Sending CC's via q link...

rich_biatch wrote:unlikely

wow you dug purdy deep to find this thread

Not really, just did a search for "MIDI CC" as I couldn't find anything in the manual/online and was sure people must of discussed it before.

This is really my biggest let-down of the MPC and JJOS so far!

Sure I can still come up with some fun stuff though. It's just going to make stuff sound a lot more rigid than I would like.

What I would really like would be to be able to record MIDI CC while playing live, so you bring in your basic bass or synth line by unmuting track, select an empty track with same program number and hit record to start recording your automation. Get happy with it and start working with another sound or parameter. It would really open things up for me so much!

honestly, the mpc 1000 was meant to work with an outboard sound device for complex evolving sounds. its not a synth or even that much of a sampler. you couldnt even send CC's before where now you can. so at least you can use a synth with it and have some control with CC's. its more now with jj than it was before. so get you a micro korg or an evolver and tweak away.

Except for the fact I have a 2k5 and read this thread as it's only implemented at all in the 1k and couldn't find any other mention. If I'd known this beforehand I would of probably saved a little money and gone for the smaller, cheaper unit and actually had more features I will use for less money

Or is that mis-information/me reading incorrectly?

oh my bad. i wonder why it wouldnt be implemented in the 2500... even now. that sucks man.

I would also like to see Qlinks send (and record) CCs on the 2500.

I doubt we will ever see external CCs -> MPC parameters. The MPC does not follow the "program per channel" paradigm. MIDI CC messages have to have a channel. In normal multitimbral MIDI synths you assign a program to a MIDI channel, not so with the MPC. The best you could hope for is CC -> Qlink for whatever track you're on in Main, with all the inherent limitations of Qlink (especially in XL ). Not super useful anyway, compared to sending and recording CCs from the Qlinks.

MPC does have MDI channels or am I not understanding? Note on/off messages also have to be assigned to a MIDI Channel to trigger the right sound from the synth. You associate a track with a specific MIDI channel (or at least that's how I've been doing it.)

Even if it was limited to a track being assignable to a single CC number and thus giving automation for a single parameter of an external synth that would be something I could work with. Not ideal but usable to extend beyond what is currently possible and I don't see why that would be that hard to implement.

Personally not too worried about the Q-Links but it does seem it would be the easiest way to record your automation (and this was the only thread I could find that seemed to even touch on the subject.)

rich_biatch wrote:oh my bad. i wonder why it wouldnt be implemented in the 2500... even now. that sucks man.

i'm not sure what you guys are talking about - i can def. send CCs from my 2500 to the sound modules ive got. you just need to look at the manual to pick the correct CC number (ie, don't trust the names given to them in the MPC)

hahaha i knew that sounded wrong

I've read through the bits I can see in the manual on MIDI and it doesn't mention CC automation anywhere except in the implementation chart it states the sequencer section can both transmit and recognise all CC values. So far I've only connected the Out from MPC to In on my synth so I will connect the synth's MIDI Out to the MPC In and see if I can record the data live.

Is there not a screen that graphically shows you automation/CC data?

yeah, you can do all that. in grid edit if you look at the 'control' screens you can select CC, along with the relevent number, as an option and it should show you what was recorded. i guess its the least that you can expect on a midi procuction centre (though the M in MPC on my old 2000xl used to stand for midi, now it means music on my 2500)

GrantB wrote:I would also like to see Qlinks send (and record) CCs on the 2500.

It can (thanks to rarar for making me look again.) It really is quite simple as well and I don't know quite why it took me so long to find. Think in part as I expected it to be a basic function and thus covered by the Akai OS manual so my main searching was in there and it took me quite a while to find and understand the relevant bits in the online manual for XL plus youtube videos by JJ.

In the main window move the QLink you want to use. Change to type CC (always starts CC11) press > to be able to change CC number. Twiddle to your heart's content, recording live if you wish. Recoded data can be seen from the Grid Edit screen by pressing Shift+Control (F1) then again chose CC number, or in the Step Edit screen.


One issue I do have though is the go to event buttons don't seem to work at all in XL. This means that if you have recorded your automation live and have some points you want to remove you have to do it from the step edit, which is a bit of a pain. Hopefully I'm just missing something obvious again but not sure I am as the previous/next event buttons don't seem to do anything in any window (never tried them with Akai OS so maybe they should do what I think they should anyway. I am assuming they should take you to next recorded event in the window you are in.)


Do you think there is any chance of getting JJ to also add Poly Pressure to the QLinks? My synth effectively uses these as a second bank of CCs, rather than actually being Polyphonic Aftertouch. You can view and edit it in Grid Edit so you would hope it wouldn't be too difficult to add to a QLink...