Everyone should thank DJ Hellfire for taking the time to type this out. Moderators, you should sticky this post. It will help alot of people using an MPC 2500 and Pro Tools.
Here is how you do it.
Well, I pretty much got my two stereo outs going to my mixer then to the Mbox. Then the midi i/o of the mbox to the 2500 of course. I don't know what OS you have, but you need at least 1.2 to have MTC. I slave mine to Pro Tools. The 2500 automatically adjusts to the frame rate of the master. Just set this to 30fps in Pro Tools and the MPC will take car of itself. As to how to set Pro Tools up for Syncing, here is a quote of a post I made in another thread about this:
DJ Hellfire wrote:
Make sure the H/W Buffer setting is set to 128 when you record, ALWAYS. Only raise this to 2048 while mixing.
MTC Settings:
1. Under Options, make sure Midi Thru is checked.
2. Go into Setup, Midi, Midi Studio and create an MPC intstrument if you haven't. In the instrument name field, type in the name of the MPC you have. Select Akai as the manufacturer, MPC2000 as the model, and select your interface for both the inport and outports. Make sure the 16 send and recieve channels are all highlighted blue (not white) by clicking on them. Then X out of there.
3. Go to Setup, Peripherals and under the Synchronization tab, select your MPC for both the reader and generator ports. Click the Machine Control tab and under the Midi Machine Control (Master) box, check Enable and select your MPC from the drop down box. Leave the ID at 127 and the Preroll at 90. Leave the slave field Enable box unchecked. Click OK.
4. Lastly, go to Setup, Session, make sure the clock source is set to internal. Click the Time Code Settings arrow to open that menu and check "using MTC." Set the Time Code rate to 30 FPS. Now X out of there.
5. Connect the midi out of your interface to midi in 1 of the MPC. Then connect the midi out A of your MPC to the midi in on the interface.
6. Go into the sync menu on the MPC and turn the left sync side to in 1, mode to Midi Time Code and frame rate 30. I leave receive MMC off, but I haven't found any difference with it on, so that's up to you.
7. Now go back into the main screen of the MPC. Hit play on pro tools and the MPC should start playing.
8. This part is pretty important. Before you start recording, go into Setup, Playback Engine, and set the H/W Buffer Size to 128MB. Always leave this at 128 while you are recording anything. Once you are done recording and are ready to mix and add plugins, set this to 2048 and mix. If you need to record something else right quick, switch it back to 128 until you finish recording.
Now as for acutal tracking, I just make sure the counter is at 1/1/000 and then set the tempo in Pro Tools to match the MPC. Then I make a blank 1 bar sequence in the MPC. Then go into song mode and program the sequence steps starting the the blank 1 bar sequence as the start. Then program the rest of you sequence changes. If you just have 1 main sequence, then obviously, you would just set that for enough reps to give about 100 bars of beat.
Then I start out with the main melody. I usually record this all the way through so the loop point of the sample is as smooth as in the MPC. Then for the everything else, I just record for the length of the loop and cut and paste to fill the rest of the session. However, if I use the same quantize setting on the drums and the same pattern throughout the entire loop of the beat, I will record one bar of each sound and copy and paste it. So for example, say I have a hat that has a time sig of 1/4 (meaning 4 hits per bar), I will record that hat for 1 bar into Pro Tools and just copy and paste that file to all the way to the end of a session. So the actual audio file will only be 4 hats long but repaets through the whole session. Same thing with the snare. If I only use two snares per bar and the quantize is the same for the whole loop, I will record the snare for 1 bar, or even a half a bar and just copy and paste that as well. With the kick, I usually have different hits throughout the loop, so I'll record the kick for the entire loop and just copy and past that thoughtout the song as well. Saves lot's of time and harddrive space versus recording everything all the way through in several passes.
Also, if my drums are mono, I will record two drums at a time. So say both my hat and sanre are mono, I will pan the hat all the way left in the MPC, pan the snare all the way right, and record each of them to separate tracks in Pro Tools at the same time by setting the hat track input to the left channel and the snare track input to the right. This is especially useful when you have two different kicks in the pattern and don't want them on the same track.
But that's pretty much my basic method. There are other small little detailed things I do too, but that is the basic shyt. Let me know if there's anything else.
Some things I want to add.
1. You don't have to use a Pre-Roll in Pro Tools.
2. I tried MIDI Beat Clock and MTC and MTC is def. the way to go.
3. If you want to track out your seperate sequences and not put the beat into Song Mode in the MPC, that way you can just arrange your beat in Pro Tools. Let your sequence record into Pro Tools twice. For example, if you have a 4 bar sequence, let it run twice so you record 8 bars into Pro Tools. Loop the 2nd 4 bars and it will be on point. there is a little delay when you first record it in, so taking the loop of the second time through is right on point.
4. Or you could do what Hellfire said and record a blank sequence in first, then switch to your sequence. If you do that make sure your blank sequence is the same BPM as your other sequences.
For me it was just easier to let the sequence record through twice, that way you don't have to worry about creating a blank and manually switching the sequence when you are dumping it down.
Hope this helps! Now it's time to dump down some beats!!!
