SMPTE Time Code / MOTU Issues

[part12studios]

Wow I just got approved and must have submitted my application like 6 months ago. heh heh.  Good to be here!

I was wondering if anyone here has experience using SMPTE / MTC with an Amiga.  I'm learning Bars and Pipes Professional and looking at ways to sync up my Amiga to a Korg HDD 16 track recorder.  

I also have an issue with two different MOTU devices (MTP AV and Midi Express) that seem to have a particular nasty midi stuck note problem that I'd love to get validation from others if they have experienced this.  

I'm doing a pre Y2K studio with two Amiga 1200's in the mix..  One is the midi sequencer while the other is a dedicated sampler / soft synth / effects processor.

[part12studios]

No problem!  I know it's a small passionate community and probably pretty quiet compared to back in the day.  I'm super glad to be here.  

I'm not a power user.. don't remember most of my CLI commands..  but I've really enjoyed reconnecting with my Amiga 1200's and exploring them to get the most out of them.  

I have reasonably beefed up my two machines...  one is an 030 / 40 / 128mb (amigakit) and the other is a speed doubler / 8mb card..  and put the MK 2 upgrade to the 030 machine so I could hook it up to an LCD monitor easily.  

Music is my main focus as you can probably tell from my post.

Thanks!
Caleb

[part12studios]

@aggro_mix that's great to hear you're using your amiga for audio.  

i'm still learning (on my studio building checklist) the Korg D1600 but this is from the original sound on sound article:

"%&$#?@!%&$#?@!%&$#?@!8226; MTC and MMC transmitted and received; MIDI Clock transmitted."

The Korg unit has a MIDI In and Out.

I own a Midi Solution 4 in / 1 out and 1 in and 4 through boxes which effectively gives my humble standard trusty serial midi box which has 1 in / 2 out / 2 through the ability to reach more devices..

I would have no problem allowing the D1600 to be the driving clock for everything as long as the midi clock wouldn't stop in BnP..  since i'm looking to use midi clock on the other gear in the midi chain..  i'm looking for BnP to be the sequencer..  

I also was a long time user of Tiger Cub which I really like a lot and basically would be perfect except it has no external clock slaving.. it won't listen to another midi clock but will transmit..  but while BnP is a little complex I LOVE the plugins in has..  the arpeggiators and such are really great.  

I was emailing the original BnP creator or one of them in Germany.  He happened to have the original full manuals in PDF format (in english) which till then was difficult to find online.  Very nice man.


omg you have the Sunrize AD516?  is that the 8 track 16 bit card?  I used to dream of having one of those back in the early 90's when i was in high school..  of course i just had an A500 and no means to afford a big box amiga.. but it was a dream..

[part12studios]

yea that card was so cool back then.. when digital recording was still very very new..  the amigas 8bit audio design limitations (chip ram, etc)

Didn't it even have some effects?  Like delay / reverb?  

currently my studio has been somewhat deliberately, somewhat me just being on a budget, building a pre-Y2K studio..  I was most active as a musician back in the 90's so having access to all this stuff that at that time was (would still be if new) cost prohibitive.. is now stuff no one really cares about..  so now I can explore all those old ideas and new ones with all kinds of fun toys.  



I even have a tape based 4 track but going back to a reel to reel.. well that's just masochistic.. lol so when I inherited the D1600.. I was at peace with that post Y2K addition..  

I'll check that group out for sure.. i'm still awkward with BnP.. but I love what I have been able to make happen so far!  

Yea i was going to have a friend do the mastering for me on my songs as well.. one thing I'm hoping I can figure out with the Korg is how to export all of the tracks to a CD or other method so they are all individual tracks.. not just a stereo mixdown..   more stuff to learn..   but loving it.

Thanks!
Caleb

[part12studios]

@ral-clan oh that's awesome!  That stuck note thing could be just what I need!  It was so disappointing to see it behave like it was..  but any other midi scenario (mac or pc) using the same hardware didn't seem to experience this issue.. and when it was happening equally on both the MTP AV and my MIDI express USB.. it definitely felt like the amiga was the issue somehow.  

You definitely understood me right.. as you can imagine I just want to be able to perform live things into the D1600 but make sure that the BnP sequences stay sync'd up to the recordings..  it would seem like letting the D1600 be the master would help insure that.  

My studios is a little tore up as i've been on a gear acquision spurt and some of it has needed servicing..  soldering on new batteries and this little fella just got a KDFX board installed on it:



So I am not yet ready to begin reassembling everything till later this month.. but now I have some awesome leads to look at when I go to put it all back together again!  

Thanks!
Caleb

[part12studios]

thanks!

Yea I'm not sure what would work better.. but it would seem that the HDD recorder would be the best thing to be the master tempo.. but maybe having BnP do all the MTC stuff and have the D1600 and all other gear slave to it..

The main thing i want is to be able to jump to a spot on a song and have the multitrack stuff match.. so maybe yea i should have BnP be the master.. but it would seem some kind of striping is still needed on the D1600 so it knows where to go too.  

I am not familiar with KCS.  Do you know a good place online to find the ADFs?  

I remember there was a site months back where it seemed like just about everything imaginable was there..  i found a lot of cool programs there..  but i can't seem to recall or have any bookmarks handy to recall it.  

Thanks,
Caleb

[part12studios]

Yes I'm sure the D1600 would jump to a location based on the frame of BnP.

So there is no "stripe" needed if BnP is the master?  it just tracks the length of the song and sends a frame based on the time.  makes sense.  I would assume it's possible to listen to a MTC.. BUT given that it's a HDD based system it might not like that..  access time might not be quite fast enough to work well..

I have the manual for the D1600 so I'll research it once i get everything wired up.  

The first thing I will tackle before that is getting the stuck note thing if it can be fixed.  I hope the plugin you mention does the trick..  if i remember correctly the issue happened with tiger cub too so it wasn't just BnP that had stuck note issues.

[part12studios]

Awesome that all sounds totally doable.. it's not like i need the HDD to be instant.. just as long as I can give the system a few seconds of lead time if i wanted to punch in the middle of a song.  

I'll dig into that unstuck feature for sure.  I am far from fluent in BnP, but the plugins I have come across so far like the arpeggiator is so cool.  The internal sampler was so nice that it supports Pitch Bend which tiger cub didn't.  

Oh ok on the BnP subject.. I know a separate thread might be better.. but does anyone know if there is a way to send beat controled CC values?  

Like imagine you wanted to have a tremolo effect slaved to tempo.. or imagine a modulation of pitch or something.  Sure maybe you could manually program it but i'm just wondering if you wanted to on the fly do something like.. sine, saw, square ranges would be really awesome and seems relatively straight forward to do, but just something I've never seen.

I'm interested in being able to send sysex messages to synths and if this can be done..  it would be awesome to be able to do that.

Thanks
Caleb

[part12studios]

what part of MA are you at?  I'm just south of Boston.  Cool to hear other people using their amigas in music these days.  It's cool to see i'm not the only one treating the amiga like an effects processor   8bit grit..

I haven't updated this thread in awhile.. The studio has evolved a bit since that picture, but yes its pretty much the same layout.  

I did get SMPTE/MTC working with Music-X in the video below and I also got the Amiga (with Music-X) to slave to my Korg D1600 as well which is MTC sent directly from the D1600 not requiring the use of a midiman syncman.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZdecP2zCAYs  

I have to dig a little deeper to see what it takes to get BnP to slave to MTC.  I read the manual on it some but haven't had time to get in there and really apply it..

[part12studios]

whoa.. x3.. thats awesome. 24 tracks.  now that would be something i'd love to see in action.  what's the project you're doing that could use the A2000?  

yea for me what started this whole amiga-based studio was for a video game I would like to make that was set in a post apocalyptics 1996.. so I thought it would be fun to make music with only gear that existed before that year..  

I've used modern stuff for awhile.  Nothing uber pro, but ableton, cubase, vst plugins, usb midi controllers, etc.  

Now it's kind of a deliberate "minimal" thing.. To deliberately work within various limitations and focus more on making music than getting lost in possibilities..  I found it really difficult to not want to just tinker and never really make music. I guess it's just how my brain works.

cool yea i'm down in Randolph, near Braintree, MA.  At some point it would be cool to connect with musicians around here.  I moved here from Nashville back in 2011.  Seems like there is lots of music going on.. but it seems very fragmented.  Boston is A LOT bigger than Nashville so I can see why, but yea it would be interesting to see if there are any musical hubs around for electronic musicians.