Syncing MPC with DAW?

Sorry if I don't use the right terminology I'm still new to a lot of this.Ok I've been using an mpc for about 3 months now. The whole beat would be done on an mpc and then I would just record it through my software as one track(use to use logic, now using Sonar). Obviously this kind of method doesn't give me many mixing options. I wanted to have all my tracks from the mpc have their own individual track in the software so I can mix it up nicely. The problem I'm having is figuring out how to have the mpc time up perfectly with the software when I record an individual track. What I've been doing is basically hitting play on my mpc when the software metronome counts off the 4 clicks. This doesn't work to well because I'll have tracks that are off by a millisecond and makes everything sound wrong. What is the right way to do this? I know there has to be a more organized way.

What MPC do you have?
You can do this syncing with MIDI clock or MTC and setting tracks to solo one by one
Set your MPC as slave and DAW soft as master...
I work with 4k and nuendo and it works better when I set MPC as master anyway (using MTC)
I never used Logic or Sonar so I can´t tell u where that sync option is, but it should be easy to set...

Good luck

MTC is the way, I always slave my MPC and leave an empty bar in front of everything I record to give the sync time to get rolling.

PS... Have you tried moving/sliding tracks in Sonar? 1 ms is not much off and I would have trouble hearing it unless you are talking about phasing problems (like a flanger effect).

Lithion wrote:http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KG4Nzjc0tRY

you say because you're on a mac you have to use that audio midi program. what is that?

EducatedHands wrote:

Lithion wrote:http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KG4Nzjc0tRY

you say because you're on a mac you have to use that audio midi program. what is that?

I'm not exactly sure to be honest. It basically lets the mac know what I am planning to synch to it, and through where. So like if I have multiple ins and outs, the mac acts as a hub when I can switch midi I/O's quickly.

i still think midi **** up the mpc swing.

i use my 2KXL with Logic. Ive never used Sonar tho so i'm not sure how to set things up. If you ever go back to logic I can give help you out with how i have my stuff setup. I was having problems for a while and just recently got it all working. i was going nuts trying to figure it out on my own, so I dont mind helping, to save someone else the grief hah. good luck bro.

and audio midi setup is basically just a virtual audio interface within OS X. just shows whatever audio/midi devices you have connected to your computer. and lets you route blah blah.

robgold wrote:Sorry if I don't use the right terminology I'm still new to a lot of this.Ok I've been using an mpc for about 3 months now. The whole beat would be done on an mpc and then I would just record it through my software as one track(use to use logic, now using Sonar). Obviously this kind of method doesn't give me many mixing options. I wanted to have all my tracks from the mpc have their own individual track in the software so I can mix it up nicely. The problem I'm having is figuring out how to have the mpc time up perfectly with the software when I record an individual track. What I've been doing is basically hitting play on my mpc when the software metronome counts off the 4 clicks. This doesn't work to well because I'll have tracks that are off by a millisecond and makes everything sound wrong. What is the right way to do this? I know there has to be a more organized way.

With the addition of a multi input soundcard & the 8 output option for your mpc, you should be able to catch your mpc takes all in one pass if everything is sync'd properly.

to sync it nice using MTC , which preserves the T.C. settings in your sequences:

>start by pressing mode - pad 9, then pressing sync, and setting 'sync in' to 1:slave.

>go to main screen, highlight the seq/song position numbers (just under 'bars'), press window button, and set your frame rate and start time there (normally 25FPS is the default in a lot of DAWs...its the default for the mpc1000,mpc2000 & 2000xl, and for logic too...) (usually the default start time in DAW's is 01h00m00sec00fr. in the mpc is default set to 00h00m00fr. you wanna have the same start time in the mpc and DAW, so set the mpc to 01h00m00f (normal default time on most DAW's) and make sure your DAW is set the same too, or..... set your DAW to start at 00h00m00fr, and the mpc at 00h00m00fr....

>set the tempo on the mpc to exactly the same tempo as the DAW.

> set your DAW to transmit MTC at 25FPS to the midi input of your mpc. when you press play on the sequencer, the mpc will chase and sync to it.... voila!

>>** you might notice the first 1/8 note is fugged ub cause of the time to start it up from receiving the signal at 01h00m00f. so , i put an extra bar of silence at the beginning of my song before i track it out to my DAW. then i just cut off the first bar of the recorded tracks in the DAW, and drag the tracks back a lil bit (yeah its weird but my mpc1k actually plays EARLY by a few samples when it synced up to MTC...)

>> if you use midi clock and spp, it syncs real real nice, quicker start up then MTC, but your T.C. swing values will be lost from the tracks...

sorry to bump an old ass thread.

so i finally got MIDI working with my DAW and am able to control my MPC from my DAW and track from the audio outs (synched). but i was wondering this:

while tracking, is it possible for my DAW to stop recording when my MPC stops? i've set LOOP to OFF, but the thing just keeps recording, so i still have to end up editing my wave files.