MPC 3.6.0 Clip Matrix, tempo change events in clips?

Anybody try this yet?

I would like to use tempo changes in a short clip to act as a transition row between two rows at different tempos.

I think I have figured out global tempo vs. row tempo although I'm not 100% sure of this.

Sometimes I wind up with tempo change events in clips that I did not explicitly put there. It is also not clear what relationship there is between Global Tempo, Row Set Tempo, and Tempo Change events in one or more clips in a row.

Last night I tried making an 8 bar drum track in row 7 and put 4 tempo change events in it.

It seemed like the tempo change events actually wound up in the previous clip I had been editing (in row eight).

I'll have to try it again tonight and on a fresh project.

Anyone using clip matrix?

Thanks,

DL

All right I did a test and think I understand it a bit better.

You have a 3 4-bar clips, one on each row in a single track.
Let's suppose you set "Row tempo" to 105 for row 1.
Select clip on row 1, Edit clip, go to list edit and add a tempo change event on beat 3.
First thing that happens is that you get two tempo change events, one on beat 3 and one on beat 1, both at 105.
You can change the tempo event on beat 3 to 95.
Now go and look at the clips on rows 2 and 3.
Each one has the exact same tempo events.
So apparently the clips are all given the same tempo change events so they stay in sync with each other.

I have not added more tracks to see what happens there but I have my suspicions. I also don't know what happens when the clips have different lengths.

In order to accomplish what I wanted, which was e.g. to set row 2 to be transitional (in this case, drums only) tempo wise between row 1 and row 3, what I did was to unset "Set Tempo" on row 2. Now, when I switch from row 1 to row 2, row 2 picks up row 1's tempo.

Then I can tap at the upper right and select the global tempo and dial that down to whatever I want.

From there I can select row 3. If I unselect "Set Tempo" for row 3, then it will start at whatever the current global tempo is. Otherwise it will jump to whatever the set tempo is.

Hope this makes sense, I don't think it's really explained in the manual although I'll look anyway.

I finally got a response from Akai 2nd level support who told me it's NOT POSSIBLE to set per row tempo in Clip Matrix mode, which is clearly not true. What is funny is that this is exactly what chatGPT told me a week or two ago which really confused me. Be interesting to see if it ever comes around.

Digital Larry wrote:What is funny is that this is exactly what chatGPT told me a week or two ago which really confused me. Be interesting to see if it ever comes around.

I wouldn't give too much on ChatGPT. It is happily inventing features and configuration options.

Masi wrote:

Digital Larry wrote:What is funny is that this is exactly what chatGPT told me a week or two ago which really confused me. Be interesting to see if it ever comes around.

I wouldn't give too much on ChatGPT. It is happily inventing features and configuration options.

Well yeah, thought I'd give it a try. I'm lucky to get 50% accurate info out of it, on the MPC One anyway.

My point was more that Akai support seems to be using it rather than their own documentation or experience.

More updates here...

I've been using Clip Matrix extensively on one project.

I've tried Set Tempo on or off.

Recently I was getting some weird behavior, where the clip was launching neither at its own nor at the global tempo. Also some rows didn't seem like they launched at the right tempo. So far, I have eliminated these problems by going into list edit on the affected row and making sure there are no tempo change events. In one case I had two tempo change events both at 1:0:0 for different tempos. If you looped this section too long then it would change tempos eventually, which is also odd.

What do you think should happen with clip tempo events? Should they override per-row or global tempo settings? Do you think it would be helpful for the system to say e.g. "You have tempo change events in addition to Row Tempo", then whatever is expected to happen should happen.

At the moment I am avoiding using clip tempo events.

Digital Larry wrote:More updates here...

I've been using Clip Matrix extensively on one project.

I've tried Set Tempo on or off.

Recently I was getting some weird behavior, where the clip was launching neither at its own nor at the global tempo. Also some rows didn't seem like they launched at the right tempo. So far, I have eliminated these problems by going into list edit on the affected row and making sure there are no tempo change events. In one case I had two tempo change events both at 1:0:0 for different tempos. If you looped this section too long then it would change tempos eventually, which is also odd.

What do you think should happen with clip tempo events? Should they override per-row or global tempo settings? Do you think it would be helpful for the system to say e.g. "You have tempo change events in addition to Row Tempo", then whatever is expected to happen should happen.

At the moment I am avoiding using clip tempo events.

Make sure each clip Launch Quantization is set up the same.

B-Wise wrote:Make sure each clip Launch Quantization is set up the same.

Yeah good point, although that set when things will switch rather than tempo IIRC. I am trying to follow my tradition from Ableton, which was most often to quantize on a 4 bar boundary as that's about where I want it to switch most of the time. Trouble with Akai's Clip Matrix in this regard is that there's no counter visible so it's pretty tough to figure out when it's really going to switch. Some of my clips are fairly long so unless you wait until right near the end it's a bit unpredictable.

As far as what to do about it, I'd recommend "some sort" of visual indication that a quantize boundary just went by (or is approaching).

Digital Larry wrote:

B-Wise wrote:Make sure each clip Launch Quantization is set up the same.

Yeah good point, although that set when things will switch rather than tempo IIRC. I am trying to follow my tradition from Ableton, which was most often to quantize on a 4 bar boundary as that's about where I want it to switch most of the time. Trouble with Akai's Clip Matrix in this regard is that there's no counter visible so it's pretty tough to figure out when it's really going to switch. Some of my clips are fairly long so unless you wait until right near the end it's a bit unpredictable.

As far as what to do about it, I'd recommend "some sort" of visual indication that a quantize boundary just went by (or is approaching).

They should a play clip to end before it switch to the next clip you press.

They do have clip progress bars at some placing showing you when the clip is about to finish, but this is something they could get better at, especially when each clip can be different sizes & have different Launch Quantize settings. Things can get really messy.

Digital Larry wrote:Recently I was getting some weird behavior, where the clip was launching neither at its own nor at the global tempo. Also some rows didn't seem like they launched at the right tempo. So far, I have eliminated these problems by going into list edit on the affected row and making sure there are no tempo change events. In one case I had two tempo change events both at 1:0:0 for different tempos. If you looped this section too long then it would change tempos eventually, which is also odd.

What do you think should happen with clip tempo events? Should they override per-row or global tempo settings? Do you think it would be helpful for the system to say e.g. "You have tempo change events in addition to Row Tempo", then whatever is expected to happen should happen.

Tempo change events are on a per sequence level.

As far as I can see the same is true for clips. That is, all clips have the same tempo automation as the sequence. This is easily seen when you draw a wild temp curve.

So row tempo should have - and has - lesser priority than tempo automation.

In my tests the tempo automation loops over the length of the sequence (in case the clip is looping). You can edit the automation over the lenght of the longest clip (in clip edit), but during playback the length of the sequence determines which part of tempo automation has any effect.

But you write about temp change events. How do you add them? The automation does not add them and in the event list I find no option to add tempo change events.