PT's Midi Instr Setup Is Strangely Different...What's Wrong?

[M2E]

OK, This one is a hard one to explain but, I'll try my best.

Let me start off by saying that I use an MPC-3000 as my midi core machine. All my hardware keyboards are hooked up to the MPC as well as my Emagic Unitor8mk2 midi patchbay so that I, can also play my software synths in Pro Tools but, record them with the MPC-3000 timing.
I love the timing of the MPC-3000 and always will. Not interested in switching as of yet so please, don't convey the "hey just use PT's as your Midi machine.
Now, with that out the way, here we go.

The MPC has 4 Midi outs and 2 Midi ins. Pt's starts and stops the MPC as the MPC is controlled by PT's. Life is great in that area. The other input on my MPC is for the Midi Controller which is the Roland JD-800.
Now, On the outputs of the MPC, I have "output A" going to my Kurzweil Micro Piano which is always set to Midi Input 1 then it goes thru to the Unitor8 so that I can pull up some PT's instruments and play them with my MPC timing as I record inside of the MPC. So I use Midi Channel 1A for the Kurzweil and 2A thru 16A for Pro Tools Instruments. Remember, the MPC has 4 Midi Outputs and so Pro Tools has it setup like this--- Midi output 1 is 1A thru 16A, Midi Output 2 is 1B thru 16B, Midi Output 3 is 1C thru 16C and Midi Output 4 is 1D thru 16D. You still wit me???

Now, when using the old Mix system, you would have to pull up a dedicated midi channel track and put the input of the midi channel to MPC-3000 channel 2 and the output to the virtual instrument, let's say the Indigo that's on an Aux track. So from the MPC on 1A I could play the Kurzweil then switch to 2A on the MPC and play the Indigo then switch to 3A and play the Mach Five and so on. That way I can stay in front of the MPC and switch to what synth's I wanted to play.
I hope I haven't lost yah.

Now, in PTHD they still have the old way which is fine and works well but, now with Instrument Tracks they have a better looking new way, which would seem easier for me as the old Midi Channel track looks like they intergraded it to the top of the Instrument track. Am'I correct?

Now, this is my problem, Try this if you have an MPC...

In Pro Tools
Create 3 Midi Channel Tracks
Create 3 Instrument Tracks
On Instrument track 1 put the Indigo (Or whatever synth you have)
On Instrument Track 2 put the Xpand
and On Instrument Track 3 put the Hybrid
Now, On the input to the first Midi Channel Track put on the MPC 1A ( I've renamed my Midi Inputs in the Audio/Midi Config so mine reads MPC-3000 Channel 1) Yours may read Motu Channel 1 or Unitor Channel 1, whatever your Midi Patchbay is it will read as that.
Now, put the output to that same Midi Channel Track to the Indigo
Now on the second Midi Channel Track, put that on MPC 2A and the output on the Xpand
Then on that last Midi Channel track for the input make that MPC 3A and make the output to the Hybrid.
Notice that when you switch on the MPC from 1A to 3A it will switch to that instrument (Indigo to Hybrid) that you want. Without messing with PT's or switching anything in Pro Tools.

Now, delete the Midi Channel Tracks and just leave the Instrument Tracks with the instruments on them.

At the top of the Instrument tracks make sure you can see in the Mix window the Midi Input and output at the top.
So on Instrument Track 1 which is the Indigo track, put the input to the same MPC 1A then go to the next Instrument track which is the Xpand track and put the input to MPC 2A and do the same for Instrument Track 3 and make the input to MPC 3A. Notice you won't have to do anything to the output because it automatically switches to the instrument thats on that track.
Now, in the MPC switch from 1A to 3A. Notice, it never leaves the first instrument. It won't switch at all unless you select that Pro Tools track instrument that you want.

To break it down even more....

The old way of doin this,
If you are recording something on 1A then switch to 2A, it will switch to that instrument and you can continue on.

The new way of doin this if you are using just Instrument Tracks....
If you are recording something on 1A then you switch to 2A, nothing happens. It stays at the same instrument and if you manually go to the next instrument track in Pro Tools it will play what you did for 1A on that instrument track.
For some reason Pro Tools can't separate Midi inputs when used in this way, but can if you use Midi Channel Tracks.

Is there a preference that I haven't switched on or off?
I'm new to HD so I'm learning but, this doesn't make since. I thought it was the same thing but, instead of setting up a Midi Channel Track you have it on top of the Instrument track.

Can some one from Digi Help here? Or someone that uses the MPC like I do with Pro Tools.

Sorry for the long post. Just trying to make things easy as I see that this can make things really easy if it was setup right for the Instrument tracks. Seems like this is a bug that they may not know about.

M2E...

[25ghosts]

Hi There,

I dont have your problem though I share the same setup as yours:

MPC4000 controlling everything related to midi. Going to a Unitor 8 USB and then to protools.

I did exactly what your example was telling:

MPC | PT 7.3.1 Setup

Then I armed ALL instr. channels by shift clicking the record enable track and switched thru channel 1-3 on the MPC. No problem.

I love the timing of the MPC-3000 and always will………snip………Pt's starts and stops the MPC as the MPC is controlled by PT's. Life is great in that area

You are NOT using the absolute time of the MPC this way - unless you have programmed PT with about 2000 tempo changes per song. I used to run my MPC as MTC or Midi clock slave thus having the MP start when I hit play in protools... If I had a beat running and hitting play on the MP it would sound as programmed/Played. However, when I switched to Protools transport and hit play there I would feel a difference in the timing. So I decided to find out what the H was going on. I tried having Logic Pro be the MTC master but same thing happened and I was like - WHAAAT. So I did this: Hooked Logic Pro up so slave start when I hit play on the MPC this having the MPC sending MTC to Logic. Logic shows the tempo to which it is slaving and as it slaved to the MPC i would see Logic altering the tempo and that CONSTANTLY... i.e : tempo 100 on the MPC would read like this in Logic continuesly: 100 | 100,025 | 99,00145 | 100,00142 etc etc etc - all the time. This is why we LOVE the mpc timing : It has human timing (errors) in it's algorithms. If you slave the MPC to MTC or SMPT or Midi click you will LOOSE that timing.

I have my MPC set like this:

Positional and Word Clock master. How ? Like this:

I do my whole song arrangement in the MPC and I just have protools sitting there monitoring / Mixing the audio... When I'm done arranging and composing I record it like this:

MPC is slaving PT via MTC - the midi time code is generated thru' the MPC SMPT out port going to an External WC master (C-LAB Time Machine) the Time Machine is reading the SMPTE off of the MPC and generating a valid sample rate & Midi TIme Code based on that SMPTE deriving from the mpc. This reassures that protools will slave 100% to the mpc even at bar 670 if you would ever have a song that long))) And like that you would get the mpc timing 100% and not only in between the frame rates it would normally receive (25 & 30) when slaved to MTC. It like this: 25 & 30 per second the MPC gets a beat in it's head telling it to slave to what protools is sending = 25 & 30 per second (MTC) a message to resync. Imagine you would do that to a drummer...

If you dont set the MPC as Clock and Positional master protools with fall out a sync eventually....

So when done recording I set PT to normal and not online mode and there I have my whole arrangement recorded & half mixed with MPC timing.

[M2E]

Hi There,

I dont have your problem though I share the same setup as yours:

MPC4000 controlling everything related to midi. Going to a Unitor 8 USB and then to protools.

I did exactly what your example was telling:

MPC | PT 7.3.1 Setup

Then I armed ALL instr. channels by shift clicking the record enable track and switched thru channel 1-3 on the MPC. No problem.

You are NOT using the absolute time of the MPC this way - unless you have programmed PT with about 2000 tempo changes per song. I used to run my MPC as MTC or Midi clock slave thus having the MP start when I hit play in protools... If I had a beat running and hitting play on the MP it would sound as programmed/Played. However, when I switched to Protools transport and hit play there I would feel a difference in the timing. So I decided to find out what the H was going on. I tried having Logic Pro be the MTC master but same thing happened and I was like - WHAAAT. So I did this: Hooked Logic Pro up so slave start when I hit play on the MPC this having the MPC sending MTC to Logic. Logic shows the tempo to which it is slaving and as it slaved to the MPC i would see Logic altering the tempo and that CONSTANTLY... i.e : tempo 100 on the MPC would read like this in Logic continuesly: 100 | 100,025 | 99,00145 | 100,00142 etc etc etc - all the time. This is why we LOVE the mpc timing : It has human timing (errors) in it's algorithms. If you slave the MPC to MTC or SMPT or Midi click you will LOOSE that timing.

I have my MPC set like this:

Positional and Word Clock master. How ? Like this:

I do my whole song arrangement in the MPC and I just have protools sitting there monitoring / Mixing the audio... When I'm done arranging and composing I record it like this:

MPC is slaving PT via MTC - the midi time code is generated thru' the MPC SMPT out port going to an External WC master (C-LAB Time Machine) the Time Machine is reading the SMPTE off of the MPC and generating a valid sample rate & Midi TIme Code based on that SMPTE deriving from the mpc. This reassures that protools will slave 100% to the mpc even at bar 670 if you would ever have a song that long))) And like that you would get the mpc timing 100% and not only in between the frame rates it would normally receive (25 & 30) when slaved to MTC. It like this: 25 & 30 per second the MPC gets a beat in it's head telling it to slave to what protools is sending = 25 & 30 per second (MTC) a message to resync. Imagine you would do that to a drummer...

If you dont set the MPC as Clock and Positional master protools with fall out a sync eventually....

So when done recording I set PT to normal and not online mode and there I have my whole arrangement recorded & half mixed with MPC timing.

Thank you sir....You are right. What I was doing wrong was not putting it in Record Enable. That's weird that you have to do that but, hey, that's fine. Better than before. Thanx...How did you figure that one out?
I'm going to try your MPC setup. I don't have the CM unit so I will have to use Midi Time Code/Midi Clock which should be fine. I never noticed a difference in timing but, then again, I never really took the time to.
Glad to see other people use the MP wit PT!!!
The timing on the MP is just incredible. Nothing like it. Hard to explain.
I own Logic Pro as well. My brother swore up and down that Logic Pro's so called MPC timing was the same. So I went through the MPC and captured the timing for him and saved it as a template in Logic Pro. He then pulled it up and was like WWWOOOOOOWWWWWW!!! Now he uses that template all the time. He also said that the Logic Pro MPC timing wasn't nowhere near the MPC-3000 timing. I was like I know.
I wish Pro Tools would do a capture timing function. I would love to take the time and capture all the timing of the MPC/Sp1200/ASR10 and so on, just so I could have it in Pro Tools.
When I did the timing thing for Logic it was pretty easy but, I can't remember how to do it now since I haven't used Logic in like a year.
I also know that I will probably get 1000 emails from all the Logic people saying "Hey man...share the wealth"....but to be honest, I don't even have those templates anymore.
Sorry guys.....Maybe I'll do it again one day and sell the template for cheap.

Again Thanx....

M2E...

[25ghosts]

Yup - MPC cant be beaten...

I use Logic as a humongous sample player. It's not doing any arrange features like play etc... So I can instantiate an ocean of plugs without ever seeing any limits. Then I stream the audio from Logic (midi controlled by the MP of course) into protools - that saves a lot of RTAS power not having the Virtual Instruments load to carry. And as we all know - RTAS and Vi's are not the best of friends.

[M2E]

Yup - MPC cant be beaten...

I use Logic as a humongous sample player. It's not doing any arrange features like play etc... So I can instantiate an ocean of plugs without ever seeing any limits. Then I stream the audio from Logic (midi controlled by the MP of course) into protools - that saves a lot of RTAS power not having the Virtual Instruments load to carry. And as we all know - RTAS and Vi's are not the best of friends.

So how do you stream it back into PT's? I would love to do that as I use to with the Emagic HTDM bridge but, that doesn't exist anymore.

M2E

[25ghosts]

the way I do it thru a moti hd 896 going via adat pipes to a compatible digi interface... You could also just use the stereo out of your mac (light pipe) and lead it to your digi interface...

There you - easy

[toddm7]

I love the timing of the MPC-3000 and always will………snip………Pt's starts and stops the MPC as the MPC is controlled by PT's. Life is great in that area

You are NOT using the absolute time of the MPC this way - unless you have programmed PT with about 2000 tempo changes per song. I used to run my MPC as MTC or Midi clock slave thus having the MP start when I hit play in protools... If I had a beat running and hitting play on the MP it would sound as programmed/Played. However, when I switched to Protools transport and hit play there I would feel a difference in the timing. So I decided to find out what the H was going on. I tried having Logic Pro be the MTC master but same thing happened and I was like - WHAAAT. So I did this: Hooked Logic Pro up so slave start when I hit play on the MPC this having the MPC sending MTC to Logic. Logic shows the tempo to which it is slaving and as it slaved to the MPC i would see Logic altering the tempo and that CONSTANTLY... i.e : tempo 100 on the MPC would read like this in Logic continuesly: 100 | 100,025 | 99,00145 | 100,00142 etc etc etc - all the time. This is why we LOVE the mpc timing : It has human timing (errors) in it's algorithms. If you slave the MPC to MTC or SMPT or Midi click you will LOOSE that timing.

I have my MPC set like this:

Positional and Word Clock master. How ? Like this:

I do my whole song arrangement in the MPC and I just have protools sitting there monitoring / Mixing the audio... When I'm done arranging and composing I record it like this:

MPC is slaving PT via MTC - the midi time code is generated thru' the MPC SMPT out port going to an External WC master (C-LAB Time Machine) the Time Machine is reading the SMPTE off of the MPC and generating a valid sample rate & Midi TIme Code based on that SMPTE deriving from the mpc. This reassures that protools will slave 100% to the mpc even at bar 670 if you would ever have a song that long))) And like that you would get the mpc timing 100% and not only in between the frame rates it would normally receive (25 & 30) when slaved to MTC. It like this: 25 & 30 per second the MPC gets a beat in it's head telling it to slave to what protools is sending = 25 & 30 per second (MTC) a message to resync. Imagine you would do that to a drummer...

If you dont set the MPC as Clock and Positional master protools with fall out a sync eventually....

So when done recording I set PT to normal and not online mode and there I have my whole arrangement recorded & half mixed with MPC timing.

[/QUOTE]

In your opinion, is it worth investing in a smpte reader for doing four minute songs? I've followed your suggestion and made my 4K the MTC master. I'm much happier with the timing now. Thank you. I notice the same "micro" tempo fluctuations when I synced plogue to the 4K. At first I thought plogue was buggy. I can't find the C-Lab Time Machine anywhere here in the US. The MOTU micro express should work.

[djecity]

Is it possible to use MPC as Master without the extra SMPTE interface? I have the SMPTE Generator option on my MPC2000XL. Would striping a track in PT enable me to use MPC Timing as Master when tracking? I would love to get this type of set-up working for me. Never had any luck using MPC as Master with MTC or Beat Clock. SMPTE seems the last (and apparently working) option. Could I do this with what I have at my disposal? Thanks for the tip!

MPC2000XL, PT 7.1, Digi 002R, various hard/soft synths and VI's.