Technical questions for the MPC2000xl and the MPC2000
By emma pc Wed Jun 29, 2011 3:40 pm
hi, i have an mpc 2000 xl, a kenton pro2 midi-cv/gate converter, and a roland tb-303 that has been modified so that it can be controlled by old school cv and gate as opposed to its internal sequencer; the accent and slide can also be controlled using the kenton's aux channels.
the way i currently have it set up, the mpc pads play the 303 notes just fine via the kenton cv/gate conversion. the problem comes when i try to send information through the kenton's aux's to program the slide and accent.
please see page 11 here for more info: http://www.kentonuk.com/kmanualspdf/pro2man.pdf
the conversion on the 303 was done by synth service centre in london uk and i had it working 20 years ago using commodore amiga instead of mpc so i know it works but can't work out how i did it, especially as my amiga power supply died this afternoon. ah it's so frustrating, i am a novice on the mpc (and midi even) as it is... please help, i have a lush track in my head and i have a rare free evening to work on it. anyone who can answer this is an absolute king! cheers :)
it says in the manual that the midi controller must be set to 65 to turn thr slide or accent on and set to 0 for off. so i am looking how to do this please, i assume using 2 separate midi channels in the mpc, one for accent, one for slide? sorry for being such a blithering idiot; I'm working on that...
THANKYOU THANKYOU IN ADVANCE FOR YOUR HELP
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By nogginj Wed Jun 29, 2011 5:39 pm
You can enter in Controller messages via the step editor.

From the main screen, hit 'STEP' button (one of the F keys).
You can then do an Insert, and choose controller.
I'm not sure in the manual you posted or in your description exactly WHICH CC# controls slide or accent...I guess it's configurable?

Anyway, the basic idea is enter the CC via step edit, set it to the proper CC#, and set the value to 65 (or higher maybe).

This is all from memory so might not be 100% accurate, but the above gist seems to be where you need to be playing around. Figure out which CC# is for accent/slide.
By emma pc Thu Jun 30, 2011 10:41 am
thankyou very much for your time helping out :)

from looking on google i 'THINK' portamento and accent are cc# 65 & (possibly) 80, respectively, can anyone confirm that?

so for slide, for example, on one aux channel i could apply cc#65 (for slide) at a value of 65 (or higher) to switch the slide on, and then, on a later event, set that value to 0 to switch the slide off again?

i find it confusing kenton say to 'set aux sources to whichever midi control you wish..' surely they would have to be set to the relevant individual cc#? or it just works with whatever cc#it gets? i would ask kenton but though helpful can be quite shirty they must be so busy and long in the tooth i don't blame 'em but the last load of 1/4" jack leads i bought from them were a)expensive and b) too big to fit in any 1/4" jack sockets, it's like they were 1/3"!

anyway, on the kenton all one does is select the value for the aux channel and then the value for it's offset (which in this case Kenton advise to set to 0)

I just can't quite get it to work. years ago a mate managed it on the same gear but using commodore amiga 'sequencer one software'. but this software is simplisitic; it doesn't show midi cc #'s just midi channels, notes & velocities.

it's weird coz when i play the pads or midi controller keyboard so that the notes overlap, it is doing portamento anyway. maybe this means the inputs i have are accent and filter but regardless, i'd love to be able to program the 303 via midi because it's track write function is bust.

there's another set of instructions from them for using a different converter from theone i own but maybe it might shed some light on some of the above. the more i understand the more Chinese it becomes. sorry/thanks/please/etc.
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By nogginj Thu Jun 30, 2011 3:28 pm
when i play the pads or midi controller keyboard so that the notes overlap, it is doing portamento anyway.

in my experience, that's a much better way to get slide, anyway. seems like a pain to have to go in and program it after the fact.

my x0xb0x does the same, and also applies accent if the note velocity is over 65. maybe yours is the same?

experiment with inserting midi cc events. unfortunately, i'm not experienced with that gear.