Insert Clip Rows Issue

I have a very strange issue inserting clip rows on my MPC XL 3.9 standalone.

Created clips in the clip matrix, each row being a section like a verse, intro, bridge. There are four tracks: Drums, bass, plugin synth, and guitar. Row 1 Intro, Row 2 Verse.

Row 1 Synth clip 1 plays fine, but I do not play the synth in the verse in Row 2, so the cell is empty. Clicking the right play row 1 or 2, all is working as expected.

In Arrange mode, the arrangement is clear, I select Insert Clip Row, select Row 1 (8 bar intro) to bar 1. I Insert Clip Row 2 (14 bars) at bar 9.

I look at the arrangement and everything looks great. I hit play and it plays the first 8 bars correctly. When playback hits bar 9, the synth continues to play the notes from bars 1-8 even though there are no notes shown in the arranger for that synth track in bars 9 . I turned off the loop on the synth row 1 clip but same issue. Have had this happen with an Audio track as well.

This is just one example. I have had other issues with inserting clip rows; while the arranger looks correct (correct notes, tracks, etc), it plays other sections at the beginning that are clearly not part of the arrangement at that position. Very odd.

I am either missing something critical, or the insert clip row feature is not working as expected.

Any thoughts?


(edited for clarity)

Did you press "Back to Arranger" to play the Arranger tracks instead of the clips?

B-Wise wrote:Did you press "Back to Arranger" to play the Arranger tracks instead of the clips?

Yes, and I made sure in Main mode that each track was set to Arrange. I also made sure Loop was off for the clip.

I discovered there are these brighter white vertical bar lines on the synth track at bar 9,17,25 that are repeating. There is no data on the arrange in these sections.

Here is a pic of the arrangement. See Synth track 5, bar 9, 17, 25 white lines. See track 7 bar 25.

From what I found, I think the issue is that I set the track length on the Main page to 8 bars (default is SEQ) and this causes it to loop inside the whole sequence. Same with the track 7; I set that to 24 bars. All other tracks are length SEQ. The brighter white lines seem to indicate that these are track length settings. I had no idea this might cause a loop though as it doesn't seem clear in the manual.

I can't quite follow the detail of your description (away from the unit and with a foggy head this morning) but in the photo, is the arranger loop button active? I can't tell if it's just highlighted. Does your audio (gtr) track play through as expected, or is that looping bars 1-8 as well?

I have to say, I like using the arranger. I'm used to it from the Force though. I find the insert clips feature dots work, but like everything with these units, it takes a bit of getting your head around.

Insert Clip Rows process seems functional and was not the cause of my issue.

The issue was that I was not understanding the Main mode Track Length setting. Setting the Track Length to anything other than SEQ, loops the track for that set length on the linear arrangement. The brighter white grid line shows you where each track loop starts. Others may have more info on this, but generally I am back in business.