Support and discussion for all of Akai’s modern standalone MPCs including the MPC X / X SE, MPC Live 1, 2 & 3, MPC One / One+, MPC Key 37/61.
By FrankLloydWrong Sat Nov 06, 2021 11:20 am
Seasons Greetings - After years of looping my guitar over itself, and occasionally looping along with a few unsync'd bars over my old drum machine (Boss DR-660), I finally took the plunge into the MPC One, hoping that I could sync the MPC to my guitar looper. It took me a few months to develop my workflow with the MPC One--brilliant, love this device--and so now I'm ready to finish setting up my rig. I had to swap out my old [beloved] guitar looper, the Digitech Jamman Solo XT to something with a 5-pin MIDI In, so I recently got the TC Electronics Ditto X4. I have been playing around with this for a few days and cannot get the two devices to 'speak' to one another. There is no indication on the Ditto X4 that it is receiving any signal from the MPC's MTC MIDI clock, no blinking lights, the loop start won't trigger when I press play on the MPC, etc. And, of course, no matter how clean the loop is, it will eventually drift away from the 'one' of the beat, so I know it is not sync'd. There are a lot of variables here and I've been combing through forums & tech support, but have not found anything specific to this particular setup...

--5-pin MIDI cable connecting from the MPC's MIDI Out to the Ditto's MIDI In

--I have the MIDI/Sync preferences within the MPC One sending MTC Out as the MIDI clock:
-Input ports: MPC as 'track' and Remote as 'track'
-Output ports: MPC as 'track' and Remote as 'sync'
-Enable MIDI ports when discovered is checked
-MIDI Control Mode Output: MPC
-Sync receive: MIDI Time Code (MTC) (**Should I also have the Sync Receive set to MTC, and connect another MIDI cable from the 'through' MIDI port of the Ditto looper back into the MPC's MIDI In?**)
-Sync Send: MTC, Send MMC is unchecked, MTC Frame Rate is 30 drop, start time is 0:0:0:0

-Whatever sequence that I'm trying to loop with, I add a track to include a MIDI program, sending the MIDI Out of channel 1. Here's what that MIDI Program looks like:
-Program ch.: Off
-Bank MSB: Off
-Bank LSB: 0
-MIDI Port: MPC

-The MIDI Output Monitor shows quite a bit of activity. On every 1 beat, there's a 'Control Change 64' signal coming out of channel 1, using the MPC Port, and then for every other beat there's a little green clock and 'Quarter Frame.'

--The MPC is sending 1/4" stereo audio out to an external mixer and is not sending any audio to the looping pedal (lest I blare my beats out of my guitar's amp).

I realize that this is quite a specific inquiry, but I'm pretty stumped. I believe these units should be able to do what I'm trying to get them to do, but there are a ton of variables and I'm sure I'm missing something.

I would be thrilled to figure this out. Years ago I saw local reggae legend George Wesley doing a solo gig and his one-man-band MIDI / Loop rig (he used an old-school drum machine that looked like a mini laptop to set the beat for every song, connecting a guitar and bass to a Boss RC-300), and have had this in the back of my mind ever since. Any help appreciated!
User avatar
By DeaDeus Sun Nov 07, 2021 10:06 am
Hi, this really is weird.
I own the MPCX, but it is generally the same :-)

First of all to your monitored data:
- CC64 is sustain - 0-63 = OFF, 64-127 = ON (no idea where this is coming from, sorry)
- the quarter frame symbol comes from the sync MTC setting > this should to my understanding MIDI Clock, as the timeframe (MTC) is for syncing to film frames mainly and you can ignore the MTC frame rate

Receive: should be MIDI clock too - but as the looper has a Thru only, you might run into a MIDI loop (highly unwanted!!!)
Send MMC: ticked as it syncs (in best case :-) the MPC and your looper (start, stop etc)
MIDI channel is set to 1, ok > is you looper set to 1 too? If not it will never "hear" incoming data > I checked the documeentation of the looper and I cannot see a option to change the channel. Therefor try channel 16 (or try all....) on the MPC

Very odd is that the MPC is not sending audio data to the mixer/looper (or did I misunderstand you and it send it to the mixer but not to the looper?)
- if the device is set to MIDI on e.g. Track 1 no audio data comes from the MPC only MIDI signals
- are the output channels set correctly? - set e.g. Track 2 to anything but MIDI or CV you can see the output selector (open side panel by tapping the Eye icon on the top left hand side) and now you should hear something if you hit the pads

I hope this helps.
By FrankLloydWrong Tue Nov 09, 2021 2:10 am
Update - I saw the red light above the Stop pedal on the Ditto clicking along with the beat from the MPC One and sure enough when I clicked the guitar loop in, it was sync'd enough to go on indefinitely. Thrilled, it's working splendidly!

+The Ditto's dedicated channel to receive MIDI clock is channel 4, which I needed to comb around and find. So on the MPC I needed to add a track to send MIDI, with the MIDI CH set to 4. For the Program edit screen, I set the MIDI port to MPC.

+The Ditto's firmware also needed to be updated, though the Mac version wasn't finishing its update cycle, so I updated the firmware via PC.

Thanks for the response ! :idea:
By jamos Wed Nov 10, 2021 6:30 pm
I am not familiar with the looper you are using, but there is a solid misconception in your discussion of this. MTC is not MIDI sync, and is not supported by the MPC. If the Looper has any options for using MIDI Clock or MIDI Sync, you should use those rather than MTC or even MMC.