Ableton Forum

Well my mpc2000 pretty much died so I decided to part with it and get an mpd26. Had trouble syncing the mpc2000 with ableton a while back but I was sure that new gear would have this fixed. When I have the mpd sending the midi clock to live (slaved) the bpm jumps up and down 1-1.5 bpms. This is a problem cuz it'll mess up the end points of loops. It also seems to take a second or two to calibrate itself when play is pressed. I have a new dual proc pc and the cpu is free - I'm using maudio and buffer size is 256 (pretty high and maudio won't let me raise it as it's grayed out). I emailed ableton about this issue with the mpc2000 and they basically told me that they were aware of it but not planning on fixing it. The easy fix is to send midi to the mpd but then I'll lose all the midi swing and quick timing options right? Also the velocity sensitive thing doesn't seem to work well- anyone else notice? Lastly what's up with the lack of documentation from wakai??? Maybe my settings are wrong. Maybe I'm functionally retarded. Hope someone out there has some answers or a fix for this- thanks in advance!

machida_maurader wrote:Well my mpc2000 pretty much died so I decided to part with it and get an mpd26. Had trouble syncing the mpc2000 with ableton a while back but I was sure that new gear would have this fixed.

This behavior is substantially improved in Live 8.2.5; I suggest you install 8.2.5 or 8.2.6 if you have not already done so.

slaving Live to the MPD seems like an logical error to me..
it's a controller... and Live is the "main engine"..
and so you shouldn't even bother to sync the MPD to Live or vice versa..
(unless of course it's sending midi-clock to some other outboard synth/computer)

get acquainted with Lives' "groove engine" .. it's a killer..
(you have the MPC/Notator etc. swing-grooves in there..and you can easily make new ones from your favorites too!)

map a knob from the MPD...to 'BPM' in live..and another to 'groove amount'... done.
(you have many other ways as well to control tempo/signature settings in Live..including naming 'scenes' and 'markers')

as for audio buffer .. you might want to check the M-audio driver and change it from there (while Live is closed)

as for the other MPD specifics.. don't own it.. but all them controllers are pretty similiar..
so..look into changing 'velocity response' presets settings on it..
and also in the specific instruments you're trying to play.. check turn up 'velocity' response on it if necesary..

Thanks a lot ark and 3dot. Probably will end up slaving the mpd - but it's a shame because of how they marketed mpd as a midi sending controller. One of its selling points is the "mpc swing" and a lot of the pre-mapped functions are set up on the mpd for that. For example, you can quickly increase the swing % by hitting shift and a pad. It's advertised as working with all daws so I guess I feel ripped off. But since moving from the mpc to Ableton I've slowly been changing my production style so maybe this is just another, and last, step away from the mpc.

Don't abandon it until you've tried 8.2.5 or .6

thanks again!

Yeah man, use it as a midi controller. I use and absolutely love my mpd18 and it causes me no grief whatsoever. Plug-n-play. Drum racks map to it perfectly, other things not so much, but with drum racks it doesn't matter a whole lot.