Exchange tips and tricks for the Akai MPC4000
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By JUKE 179r Fri Nov 30, 2012 10:06 pm
Mind control is next...
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By feline1 Sun Dec 02, 2012 9:41 pm
I'm holding out for the Microsoft Surface Pro.

It has an ordinary Windows OS and ordinary USB outputs, so you don't need all this bloody custom bespoke wierd iOS gubbins to do stuff.
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By Ibunshi Fri Jan 11, 2013 5:03 pm
clint246clint wrote:Sysex, touchscreens, environments, aksys, iPads... What's the news on controlling the 4000 remotely in 2012?


...or for 2013?

I'd love to control my 4k with a big touchscreen!
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By feline1 Sat Jan 12, 2013 7:31 pm
Microsoft Surface Pro should be out on Jan 26th, I have cash ready to buy one :)

I can hook it up to my RME Fireface UCX soundcard with a USB lead.

All I need is a good program for making touch sensitive MIDI-enabled widgits. Any suggestions? I know there's the whole Max thing, but that's rather over-priced and over-complicated for what I need.
By foge1 Wed Jan 16, 2013 9:50 am
Hey feline
How about an old version of logic for the PC i.e. logic 4 or 5, just use the environment to send sysex messages I found it easy once I had sorted out the message format from the mpc manual.

G
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By feline1 Wed Jan 16, 2013 11:12 am
I'm sure that would work well, but would it not be expensive and/or bloatware? (I use Reaper as my DAW, I've no desire to start faffing around in Logic)
By foge1 Thu Jan 17, 2013 12:22 am
Expensive I doubt it . Logic 4 or 5 has no resale value now.
Only gonna be designed for old versions of windows though.

If u use reaper then have u investigated the js plugin environment it does audio plugins it might do midi/Sysex messages.

Pure data is free that would surely do it.
There has to be loads of ways to do it on a pc.

I am on my phone so can't really check much
But what about touchosc? Don't know if they have a windows app or just the editor.
G
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By Metatron72 Thu Jan 17, 2013 12:28 am
foge1 wrote:Pure data is free that would surely do it.
There has to be loads of ways to do it on a pc.

But what about touchosc? Don't know if they have a windows app or just the editor.
G


Just the editor for the desktop on Touch OSC. PD Free is probably the easiest way on PC to facilitate the MIDI messages/mappings.

I know Feline said he's looking to avoid iOS in trying to set this up though. Personally I wouldn't be surprised if some of the iOS touch/MIDI apps get ported to the new Windows Tablets as the new machines and OS achieve greater marketshare.

TouchOSC was ported to Android but outside of iOS there haven't been a lot of options for developers to port these apps. Again I could see that changing before too long.
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By feline1 Thu Jan 17, 2013 10:20 am
yeah I've heard of TouchOSC, it would be due a port to Windows if the Windows tablets take off.

I haven't used Pd since 1998 when it was alpha-ware on SGI Irix platform, I wasn't too impressed with its crap-ware crashability then but one might hope it's matured a little in the past 15 years 8)
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By damien907 Thu Jan 17, 2013 11:52 pm
this is one of the most amazing things ive ever seen done with an mpc. just to get it clear though, your mpc must be hooked up to logic for it to work? im trying to envision actually installing logic on the touchscreen (or maybe an ipad app that send sysex messages) so you could cut out the computer totally.


anyway, great work man, i would love to see a longer beat making video of you constructing a full basic beat with it, while going through the steps your doing on the touchscreen and the mpc at the same time.
ie.

first im turning on the mpc, and loading up the touchscreen, now im assiging a sample to pad a1-15 by pressing _________ and now im trimming the melody chop on pad ____ by pressing _____ on the touch screen.

also, can you set your loop points via the touchscreen with this?

really really groundbreaking stuff man, would love to see what it evolves into.

do you guys suppose this would work with any other mpc as well? specifically a 1k running jjos2xl?

also, do you have to save the sysex dumps with each project within the mpc and logic? im wondering this:
does your mpc and logic reset all its funcitons each time you power it on, unless you re-dump the sysex data?

i remember when i was playing with sysex once it was vital that you save the dump messsage or something, or else you would lose it next time.
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By Coz Fri Jan 18, 2013 3:08 am
damien907 wrote:really really groundbreaking stuff man, would love to see what it evolves into.



Unfortunately this is an old thread and the OP has moved onto the Ren. :(

I don't know who else would be capable of packaging this into an iOS app, but the sound design possibilities would be amazing. 8)
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By Metatron72 Fri Jan 18, 2013 6:29 am
Coz wrote:
damien907 wrote:really really groundbreaking stuff man, would love to see what it evolves into.



Unfortunately this is an old thread and the OP has moved onto the Ren. :(

I don't know who else would be capable of packaging this into an iOS app, but the sound design possibilities would be amazing. 8)


I should disclose upfront I'm hardly well versed enough in SysEx MIDI voodoo to actually delve too deep into it myself yet but...as far as I can tell Lemur on iOS seems like it could do all this stuff if a good template was constructed.

The one issue for me if I do want to delve deeper into this (I'm willing to struggle with learning the template editor for Lemur if I know it will work in the end), is that the Alesis dock I use won't transmit SysEx. Brilliant bunch those In Music guys. :roll:

I'll probably still look into it with the CCK+an E-MU class compliant MIDI box+a hub to power it.

damien907, I think that Lemur and likely TouchOSC could be made to work with the assignable CC stuff in JJOS2XL. It's likely I'll look into that first as it would be much less complex than the 4000/SysEx stuff.

Again, I'm just a guy who has this stuff here at the house, I'm no expert. But I will be giving it a more serious look and hopefully return with some more insight into how well Lemur and TouchOSC can be used for these purposes.
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By feline1 Fri Jan 18, 2013 10:52 am
damien907 wrote:this is one of the most amazing things ive ever seen done with an mpc. just to get it clear though, your mpc must be hooked up to logic for it to work?


No, any software that lets you draw a bunch of sliders and buttons, and assign custom (mostly SysEx) MIDI messages to them will work.

Other examples include Max, Pd, TouchOsc and of course Akai's own Ak.sys.
(the difference between Ak.Sys and the others is that it works with a USB driver to send MIDI down the USB cable - whereas all the rest will be doing it down an ordinary MIDI lead to your MPC's MIDI IN I or II port)
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By Coz Fri Jan 18, 2013 11:32 am
Metatron72 wrote:Again, I'm just a guy who has this stuff here at the house, I'm no expert. But I will be giving it a more serious look and hopefully return with some more insight into how well Lemur and TouchOSC can be used for these purposes.



You're the closest we've got to a volunteer, so hopefully you can make some progress with it! Are there any docks out there that do transmit SysEx messages? I'm a "technical antitalent" in this area, so I'm clueless as to how to get it working.

I can just see the potential from what the OP got underway. The only difference is we should be able to do this from a touchscreen phone/tablet in 2013. :smoker:
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By damien907 Sat Jan 19, 2013 12:37 am
metatron, taht would be dope if you could try to mess with it. i didnt realize this was such an old thread.

from what i remember from my sysex lesson, (we were using an s90 keyboard, and logic 7) we had to do some specific saves/steps or it wouldnt work when we re opened the program again ill try to email my old instructor and show him the video and maybe he could shed some light for us.