urgent help with MPC 2000xl and axiom 61. please!!!

this might be a long one but here we go: Man oh man! I have never been obsessed over something as much I am right now! been working on this for 10 hours now. Anyway, I have hooked up my midi cables as followed(with the help of Lampdog): set up my reaper down to the teeth, read the manual for my axiom and MPC2000xl and feel like I have gotten about 80% of what it is suppose to do. My Mpc and midi are playing the vst instruments fine, I can play piano keys on both my MPC and axiom, record to reaper and even garageband fine, but when i want to play any of my tracks that I have on my MPC nothing gets recorded or played on my midi or reaper.I have done ever which way possible by changing MIDI/SYNC(MIDI CLOCK, MIDI TIME CODE, FRAME RATE. I have tried by making my MPC as the master and my midi as slave. I got as far as having my chops from MPC on 8 of the 16 pads playing on my midi keys through the mpc audio but it plays as piano notes on my reaper. I have set it up so when I hit play on my MPC, reaper begins to play. I want to track out my beats and each key on my keyboard to play the sample that are on my pads. I have hit a desperate wall now. I feel so down about this, I know there is a solution but I just about have given up. I beg for your help. If you are in san francisco and reading please contact me!!!

okay, so midi out (5 pin din port) on the axiom is going to midi in 1 on the mpc... i think there might be a button on the axiom that you push to choose midi out (i forget because it's been a couple years since i've used mine) but i remember on the little LCD on the axiom it showed a 5 pin din icon.

i suggest on the axiom, you push the midi button (i think it was 2 buttons pressed together to get into that menu) and you have to make sure the keys are working on the correct midi channel. I suggest you set it to channel 1 (there are max 16) and on the mpc make sure it's the same channel. if memory serves me correctly, you should be able to have the axiom's pads and keys set to a different midi channel if you wanted to.

also, i suggest you set the velocity higher on the keys.. you push the 2 buttons for velocity and push + or - to get it to a higher setting.. that way you will know it isn't because you are not slamming the keys.

let me suggest also, once you finally configured it all (it can take a while to figure out) you can use the software client that if for the keyboard on the computer (I forgot the name of it at the moment) and in there, you can upload via midi sysex a profile/snapshot/preset for the configuration.. that way you can easily recall it later if you make changes.

this is simple - yer never going to record audio through midi cables.

learn the difference. plug the audio out of your mpc into reaper somehow, and record audio tracks.

tapedeck wrote:this is simple - yer never going to record audio through midi cables.

learn the difference. plug the audio out of your mpc into reaper somehow, and record audio tracks.

I was recording this way prior to only having my MPC. I want to track out my beats and have them sync. when I recored each individual track into garageband and also reaper it is difficult to have them timed correctly. I thought people use there keyboard to tigger the samples from their MPC and record the sequences from there. what is the Midi time code use for then?

I've done everything you have suggested. except for midi sysex? I do not know anything about this.

so what is the issue then? the keyboard keys are not triggering the samples in the mpc?

sort of? I have partial sounds on the midi keys, e.g.. my mpc has a sample on 12 pads but on my midi it only plays 6 of those and when I record on reaper it plays them as some kind of piano note but when I plug headphones to the mpc it plays what I have recorded. Man, I feel like such moron but that can't be right? I even saved to mp3 what I recorded and it is piano keys

okay through speakers you hear the mpc's sound (the 6 pads)

then through headphones (attached to the computer, not the mpc) you hear some generic piano keys? that says to me that you are recording midi data and it is maybe playing that data back with a piano sound assigned to the midi data instead of sending the recorded midi data back out to the mpc to have the mpc replay the samples.

i think you need to explain the what you are trying to achieve with the mpc, the keyboard, and reaper. If you are only using reaper to record the result you make from the mpc... then they keyboard does not need to be connected to the computer (or active in the daw) .. you need the keyboard to only go midi out into the midi in of the mpc... the audio out (only the audio out) should go to your computer interface.... once you have that working 100%, then maybe you can think about syncing the midi between the mpc and the computer... you probably don't need to be doing that, it may be causing you more problems than it will solve for you.

this is exactly what is happening!!

maybe I am making up some imaginary idea of recording to daw but I thought that you can connect your mpc to midi, record your mpc tracks on your daw as individual tracks, add effects on each track if you like and have your midi keyboard play the chopped up drums from your MPC that you sampled directly on your keyboard and record that sequence into your project? am I suppose to send out each sample through a usb audio interface? i want to be able to hit play and trigger my daw to record at the same time and play it back on my daw. i feel like i am not making any sense at all.

well there is where the confusion lies just as tapedeck said. Midi is not for any audio at all... no audio passes through midi cables. Those are only for midi information (starting and stopping the sequencer (play/stop) of a daw) and/or when you push a key on the midi controller.

In order to record audio, you need an audio interface (if you dont have one) to record the outputs on from the mpc into a daw like reaper.

if you have an interface with only 2 inputs, you have the option of recording the stereo (main) outputs from the mpc and have that audio recorded into the daw. If you have an audio interface with several inputs (there are 8 inputs on the motu ultralite mk3 hybrid for example) and you have the 8 output expansion on the mpc... you can then assign different samples to any of those outputs and record several things from your song at the same time. (multi track recording)


with just a keyboard, mpc, and computer... this is what you can do:
1) you can use the keyboard to trigger the samples you have assigned on pads... what is the point when you have the pads right there... in any case those said samples will be coming from the mpc.
2) you can have the keyboard connected through USB to the computer and use it to trigger sounds coming from reaper.... when you have something in reaper selected and you push a key.. it will play as you may have noticed.
3) you can use the axiom as a midi interface for the computer... this is why it lets you have midi information from the mpc going into reaper. As I said, that info can only be note triggering, or transport... well BPM as well.. (clock sync)

what you would want to do is get an audio interface. What I think you were doing was sending midi note information to the computer and i think you were recording it... what computers sometimes do is when playing back midi information that is not assigned to a sample or instrument is it plays back a generic piano note so that you can hear what the midi info is... the reason for that is because midi is not audio... it is just a set of instructions telling the device what notes are played when and how long they are held down for.

just as you responded I was going to give you an update. this is starting to make some sense. In reaper under INPUT I changed it to mono Left. Now I can record the sounds i have on each pad( with the silent space before because i need to press on a pad) but this seems to be exactly how i was doing on garageband without the need of a midi , so i press record on my daw and hit one of my pads and it records. I get that! but i thought that i could use my midi to trigger a sound and start recording it as soon as i press a key or pad. i am so confused about why having MTC if it is just going to record the moment you press record instead of triggering to record??? when i press play on my MPC my daw plays, this seems right, when i hit stop my daw continues. when i press record on my mpc my daw just plays . how do i track out to my daw then? I am getting clear as to how my keyboard will be used but uncertain about laying out my sequence to daw. on my MPC I chang it from midi to DRUM1 AND I CAN HEAR IT ON MY COMPUTER NOW and when I hit press REC play/start on my MPC it says waiting for MIDI "play" You have been tremendous help.

okay, well some daws have a feature called "play on input" or "record on input" that would get the daw to start when you hit a key.

As for your transport controls and them not working except for the play button... first make sure that reaper is master and mpc is slave... because you want reaper doing the recording and sequencing judging by what you are saying... that might just allow for the record button on the mpc to arm the daw for recording when you push the play button but im not 100% sure. If that doesn't work, maybe the issue is that you want to have the mpc output as midi MMC if possible. (It's been a while) ..

if that doesn't work, the daw may not be set up with same MIDI CC numbers that the mpc is sending for the record button... maybe you can find out how to check or change reaper's midi implementation chart settings. I don't know personally, but maybe you can look into it if the other things don't work.

now, down to the workflow part... it sounds like you want reaper to record you pushing pads live (maybe finger drumming in real time?) and you don't want to click record and then hop over to the mpc because then you have to fix a gap at the front. Well I think there may be a feature called "count in" that will make the metronome click 1-2-3-4 before it starts recording... that exists so you can start playing on time.


alternatively, the MPC does have that built in, so maybe you can forget reaper for now... make the mpc the master... and make the beat in the mpc sequencing everything from the mpc internally in the mpc... then recording the result from that into reaper followed by adding the remaining stuff you want to do in reaper over the top.

if that is your interface.. you can do 1 sound at a time in the mpc by solo-ing each pad on the mpc and recording the beat.. one by one. then in reaper you will have each sound on their own track so you can mix or put unique fx on each of the tracks.

update: I got reaper to external timecode synchronization and when I hit play, it plays exactly what I have recorded on track 1 on my MPC. this is a step forward for sure but now I am stuck at recording it . when i press rec it flashes ready "READY FOR TIMECODE" I press record and all it does is play the track on my MPC without recording it and continues to play with no sound because I have set my loop to off. at least now I have my MPC sync with my daw its just a matter of time and figuring out how to record it. I set the loop off since all i want is to track out my tracks.

mr_debauch wrote:alternatively, the MPC does have that built in, so maybe you can forget reaper for now... make the mpc the master... and make the beat in the mpc sequencing everything from the mpc internally in the mpc... then recording the result from that into reaper followed by adding the remaining stuff you want to do in reaper over the top.

if that is your interface.. you can do 1 sound at a time in the mpc by solo-ing each pad on the mpc and recording the beat.. one by one. then in reaper you will have each sound on their own track so you can mix or put unique fx on each of the tracks.

in terms of MPC as a master and making it all internally, I already do that now. here is a sample of one of my beats, please take to consideration that I have only had my MPC2000xl for 2 months :

I appreciate all of your time here, you have spent many hours working with me and I have succeeded on many levels. to recap what I want to do:

(all recorded on 4 bars)

I have drums on pad 1
snares on track 2
hh on 3
clap on 4
etc etc...

I want to put the same amount of tracks and bars on reaper so i can add effects if i want to any of them. makes sense so far?

i want to add piano and any other sounds coming from my axiom ( this is making more sense now)

I don't think I want to record on my daw live drum playing, to be honest I never thought about recording drumming sense I feel like it takes me a few takes to get it right.

okay... do you know how to record audio into reaper? what you need to maybe do is set up some audio tracks and arm them to record audio (from the inputs the mpc is connected to) ...

maybe you can use the manual for reaper to see how recording audio is done... that might be quicker.. it looks like every other part of what you are doing is set up and working now. it's just getting all of that to happen while reaper is recording it.

basically i think you should focus on recording the parts you have in the mpc first... then after that, go and add keys.. don't try and record everything at once or else it will be impossible.