MPC 2.8 MIDI clock timing accuracy

Remember the midi timing on the 5000? This is a Nukai issue - been happening since then - though it was bad on the 5000.

And - ahem, again - the foundation is in need of repair. But we have Splice tho... and a non-working update.

But still say - love the MPC workflow. Still use my Live, for now.

But don't mind me. I'm getting the last song of the new album done. Did I mention a new album is coming in August? Y'all got less than 3 months to get y'all s--- together. I'm coming for that #1 spot on the UK soul charts.

And I'm going back in these threads to see who told me they're coming out with something this year. I'm buying it when it drops to support. Let me know!!!!!

Eyalc wrote:Remember the midi timing on the 5000? This is a Nukai issue - been happening since then - though it was bad on the 5000.

And - ahem, again - the foundation is in need of repair. But we have Splice tho... and a non-working update.

But still say - love the MPC workflow. Still use my Live, for now.

But don't mind me. I'm getting the last song of the new album done. Did I mention a new album is coming in August? Y'all got less than 3 months to get y'all s--- together. I'm coming for that #1 spot on the UK soul charts.

And I'm going back in these threads to see who told me they're coming out with something this year. I'm buying it when it drops to support. Let me know!!!!!

When you get famous and rich after you release your album, buy Akai and put someone to work who checks the OS foundations and makes a good check before releasing updates.
Will you care about Mpc anymore when you'll be famous and rich?

Lumi wrote:

Eyalc wrote:Remember the midi timing on the 5000? This is a Nukai issue - been happening since then - though it was bad on the 5000.

And - ahem, again - the foundation is in need of repair. But we have Splice tho... and a non-working update.

But still say - love the MPC workflow. Still use my Live, for now.

But don't mind me. I'm getting the last song of the new album done. Did I mention a new album is coming in August? Y'all got less than 3 months to get y'all s--- together. I'm coming for that #1 spot on the UK soul charts.

And I'm going back in these threads to see who told me they're coming out with something this year. I'm buying it when it drops to support. Let me know!!!!!

When you get famous and rich after you release your album, buy Akai and put someone to work who checks the OS foundations and makes a good check before releasing updates.
Will you care about Mpc anymore when you'll be famous and rich?

Haha - well, famous - nah. Rich - sure. LOL

You know, I spend some time around VC groups, and there have been two that have discussed buying a music brand and rebuilding. Akai brand was one of the targets, but where they’re at with that, I don’t know.

I actually think it will come sooner than later. Someone will put together an ownership group and buy the brand from Nukai. And my hope is that they immediately employ JJ, and get the brand back on track.

@ Eyalc

They have a great device on their hand, with a lot of space of improvements on specs (Ram, Cpu) and OS.
And there are a lot of people going standalone and a lot of legacy Mpc users.
They just need to get it right, clean the OS and fix the foundation, stop at the point they arrived after 3 years and just focus on making it flawless.
After that, open the platform to 3rd party synths and effects.
And slowly improve cpu and Ram.
They can make it.
They just need you to organize all.
Ahah.

Lumi wrote:@ Eyalc

They have a great device on their hand, with a lot of space of improvements on specs (Ram, Cpu) and OS.
And there are a lot of people going standalone and a lot of legacy Mpc users.
They just need to get it right, clean the OS and fix the foundation, stop at the point they arrived after 3 years and just focus on making it flawless.
After that, open the platform to 3rd party synths and effects.
And slowly improve cpu and Ram.
They can make it.
They just need you to organize all.
Ahah.

Hahah - maaaaan - won’t be me to do it. Though I would love to see a group take over the brand. I’m honestly not convinced this group can do it. They either need to sell the brand, or take on some VC and upgrade / enhance the talent. They have a potential monster on their hands, but not enough quality hands to make it happen IMO.

yep the nukai clocks went bad from the 2500 series onwards, if i use 3k as master clock the live can pass on ok clock to other gear but live as master is only just passable with big workload, ok for synths and less timing critical stuff but 2.8 currently about as tight as a 2500, the elektrons screens dont lie, if you track out to grid on daw you can see how much the clock jitter drifts back and forth. if they are connected to a solid clock they dont move, when connected to the live they are on a constant push and pull, you can hear it also, gonna look into a innerclock system or erm multiclock for this stuff anyway as gets annoying fast and dont really wanna have to timing edit or nudge my track outs. sure it will get better in the next few updates if they stay on track

Had to bump this since im on 2.9 and just recorded the Live's outs synced with my ERM multiclock. It's the same setup that I use with my 4000.

The Live is definitely not as tight as the 4000 and there is some latency when I start and stop it from the DAW. Whereas, the 4k is super snappy and starts and stops instantly. I also see some jitter that I never see with the 4k. the 4000 is simply rock solid and dead on the grid.

I'm going to export my MPC tracks from inside the Live, but that's a bit disappointing since I sync my hardware with this box too. I hope they can tighten it up with an update.

Maybe its some of my settings - are there extra things I should turn off? I turned off wifi and tried it with no emulation and also with the MPC3000 emu going.

I have had the Erm Multiclock now for two weeks, the MIDI clock out from MPC Live goes all over the place, 124 bmp fluctuates down to 122.5 back up and down.

Also before getting the Erm Multiclock, I connected Edirol Midi Interface via USB and using the Midi ports with several other gears and MPC as the master, in that scenario things are pretty good, but sending MIDI clock to some of the gear for sequence playback, things drift pretty good. I am on 2.9.1 and nothing has changed, I hope they can address this issue, otherwise it is best to use an external clock like the ERM while in standalone and when you want to print to DAW, then use the Audio out scenario from the DAW to the Erm, the DAW is the master.

Also if you are triggering anything that is within MPC, like plugins, samples, Audio tracks all within MPC nothing connected to it, the timing is fantastic, that same sessions in Controller Mode with the mpc software, looses its tightness, it is that damn midi over usb issue, that everyone is dealing with.

I have tested the Midi Clock of several synths so far with the ERM clock and I would say so far the Roland SE-02 and the Pro 2 from Dave Smith have solid Midi Clock out.

Adding to this further, the MTC in MPC is terrible, I have no idea why they even have that in there if the clocking is all over the place.
Hopefully someone from Akai will read this and try to work on this clocking issues, everyone I now who is using the X or the Live is clocking with an external clock if they have lot of gear.

If anyone can add more to this clock issues and testing they have been doing, please do it does help. Cheers.

I noticed that the MPC One has a lot of clock jitter, to the point of being unusable when synced to or synced from midi, people who are saying it is not noticeable unless you look at the screen obviously have not tested because it is very easy to hear.

I tried a few devices both as master or slave and a very simple test:
MPC snare on down beats - nothing else
Other device snare on down beat - nothing else
No other midi connected except the MPC and the other device, connected to MPC midi port, not USB.
Other devices tested - Elektron Octatrack, Roland MC-707, Elektron Rytm mk2, Squarp Pyramid, Roland TR-06

A very simple test, easy for anyone to replicate to hear it for their self.
First set MPC as master, other device as slave, snare on downbeats on both machines, set tempo to 120bpm, start MPC, you will notice that the snares will be playing offset randomly each time, so it will sound like a flam but each time it will sound different.
Now try the other device as master and the MPC as slave, same issue only worse.

To rule out possibility that it was fault of other devices I tried syncing them to each other, but they were fine, certainly useable.

Pretty annoying that the MPC can’t sync accurately, my current workaround is to sample the audio from the other gear (running from its internal clock) into the MPC and trigger it in a drum program, not perfect but better.

Anyway I reported this to Akai, you should do the same if you want to sync tightly with other gear.

Here in 2.10 update with Mpc One.

I don't use many external gear, just one bassline.

But is not needed to have external gear to see the fluctuation in the BPM with the internal clock.

To test this just do a battery line with some tracks on it, plugin drums or normal sampler programs.

And just record it in the audio in of the unit or in other audio recorder to see how the bpm fluctuates.

And then just import the track in a DAW or in the Mpc standalone, you can see that apart the latency of the audio in, (which is not important to me) the percussive samples are not hitting always in the same tempo points, they are moving forward and backward.

When you record another track SEPARATELY in other play track, then begin the troubles and yes are so perceptible.

Because that fluctuation of BPM is not synced with the old recorded track and its BPM fluctuation, then we will hear the things are not good, and yes is super noticeable.

One fix to this issue, which is super annoying is to bounce all your tracks to long audio chunks, and trigger them in audio tracks or samples program, being sure that are enough long to don't show those incorrect hits in tempo.

When you bounce tracks the tempo of those tracks is exact, no trouble at all, but is a big issue anyways.

Then, if you have many external gear and you use midi on them whatever clock or midi on, if you use the internal clock of the Mpc you will get always fluctuations.

If you want to do a mixing of those tracks you have a big problem unless you bounce them internally in the mpc and mix them as a big chunks of audio steams.

Remember the limit of memory won't allow you to do many tracks with this way, so until audio streaming is not implemented, this fix is just a half fix and won't let you do a real mix in the Mpc, just few steams.

So i see that one big problem is even the internal midi clock not being stable, that fluctuation can't be perceived if you play all the tracks together in midi, but if you record some of them to audio, you will hear and feel the problem...

I was having issues with the clock jitter myself, hope it can be resolved through a SW update.
I've bought a "MIDI STABLE SOURCE MIDI CLOCK GENERATOR" from MINDBURNER MIDI PRODUCTS as my master clock, it's quite useful as it has 4 MIDI outs and you can set the BPM with an encoder and generate start/stop command by pushing that encoder. My two cents anyway.
P.S. Maybe Akai wanted the new MPCs to have that human "groove" element and the unstable clock is a feature?

artemusprime wrote:I was having issues with the clock jitter myself, hope it can be resolved through a SW update.
I've bought a "MIDI STABLE SOURCE MIDI CLOCK GENERATOR" from MINDBURNER MIDI PRODUCTS as my master clock, it's quite useful as it has 4 MIDI outs and you can set the BPM with an encoder and generate start/stop command by pushing that encoder. My two cents anyway.
P.S. Maybe Akai wanted the new MPCs to have that human "groove" element and the unstable clock is a feature?

"...unstable clock is a feature..." good one