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Looper's Delight
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Hi Andy. Thanks for chiming in. In case you didn't see any of my other emails, here is a description that very carefully explains just about everything you might need to know regarding the issuers I'm having. And anybody else is welcome to chime in too. _________________________________________________ Here is the info... I want my looping rig to be reliable, trustworthy, and solid. I want to program songs and automate performances with my MPC 1000 and my 2 EDP's and be able to go out and perform with predictable accuracy. I don't want to be worried that they're going to be reacting to phantom commands or that my Bass and my Guitar might go out of sync at any time. Aren't they suppose to be pretty solid as far as locking in sync? Well I'm having some issues and I'd like to figure out what I'm doing wrong. This is what I am using... MPC 1000 Echoplex Digital Pro + w/efc7 (#1 for guitar to it's own amp) Echoplex Digital Pro + w/efc7 (#2 for Bass to it's own amp) FCB1010 Alesis QSR AdrenaLinn II Novation SL37 ReMOTE I have 2 BlackFace EDP+ taking commands from an MPC 1000. I have a relatively short song that I have sequenced, less than 160 measures of 4/4. Both EDP's Sync=In and the MPC is set to send sync out of all it's MIDI ports. (With the EDP's Sync=In, the BrotherSync is ignored. The brother sync jacks are connected with TRS, but it hasn't shown to act different if that cable is there or not.) At the very beginning I have a couple of measures dedicated to sending a general restart command (note #62), a patch change command to each unit to choose the appropriate Preset for each EDP, and a couple of CC messages to make sure that both volume and feedback are set to 127. Both EDP's track the incoming MIDI clock and settle on the tempo before the first record command starts. 1. Sometimes for no apparent reason the first EDP will jump into Record before the note # 38 is actually programed to be sent. So I push stop on the MPC1000 and push PlayStart again, and then it works as it should. But there is no telling when it's going to jump into record too soon at the beginning of this song. I would like it to not do this. I want it to only go into record when it's told to, and the way it's told to. So when it doesn't react to a phantom record command and it acts as it should, then EDP #1(my guitar) receives a Record message (note #38) and with SwitchQuant=Loop, it waits for the next down beat to go into Record. I then strum 4 basic chords with clean tone over 4 measures. Just before the end of the 4th measure I send it another Record command (note #38) and it waits until the end of that measure and ends the recording and plays back "Guitar Loop 1". During that Play back of my 4 measure "Loop 1" I step on my big muff and before the end of the the 4th measure the MPC 1000 sends a Next Loop command (note #44) to this same EDP. With SwitchQuant=Loop and with LoopCopy=Snd, it copies Loop 1 to Loop 2, and goes into overdub, and I am now outlining the 4 chords with a fuzzy staccato. Near the end of the 4th measure the MPC sends a record command closing the loop at the end of the 4th measure. I now have "Guitar Loop 2" playing. I have enough time to put down my guitar and pick up my Bass. I play a bass line made up of the Root notes of the 4 guitar chords and near the end of the 4 measure loop the MPC sends a record command to the second EDP. With SwitchQuant=Loop It wait's for the the next down beat and then goes into record. I record version one of the bass line, also 4 measures, then near the end of that 4th measure the MPC sends a NextLoop command. With AutoRecord=On and LoopCopy=Off, it closed Loop 1 and goes right into recording Loop 2. I record the second version of the Bass line on Loop 2. Again, at the end of the 4th measure, the MPC sends another Next Loop command and I go into recording the third version of the Bass line on Loop 3. Following me so far? So now I have 2 Guitar Loops and 3 Bass Loops. I have different drums for Verses, Choruses, and Solos. I don't have a bridge yet. Some of the drums are in the MPC 1000 and others are from the AdreanaLinn II. I send patch changes to the AdreanaLinn II in order to select different drum sequences or a sequence without drums. I have a track in the MPC 1000 that is sending a basic 4 chord triad progression to my Alesis QSR. I then use Loop Trigger Commands (Loop1=Note84, Loop2=Note85, Loop3=Note86) to arrange the song into verses, choruses, and solos. THE BIG PROBLEM is that 9 times out of 10 the 2 EDP's loose sync with each other. The one time out of 10 that it does stay in sync is great, but that's not reliable. I can't go out in front of people and embarrass myself with that sort of unpredictability. At first I had MPC 1000 out A > FCB1010 > EDP1 > EDP2. Making the second EDP the third device. Connected to the other MPC out port (out B) was my Alesis QSR and the AdreanaLinn II. I thought the problem with the EDP's losing sync might have been because I had too many devices in a serial MIDI stream. So I changed it. Second configuration had MPC1000 out A > FCB1010 > EDP1 > AdreanaLinn II. And MPC1000 out B > EDP2 > Alesis QSR. Now EDP 1 was the second device on MIDI out A and EDP 2 was the first device on MIDI out B. But the sync problems continue. So I changed it again. Third configuration I decided to make both EDPs the first device connected to each MIDI output. So I took the FCB1010 out of the configuration completely. So now it is... MPC1000 out A > EDP1 > AdreanaLinn II. And MPC1000 out B > EDP2 > Alesis QSR. THEY STILL LOSE SYNC almost every time! And with any of the attempted configurations it has been unpredictable as to where it will lose sync. It's not always the same place. Last night I programed the MPC to send a ReAlign command to both EDPs at the end of each 4 bar loop just before it starts over again. The ReAlign commands are programed to fire off after any loop trigger commands. I only tested it once last night but it seamed to force everything to stay in place. But being that they lose sync 9 times out of 10, I might have just had that lucky one time. I'm about the test the sequence again. In any case, I was hoping that it wouldn't require this. But if it's the only way I can reliably trust it to perform with them, then at least I might have a usable work around. I am not currently using them as a stereo pair. I thought that in order for brothersync to work they both had to be set to Sync=Out, and that if MIDI clock is present brother sync is ignored. Are you suggesting that I could have EDP1 set to Sync=in and slave to incoming clock, and EDP2 set to Sync=Out and then brother sync will work and they should stay in line with out needing to program a bunch of ReAlign commands. HELP!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! PLEASE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Thanks for taking the time to read all of that and offer your advice. ---John M. (new info: last night I had a successful run twice in a row with no loss of sync. What I did differently is I had EDP 1 set to Sync=in and EDP2 set to Sync=Out, and I took out all the ReAlign commands. The manual makes it sound like brother sync would require both to be set to sync=out and no MIDI clock coming in. The manual actually makes it sound like you can't drive the EDP's with a sequencer and have BrotherSync active at the same time. So now with your comment about the Thru port not having latency, I'm going to try again today but this time with EDP1's MIDI Thru connected to EDP2's MIDI In.) __________________________________________________________ On Jan 8, 2011, at 3:33 AM, andy butler wrote: > John Metzler wrote: >> Hi Every One. I am re-title-ing and re phrasing an earlier >email i sent in the hope that will get more attention. > > we're all ears here, > > what's the question? > > andy butler >