Count in/tempo/bpm/edit Question

Ok so i'm starting to get my head round this machine and i have a couple questions, i will try and explain what i mean....
I'm a drummer and whilst metronomes have their uses i much prefer playing without one.
Is there a way to have a metronome count in before the recording starts but not continue over my playing?
Secondly and this is a little trickier to explain, but is there a way of playing a beat without a set bpm, then finding its bpm and setting it after... i guess maybe like sampling the internal recording...?
Thanks

sweet thanks i will try all that out momentarily, only thing is i just went to sample screen and it doesnt seem possible to sample the internal audio?

just tried the count in thing... didnt work, i just get no metronome at all. also tried setting it to 'wait for key', which was good because then i can do the count in in my head... but then when i go to play back the recording after both hitting a pad to trigger it and also turning off the 'wait for key' option, the loop i just recorded is no longer there ....?

update: the count in steps you said about work if you select REC+PLAY.... not REC ONLY.... but then it didnt save the loop i played....

48RAX093 wrote:update: the count in steps you said about work if you select REC+PLAY.... not REC ONLY.... but then it didnt save the loop i played....

you need to hit 'record' or 'overdub' + 'play start' to actually record the sequence. then the first steps martian explained will work.

i still think you might want the metronome on during actual recording, but just play with it to figure out your own style.

48RAX093 wrote:sweet thanks i will try all that out momentarily, only thing is i just went to sample screen and it doesnt seem possible to sample the internal audio?

Set your sample "input" to MAIN OUT. That's how you do it on the 2500. I'm sure its the same for the 2000.

Thanks people you're all very helpful. I pretty much figured it all out anyway... just teething problems lol. Aaaanyways Im now getting disk read error when i try to put floppies in....
I also aquired an mpc1000 which i was going to sell to a friend but after playing around with it today.... I dont like the feel of it as much as the 2kxl... i was really enjoying it, but the ease of use is making me lean towards keeping the 1k instead.
Is there any simple fix for this disk read error? i tried looking it up but didnt really find a decent answer... im proper broke and need to shift the xl fast but id prefer to be able to say that its fully working before i do that.

its got jjos 2xl =]
any ideas what to do about the disk read error?