Technical questions for the MPC2000xl and the MPC2000
By thehayn1 Sun Oct 24, 2004 6:50 pm
I have my MPC set up to slave to Pro Tools (running a Digi 001) everything works fine but I want to sync it while the MPC is in song mode... When I do this, and hit play on Pro Tools, it just automatically sends the MPC to the end of the song... PLEASE HELP if you know the cause...

By Kilowax Sun Oct 24, 2004 10:53 pm
Hi,

On MPC first, hold shift and press Midi/sync (9), in the midi field select the midi input from wich you'll receiving data.
Go to Mode field choose Midi Time Code frame 25.
Make sure your step loop is correct & on on, when in song mode.
Now plug your MIDI cable from Digi out to MPC in.

By cooocooo1 Sun Oct 24, 2004 11:16 pm
Sounds to me like you have a marker or midi message making it jump to the end, check and make sure you don't.

PT LE doesn't send MTC (it can receive it though), just use midi beat clock.

Here's some more info about syncing PT and the MPC:

http://www.mpc-forums.com/viewtopic.php?t=18004

By Kilowax Mon Oct 25, 2004 11:57 am
Hi,

"PT LE doesn't send MTC..."
You're wrong, it MTC plus MBC, don't go nowhere but on www.digidesign.com, to get your info :lol: :lol:

If you owns P-T LE (like me) and don't use MTC to sync with ya MP, ya simply missing something :lol: !

My old black&white cubase & atari was sync MTC, it would be a BBBIIIGGG step backward if PT couldn't do it :roll: :lol: :lol: !!!

By cooocooo1 Mon Oct 25, 2004 5:24 pm
If you are correct, it would be nice if you were, please break it down for me. I'd like to be using MTC also.

The fact that PT LE doesn't send MTC goes a long way in supporting their scheme to get you to upgrade to the HD setup. As I said though, if PT LE really can send MTC I would appreciate a step by step on how you were able to achieve it.

You seem to be a lil' upset that I disagreed with the whole MTC thing so just so you know I'm not tryin' to be funny, I'm really interested in learning how to send MTC from PT LE.

By cooocooo1 Mon Oct 25, 2004 7:59 pm
Okay, figured out how to send MTC, can you believe that in all the years I've been using PT I've never been in the Session Setup window, go figure.(while I understand that MTC is really just a form of SMPTE which is not a midi function they could at least put a link to the window in the midi tab)

So far it's kind of a pain in the ass cuz the MMC controls don't appear to be workin' the same and I'm gettin' about 4 more ms of latency but still glad to learn somethin new, I think I'm gonna stick to beat clock for now though.

By the way, to anybody wantin' to send MTC you have to go into the Session Setup window(Windows tab or ctrl+2) and set everything up appropriately.

By Kilowax Tue Oct 26, 2004 1:25 am
Hi,

Wasn't upset at all, and glad you finally find it!
What computer & interface are you using? Asking, cuz of the latency you mention, think that could be resolved...

Peace!

By cooocooo1 Tue Oct 26, 2004 1:38 am
Athlon 64, I use the AMIII card now as I don't have any hardware other than the MPC, I'm using mostly software now. Midi interface is the Event EZBus(USB).

By thehayn1 Tue Oct 26, 2004 7:30 pm
So if I use beat clock, I can use the MPC in song mode right? Is that what you guys are saying? If so how do I set that up?

By Kilowax Wed Oct 27, 2004 1:30 pm
cooocooo1 wrote:Athlon 64, I use the AMIII card now as I don't have any hardware other than the MPC, I'm using mostly software now. Midi interface is the Event EZBus(USB).


To reduce monitor latency: *in set up, go to Hardware Buffer Size, that controls the size of the hardware cache used to handle host processing.
Lower Hardware Buffer size setting reduce monitoring latency.
* in set up go to playback engine, from the CPU usage Limit pop-up menu, select the percentage of CPU processing you want to allocate to P-T.
Higher CPU Usage Limit settings allocate more processing power to P-T.

I hope that will help, that's the way I reduced latency near to 0ms!
I use a G5 2Ghz & Digi002.

By Kilowax Wed Oct 27, 2004 1:58 pm
Ooops, I missed some...

You have to set your DAE Playback Buffer Size, in Setups choose playback engine.
*Lower DAE Playback Buffer size setting can improve playback & recording initiation speed. However, a lower setting can make it difficult for slower hard drives to play or record tracks reliably.
*A higher setting can cause a time lag to occur before playback or recordings begins.It can cause same time lag when editing during playback.

By cooocooo1 Thu Oct 28, 2004 2:55 pm
I appreciate the input Kilowax, I knew all of this already, I wasn't familiar with the MTC settings cuz I was told(and PT definitely makes it seem as though) it didn't send MTC but thanks again for the input.

thehayn1 wrote:So if I use beat clock, I can use the MPC in song mode right? Is that what you guys are saying? If so how do I set that up?


You can use either beat clock or MTC, they will both work. If you're using MTC go into the Session Setups window and make sure that the start times and session offsets are set to 00:00:00:00.