By lordradish
Fri Aug 02, 2019 2:30 pm
Hey, folks,
Now that I've had my MPC for a year, I'm getting more serious about recording, but I have a particular dilemma here, in that regard, that I could use some advice for.
My primary style of music is ambient/soundscape stuff (in the classic definition of ambient, with very little to no beats), and I also do a lot of old-school Berlin School type stuff (like 70's Tangerine Dream). I use my Live more as a sequencer, than anything else.
At the center of my synth setup is my access Virus TI2. Generally, the way I make music with it is I use its multitimbral mode, with anywhere from 1 to 16 sounds (1 per channel), and then just go through the Live to do everything, it works great, and will even be better, once the multi-midi issue is fixed in the upcoming updates.
Here's my dilemma. The Virus has three stereo outputs (four if you count the SPDIF, which doesn't play well with my Focusrites). Generally, when I set up a multitimbral bank, I map each to 1 of 3 outputs. Channels 1, 4, 7, etc go to output one, 2,5,8 etc go to output two and 3, 6, 9 etc go to output 3. When I'm just jamming out or writing, it works fine, but now that I'm getting down to recording, it's become a problem, because I want to be able to record the individual parts on their own tracks in Reaper, my DAW. For simple things with only three parts, that's fine, but my music can sometimes be a bit complex, and it's not unusual for me to have 5 or more parts playing simultaneously from the Virus.
Now, the problem is, Reaper syncs with MTC, but all of my synths (Virus, Moog Sub 37, Alesis Micron) sync with MIDI clock. To keep all of my syths in sync, I use MIDI clock with the Live as the master, and it's worked well, thus far.
So what I'd like to be able to do is, when I do multitrack recording of finished compositions, is record three parts at a time. One DAW track each of #1, #2, #3 (soloed), then go back again and mute those, and record the next three parts that come (4,5,6). The problem, as I see it, is how to keep everything in sync. If I switch the Live to MTC from clock, it will start/stop the DAW recording in sync, but then I lose the ability to sync all of my synths, because those only work with MIDI clock.
I haven't tried anything, yet, but the only solution I can think of is to, before recording, manually go into each synth and set the BPM, and then use the MTC code to start the DAW. Not being connected to each other, though, I don't know how well the arpeggios and rythyms will sync up. The Virus doesn't work too well as a master clock, as it makes some controls laggy (it's always been a prob with this synth).
Hoping I explained this, properly, is that really my only option for my scenario? This was kind of hard to explain, so if I can word this better, please let me know.
Thanks.
Now that I've had my MPC for a year, I'm getting more serious about recording, but I have a particular dilemma here, in that regard, that I could use some advice for.
My primary style of music is ambient/soundscape stuff (in the classic definition of ambient, with very little to no beats), and I also do a lot of old-school Berlin School type stuff (like 70's Tangerine Dream). I use my Live more as a sequencer, than anything else.
At the center of my synth setup is my access Virus TI2. Generally, the way I make music with it is I use its multitimbral mode, with anywhere from 1 to 16 sounds (1 per channel), and then just go through the Live to do everything, it works great, and will even be better, once the multi-midi issue is fixed in the upcoming updates.
Here's my dilemma. The Virus has three stereo outputs (four if you count the SPDIF, which doesn't play well with my Focusrites). Generally, when I set up a multitimbral bank, I map each to 1 of 3 outputs. Channels 1, 4, 7, etc go to output one, 2,5,8 etc go to output two and 3, 6, 9 etc go to output 3. When I'm just jamming out or writing, it works fine, but now that I'm getting down to recording, it's become a problem, because I want to be able to record the individual parts on their own tracks in Reaper, my DAW. For simple things with only three parts, that's fine, but my music can sometimes be a bit complex, and it's not unusual for me to have 5 or more parts playing simultaneously from the Virus.
Now, the problem is, Reaper syncs with MTC, but all of my synths (Virus, Moog Sub 37, Alesis Micron) sync with MIDI clock. To keep all of my syths in sync, I use MIDI clock with the Live as the master, and it's worked well, thus far.
So what I'd like to be able to do is, when I do multitrack recording of finished compositions, is record three parts at a time. One DAW track each of #1, #2, #3 (soloed), then go back again and mute those, and record the next three parts that come (4,5,6). The problem, as I see it, is how to keep everything in sync. If I switch the Live to MTC from clock, it will start/stop the DAW recording in sync, but then I lose the ability to sync all of my synths, because those only work with MIDI clock.
I haven't tried anything, yet, but the only solution I can think of is to, before recording, manually go into each synth and set the BPM, and then use the MTC code to start the DAW. Not being connected to each other, though, I don't know how well the arpeggios and rythyms will sync up. The Virus doesn't work too well as a master clock, as it makes some controls laggy (it's always been a prob with this synth).
Hoping I explained this, properly, is that really my only option for my scenario? This was kind of hard to explain, so if I can word this better, please let me know.
Thanks.