timing difference between export vs recording to DAW

I feel like this must be discussed somewhere but my search yielded nothing. Maybe I'm not using the right terms? Anyway...

There is a difference in tempo when exporting a track vs when recording the audio outputs of the MPC.

I use the MPC One in standalone (My computer / Pro Tools Rig is too old to install MPC software).
So I usually Explode/ Export tracks to an SD card and then Import them from SD card into DAW (Pro tools).
All seems well, however...

Once I'm working in DAW, at some point I will want to add more elements/ fills/ change-ups etc from the MPC. To do this I would like to just record the new elements as audio rather than keep swapping the SD card back and forth doing "Audio Mixdown" exports/imports.
The problem is, the recorded audio from MPC will drift in timing from what was imported to the DAW originally.
I'm not using Midi Beat Clock or anything to trigger MPC when recording the audio. Rather I do the "extra bar of clicks" method and line up the first click in the DAW visually and with sample accurate precision. But by the second click, they are already out of sync with each other and the timing just drifts further from there.

Just to confirm this, Ive done side by side tests with various sounds/ drum loops as well...
If I export/import a few bars of a drum loop and then record the same drum loop as audio on another track to play side by side, I can line them up in phase at the start, but each following pad trigger of the loop will be various degrees out of phase with each other on playback.

So what gives? It seems that using the Audio Mixdown "export" functions of the MPC is making subtle changes in the timing of each element. Can others confirm this?
It's not always blatantly obvious, but I swear that what I export/ Import into DAW often has a slightly different "pocket" or groove to it than what I hear from playing from the MPC itself.

I guess I should also note that I'm not doing any type of warping/ "snap to grid" MIDI tempo type of anything in the DAW, so there's no issue on that end...
It's a difference in the audio that the MPC Exports vs the audio that the MPC plays.

It's normal, when not synchronised via MIDI , all MIDI devices will drift tempo. So you need to synchronize MPC Beat with ... your MPC while recording using a MIDI master/slave clock. Master is MPC Beat, the slave is your hardware MPC.

Obviously just bounce the audio from the MPC if you can, since it gives you the result you want.

I ran some tests, and I didn’t observe this kind of tempo drift between audio tracks and MIDI tracks inside standalone mode.

However, as in your example, when I place a WAV exported from the MPC into a DAW and then record the MPC sequencer playback into the DAW as audio, there is a small drift. At 89 BPM over 8 bars, the newly recorded audio ends up about 10 samples early (around 0.2 ms). This isn’t a perceptible tempo difference (even over 80 bars it’s only about 2 ms), but it does suggest that a small amount of drift can occur with this kind of workflow. For clarity, neither WAV is warped, so this isn’t affected by tempo matching or synchronization between the MPC and the DAW.

Elijah wrote:However, as in your example, when I place a WAV exported from the MPC into a DAW and then record the MPC sequencer playback into the DAW as audio, there is a small drift. At 89 BPM over 8 bars, the newly recorded audio ends up about 10 samples early (around 0.2 ms). This isn’t a perceptible tempo difference (even over 80 bars it’s only about 2 ms), but it does suggest that a small amount of drift can occur with this kind of workflow. For clarity, neither WAV is warped, so this isn’t affected by tempo matching or synchronization between the MPC and the DAW.

[quote="Elijah"]

Thanks for confirming. So what is the best workaround? Tracking everything via MPC audio out into DAW is fine with me. But then the recorded tracks will not match the DAW tempo grid throughout the length of a song, making edits/ comps/ copy and pastes difficult over the course of a song. Even with the tempo in DAW set to the exact same as MPC, the recorded audio will drift from the DAW's tempo grid.

mpc_fan_2022 wrote:It's normal, when not synchronised via MIDI , all MIDI devices will drift tempo. So you need to synchronize MPC Beat with ... your MPC while recording using a MIDI master/slave clock. Master is MPC Beat, the slave is your hardware MPC.

Obviously just bounce the audio from the MPC if you can, since it gives you the result you want.

I'm not sure what you mean by [syncing MPC Beat with my MPC]...
Are you referring to using MIDI Beat Clock in DAW (Pro Tools) to trigger MPC One as Slave?
If so, I've had mixed experiences doing it that way in the past. The problem I experienced would be a change in the groove. It would shift some things ever so slightly, but enough to change the feel a bit... the feel that I likely took time and focused on getting just right in the MPC would end up feeling different when tracked out this way. To be fair, I have not used this method with the MPC One, but I did this extensively with an MPC2kXL in years past and would run into this.

As far as just recording the audio into DAW track by track, that seems to maintain the feel, but has to go through an AD conversion to get into DAW, which I would rather avoid 90% of the time. But the more problematic issue is that it will cause issue when editing to the DAW's grid as I just mentioned in my prior post.

modini215 wrote:
Thanks for confirming. So what is the best workaround? Tracking everything via MPC audio out into DAW is fine with me. But then the recorded tracks will not match the DAW tempo grid throughout the length of a song, making edits/ comps/ copy and pastes difficult over the course of a song. Even with the tempo in DAW set to the exact same as MPC, the recorded audio will drift from the DAW's tempo grid.

One possible workaround is to record everything via audio and slightly adjust the DAW’s BPM in decimal increments so the tracks line up with the grid.

For reference, in my own tests with Ableton, syncing it to the MPC via Ableton Link gave very stable recordings.

modini215 wrote:
Thanks for confirming. So what is the best workaround? Tracking everything via MPC audio out into DAW is fine with me. But then the recorded tracks will not match the DAW tempo grid throughout the length of a song, making edits/ comps/ copy and pastes difficult over the course of a song. Even with the tempo in DAW set to the exact same as MPC, the recorded audio will drift from the DAW's tempo grid.

i'm in the same situation as you as my DAW (MuTools) cannot be syncronized (externally)

the only thing i found working for me is tracking out the MPC audio outs (and all other audio) into the DAW, with the same tempo as the [master] MPC and later lining up every audio track manually, as my DAW can set the 1 (manually) and discard the (empty) space before that so that everything lines up eventually

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RVJJD0W ... OQJn&t=188

I use Marco Polo's method in that he will have a reference track with a distinct transient like a click track, kick, etc, then every recording pass is lined up to that reference track. He's multi-tracking out via the 8 analogue outputs of the 2000 XL into an 8 channel interface.

This method, works best for me. I've been multi-tracking since the MPC 1000 days, now on the Live 2. However, I have tweaked it a little after trial and error.

What works best for me, is to create a click track in Pro Tools or any DAW at the same BPM as the MPC project. Record the click track to an audio track for 2 bars. Export the click track as an audio file, then import the click track file into the MPC project on a new sequence. When I'm ready to multi-track into Pro Tools, I'll route everything 1:1 meaning track 1 is the click file (MPC output 1, to interface input 1), kick is track 2, and etc.

The first multi-track record is all 6 outputs with the click track as reference. Every other pass includes the click track. The rest follows what Marco explains in the video.

MIDI sync has never worked for me, despite various manufacturers claiming it will solve drift. Perhaps in a live setting with various machines locked via MIDI they work, but old school analogue multi-track dumps don't care about MIDI sync, as it's just signal via I/O and analogue-digital conversion.