the manual?

I'll keep that in mind

So, the mpc records and plays the notes, just not a specific program on the novation.

Depending on which mpc you have, there is an down by the track name labeled 'PGM'. You set that to the program number of the program you are using on your synth and it SHOULD send that program change whenever the sequence starts.

To clarify, all your sounds on your novation are stored into separate program numbers, and so you can access them directly via midi.

Sometimes this can cause unwanted effects though, so what i do is leave myself 'notes' by naming unused tracks in my seq. "Novation a35" for example.

Ps. The sales guy at Guitar center is not trained, and is more interested in selling you more expensive stuff than actually helping you make good recordings.
I avoid guitar center at all costs, but occasionally you can get a good deal on some used stuff, but then, I'd trust them even less.

nogginj wrote:

So, the mpc records and plays the notes, just not a specific program on the novation.

Depending on which mpc you have, there is an down by the track name labeled 'PGM'. You set that to the program number of the program you are using on your synth and it SHOULD send that program change whenever the sequence starts.

To clarify, all your sounds on your novation are stored into separate program numbers, and so you can access them directly via midi.

Sometimes this can cause unwanted effects though, so what i do is leave myself 'notes' by naming unused tracks in my seq. "Novation a35" for example.

Ps. The sales guy at Guitar center is not trained, and is more interested in selling you more expensive stuff than actually helping you make good recordings.
I avoid guitar center at all costs, but occasionally you can get a good deal on some used stuff, but then, I'd trust them even less.

Thanks again for the response. About guitar center- yeah, I've met some helpful people, but most of them seem like used car salesman. After explaining to the one guy how I didn't need balanced cables for the mixer he sold me, he just looked up at the ceiling. I gues I shouldn't be talking though cause I'm feeling the same way after messing around with this equipment for the last few days. I thought I had everything running smoothly, but I was so wrong.

There's a bunch of shit that not going right, but first, I did what you suggested, created a program in the MPC which I named the number of the Novation program I used, and the track saved the Novation program and the sequence played back fine, but then the Novation wouldn't change programs....but that's the least of my worries now.

Now I'm having troubles with my keyboard triggering the Novation and the MPC. From what I can tell, after powering the midi keyboard and the Novation on and off a few times, everything will eventually work as it should, but when I power everything on the first time and fix the main page of the MPC so type is set to midi and midi is set to 1A, I'll adjust the volume slider or press a key on the keyboard and a few things will happen. Either a note is triggered and it hangs and won't stop playing, no sound will be triggered at all, or it'll change the program or sequence in the mpc, sometimes playing different sequences. It'll also change the program in the Novation. I thought I had the connections hooked up fine, but just to go over what I can think of:
The main gear is the MPC1000, m audio keystation, and the Novation rack. I've got the keystation midi out-mpc midi in. mpc midi out-novation midi in. I've set the Novation to local off and external for the midi clock source. The MPC sync out is set to A and in to 1, soft thru: as track, and when on the main page-type:midi/midi:1A. I think I did everything to sync the MPC as the master and I did set the Novation midi clock source to external, but there's a feature on the Novation called a MIDI clock inspector that checks if an external device is sending a MIDI clock, but when I checked it says it isn't recieving anything. I don't know what I'm doing wrong.

bump. does anyone have any suggestions on my last post? thanks

Wisdom #1:

I wanted a corvette when I first got my license. It took me decades to get one once I obtained the skills, finances, and expertise to match.

The same goes with making original music. You can't start where kats have been going at it for decades and expect the same results.

It's going to be an uphill climb for a minute, so spare a little patience for the duration.

1. Chill and read the manuals start to finish.
2. Mark your cables.
3. Sit down and think about your routing and draw it out on paper, then hook it up.

Sorting out your studio hookup yourself takes time to do right and you learn the ins and out of your gear properly.

First, just want to say thanks for taking the time to read my post, I do appreciate it, but to dabmeister (and jimmie), I'm not asking for advice on how to make original music. Obviously I don't know all the ins and outs of the mpc since I'm postin a thread in the getting started part of the forum, but I've read the MPC manual ch. 9: "Using the MPC1000 with external devices" thoroughly and am still having trouble. I've also read the part of my sound module's manual that deals with midi and syncing it up with other devices. I'll admit I still don't get the whole concept of midi and how it works, but I've read the manuals, read up on different threads in gearslutz, tweakheads, mpcforums, etc., everything that every regular on this forum and other forums have complained about every newb not doing and I'm still not getting any results. Gonna get humble and say I felt more than uneasy bumping my thread, but I figured maybe theres still someone out there besides the ~213 members that haven't viewed my posts that could offer some help....thats all...

Dabmeister, i just reread what you wrote about making original music-my bad