External tempo control / using MIDI?

Hello all,

I have a problem I wondered you might be able to help me solve...
I'm a 1000 user but have never really used anything outside the box til now.

I won't bore you with details, but I'm going to be running an experiment for which I need participants to adjust the tempo of a rhythm track to their preferred tempo.

They could do this using the data wheel on the MPC, but I would rather they could not see the screen / bpm counter, and also rather I could cue the next tracks / read off the bpm without being in the room with them.

So I'm wondering if anyone can help me and think of a way that I could give them external control of the tempo, while I have the MPC in the next room. I thought it might be possible to assign tempo change to a MIDI controller but can't figure it out, maybe it isn't... Any ideas greatly appreciated!

Thanks

Nick

What other gear do you plan to use? Which version of JJ?

If you are not using a device that sends MIDI clock, you can highlight the tempo field on your MPC and have the master device send notes to increment the data wheel.

http://www7a.biglobe.ne.jp/~mpc1000/os2xl/button.htm

This could be dangerous tho.

Maybe you can use tap-tempo? Or another external device that has a tap-tempo and then send that to the mpc.

Also, things like Ableton Live allow you to sync up to a click track (audio). Maybe thats a better option?

Thanks guys,

I'm on free JJOS, I have an m-audio oxygen8 v2 midi keyboard and also Reason.

Bathmutz: sending tap-tempo from an external device to the mpc is a great idea, do you know if it would be possible to send tempo information to the mpc in a similar way but using a wheel on an external device to adjust tempo rather than the tap?

It seems like syncing with software might be the way to do it - I'll have to investigate this.
I tried to assign the tempo in reason to a control knob on the midi keyboard, but because the tempo goes from 0 - 999, the resolution was really low - the smallest twist would change it by 12 bpm. Which is when I thought of the data wheel on the mpc, which is ideal.

thanks for the input!