Akai MPD32 Sync Questions - Internal Vs. External and more

contakt321 · Post by **contakt321** » Tue May 13, 2008 6:23 pm

Hey guys,

Just got my MPD32 last night (practically impossible to find in the NYC area at the moment) and have a bunch of questions. I did a search on here and via google, read Live's manual and Akai's so I think I have covered my bases. Apologies in advance for noob-ness.

1. Should I slave Live to the MPD or MPD to Live? What's better? Why would I choose one over the other?

2. How do I do that? The MPD shows that it's set to "internal", then in Live I turn the sync function "on". When I click the "sync" button in the top left the MPD doesn't work at all. When I don't it works, but if I were to say change the tempo in the MPD, it doesn't affect Live. I can't seem to figure this sync/slave stuff out.

3. I was reading that the "swing" of the MPD only affects the "note repeat" not the overall quantization, is this true? If so, if I were to say just do 1/16th's note repeat on say hi-hats for an entire bar at 58% swing, would it sound the same as 1/16ths hi-hats recorded in an MPC2000 at 58% swing?

4. Would I want to turn record quantization in Live off to hear the quantization of the MPD (b/c otherwise it would be snapping to a grid, right?).

Thanks. Cool piece of gear, just too smart for me apparently. Such a noob over here...

contakt321 · Post by **contakt321** » Wed May 14, 2008 1:57 pm

Bump.

Anyone?

channelite · Post by **channelite** » Wed May 14, 2008 6:42 pm

Does the MPD32 transmit midi beat box or anything like that? I slave Live to another Mac that transmits midi beat clock. Enable in the sync option in the midi/sync preferences for the MPD in Live. Click the EXT button in Live and it should be good to go. Though, my Korg MS2000R outputs clock/tempo and Live won't slave to it. I think because there's no midi beat block.

I would say have Live be the Master and MPD slaved, then when your song is playing, your MPD performance will all locked up. I do that sometimes with My korg. All the delays and tempo of the patches are synced to Live.

contakt321 · Post by **contakt321** » Wed May 14, 2008 7:19 pm

Hmmm, other people on this board seem to be able to get Able to Sync to the MPD as the master - can you guys enlighten me?

I tried again last night. When I set it up to sync to the MPD as the master and clicked the sync button the transport controls worked, they fast forwarded backwards and forwards by a bar and the temp in Live got grayed out. However the record and play buttons on the MPD wouldn't work.

When NOT synced. Record, play, etc work, but the transport buttons don't. Any insight MPD32 owners?

nodea · Post by **nodea** » Tue Jun 03, 2008 1:39 pm

contakt321 wrote:Hmmm, other people on this board seem to be able to get Able to Sync to the MPD as the master - can you guys enlighten me?

I tried again last night. When I set it up to sync to the MPD as the master and clicked the sync button the transport controls worked, they fast forwarded backwards and forwards by a bar and the temp in Live got grayed out. However the record and play buttons on the MPD wouldn't work.

When NOT synced. Record, play, etc work, but the transport buttons don't. Any insight MPD32 owners?

I had the same problem. I mean two problems actually - first, with syncing Live to MPD32 is still unsolved. The field with tempo greys out but transports don't work properly. Play doesn't respond.
However, I found now that when Live is the master I got all the Transport buttons working, including >> and <<. I even figured out how to have sequencer playing from a certain point where I pressed STOP, without going back to the 1.1.1 start point.