going to lose my mind

ive been trying to track out with my setup for like two weeks but i can't figure it out so im gonna be very specific and hope someone can help me. i have an mpc 1000 with jjos 1 installed. i have a presonus firebox. and i have cubase LE and also adobe audition. lets say for example i have a beat with 3 tracks. 1 for the kick, 1 for the snare and 1 for the hats. ive watched like every video there is on midi syncing the mpc as the slave to the computer but i still cant do it. i need to hit play/record on my computer and have the mpc start as well so everything is synched. if anyone who has been here can relate and give be detailed step by step instructions and what cables are correct to use. i know this is asking a lot but ive spent a lot of my time and it has all lead to dead ends. please help me and thank you.

so basically:

what to set in the midi sync mode. right now i've got it on 1(slave): i dont know if i need midi timecode on or off. i know what it is just not if i need it on or off.

on the bottom right of the main screen: does pc need to be on?

setting things up in either cubase LE or adobe audition 3.0

what cables i need and where they have to go.


hope anyone can help.

I don't know if you have seen my video on how to do this but it doesn't get much clearer than how I explain it.

i've seen it and it is the best one out there. the version of cubase i had didnt have the same windows and layout as yours like it didnt have the send start message box in the sync setup etc.)i also have the jjos 1 but i guess that really makes no difference. i don;t even know, does it? i recently got a different version of cubase though and it is similar to yours so im gonna have to give it another go. my main problem is with the firebox. it has a midi but it's through a y adaptor, s/pdif in and out and midi in and out. i plugged the midi cable into the 1st in on the mpc but i dont know if i have to plug it into the midi in or the midi out on the firebox. do i only need one midi cable to do this? if anyones familiar with the firebox that would be awesome. thanks again though lithion. ill figure it out soon enough. lol

Midi OUT of the firebox goes to the Midi IN of the MPC (this is logical because you are controlling the start/stop messages from your computer via the firewire cable. If you think about it, you click the mouse, it travels down firewire, into the out of the firebox then into the mpc thus out to in).


Just click around, try different confiurations until you get it. It's what I do. I know that my setup I have now is probably not configured properly, but I get the desired result, so I go with it.

awesome so midi out of the firebox to midi in on the mpc nice...i'll try this as soon as i get back to my place in a day. thanks again man. i'll let you know how it turns out.

alright im in the home stretch. i have it so when i hit play in cubase the mpc plays. my problem is if i hit record to record the track it won't. it will still play but little waveform won't show up like if it were recording. also i dont know if this matters but i cant stop the mpc from cubase only start it. this is not a big problem at all but i dont know if that has something do with something. any advice would be extremely helpful.

Did you activate the tracks in cubase on which you want to record?

To stop the mpc try activating mmc.

yea well i armed them for recording. is activating them something different?

No, that´s what i meant.

Do you see the signal coming in on the mixer´s input tracks?

yea it;s not showing up on the mixer in cubase and the firebox mixer doesn't show levels it just lets you control them. definitely have it synced. the mpc says clk sync. but yea no levels are showing up. i selected the firebox driver in cubase as well.

Ok, now make sure you have activated the right inputs in cubase, if not sure which they are activate them all (devices -> vst inputs)

hey. i went to devices but there is no inputs, i went to connections though i assume that;s what you meant. i also found an inputs section and did that too. the sound (beat) is coming out of my mpc headphone jack not the headphone jack on the firebox. so i can hear the metronome click out of the firebox headphone jack but not the beat. this has got to be the problem. for what ever reason, i have synced the mpc 1000 with cubase using the firebox to sync them but the beat is not going "through" the firebox.

also when i go to the vst connections screen. it shows the audio device as being the presonus ASIO driver (firebox) then for under the device port part, the left is on mic/instrument in and the right is on the right instrument in. i would think it should be on midi out but when i click to select which input, all that is there is is the mic ins, the line ins, and the s/pdif ins. i know i said a lot but i hope you can figure out what i just said.

Never used cubase le so i took it from the manual, maybe it was a different version. But what you described sounds about right (maybe have a look at the manual for yourself, it was a quickstart one with a good simple section for setting up the recording).

About the click, check if your main outs are ok, just plug the headphones in there and you should hear your beat on one side.

aight hopefully i can make this work thanks for all the help guys. appreciate it.

guys and gals. i just figured out how to track in and i am so happy. im just posting this because i know how annoying it

was to figure this out and if anyone in the future has a similar problem with a similar setup feel free to pm me. i have a

pc running windows xp, a presonus firebox, mpc 1000, and cubase LE4 for the moment. thanks again to everyone who

helped me out. peace.