SMPTE Time Code / MOTU Issues

[Ral-Clan]

Hi,

I have used Bars & Pipes a lot with MTC and MIDI-Clock. Even know a lot about the quirks of this.  I used to slave Bars & Pipes to an external Yamaha MD8 digital Multitracker with MTC.  You can even have Bars & Pipes sent MIDI Machine control out to the digital multitracker so you can use Bars & Pipes transport controls to start/stop the external multitracker, but then have the multitracker send the timing code.

I have also used Bars & Pipes to control a slaved drum machine / external sequencer.

I also use a MIDI solutions 4in to 1out MIDI merge box to feed my Amiga's MIDI port.

So, am I understanding your problem correctly?  You want to slave B&P to your multitracker, but then also use the multitracker' MTC to sync some other outboard gear?

I would be very surprised if B&P will not pass-through the MTC code it received to the Amiga's MIDI out port so your other devices can use it.

If not, a hardware solution would be to put a MIDI splitter on the MIDI out port of the device generating MTC (your multitracker).  Feed one output to the Amiga, another output from the splitter to your outboard gear that needs the MTC signal.

As for the note off problem with your MOTU gear, there is a small plugin tool for Bars & Pipes that will make sure a NOTE OFF signal is generated for every NOTE ON signal it receives.  Put this on the end of the pipeline of the track. This might solve your problem.

[Ral-Clan]

Okay, so fire away questions as you think of them.

You can't just let B&P generate the sync signal for all your outboard gear?

Oh, and since you really like Tiger Cub, why don't you try it's big brother Dr. T's KCS for the Amiga?
It might have the MTC in/out sync that was missing on Tiger Cub.

[Ral-Clan]

Please check your PMs.

[Ral-Clan]

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.

Doesn't the D1600 multitracker receive MIDI Clocks or MIDI Time Code?
Bars & Pipes would send a HH:MM:SS:Frames location and the multitracker should jump to it and match with MIDI Clocks.  

With MIDI Time Code if you set the D1600 to recieve MTC then it should sync with Bars & Pipes using Bars-beats and matching the tempo set in B&P, rather than Hours-Minutes-Seconds-Frames.

If you set the D1600 as Master then the situation is reversed.

I always slaved my Amiga to my external multitracker because the Yamaha MD-8 could only transmit MTC/Midi-Clock.

[Ral-Clan]

If you use MIDI Time Code or MIDI Clock to sync two (or more) devices, then you don't need to stripe anything.  It's not like SMPTE where you have to sacrifice a track.  These digital devices are frame accurate and know where they are in the song.  You just have to assign one to be the master and send out its position to all the others.

What might happen if Bars & Pipes is the master is that it might take a few seconds for the outboard gear to figure out that everything has started when you press play, then they will "catch up" and then everything will be smooth.  Because of this you might want to leave a few blank bars at the beginning of your composition.

Try the "UNSTICK" tool for your stuck note problem.  If that doesn't work there might be something in one of the extra tool packages (there are AmigaGuide documents in those that give descriptions of the tools).

[Ral-Clan]

I'm sure there is a Bars & Pipes tool that can translate one type of MIDI message to another....I don't know which one it is, but I wouldn't be surprised if there is more than one way to do this with B&P.