Syncing the Pattern maker on multiple Sp 404s via midi out?

[songtalk]

What gear do I need to sync me and my bands Sps (patterns) via the midi out?

Thanks.

[kristoffer1989]

something that sends midi out. and a midi splitcable.

a cheap drum machine with midi out will do it:)

[songtalk]

Okay. So, would me and my bandmate Matt hook our sp 404 midi outs up to a drum machine at a set bpm with multiple midi inputs? Or would it be like a multiple midi outputs to one midi input hooked up to a drum machine? I am really confused, but I am trying to learn.

I basically am trying to solve the issue of having our patterns drift out of time with some sort of external master bpm generator that keeps the pattern sequencers synced. Hopefully this will help people answer my quandaries.

[jbl]

the 404 doesn't have midi out. just in. the patterns might still drift out of time depending on what kind of machine you're sending midi sync from (search PQN). honestly midi sync could help alot just find something with two midi outs or one and get a breakout box. you could even do this from a pc.

[bishojo_command]

one example from the stoneage -

i use an old 4 track digital recorder -

http://www.zoom.co.jp/english/products/mrs4/

it has a midi out - that's connected to what's called a midi thru box -

http://www.velvetsystems.com/MIDI.SOLUT ... i.Thru.cfm

- it accepts a midi out from the recorder and it has 4(!!!!) midi outs to run a 404 and three other devices (if i sometimes want to)

the recorder i dug up from a 2nd hand store - the midi thru box from a muso upgrading gear

the biggest drama was finding cables in my town - they were being thrown out as old fashioned.

this setup will only just start patterns to a bpm you can set from the recorder - which is a lot of times what I only want it to do for tracking.

it won't do fancy stuff like playing individual pads - that's too much next-gen for this rig.

there's bound to be lots of interfaces available now that connect from a laptop - and do that magic - i would have thought behringer would be into that sort of thing(?)

[songtalk]

Okay so midi through box and a old recorder with a midi out and a bpm generator.

You're saying this setup would only get us firing on the same bpm, it would not necessarily latch onto the first pattern that gets going and then sort of guide imperfect fingers on other sps?

I guess I will have to just try something like this out.......

[jbl]

actually for perfection there's really only one option and a work around. your option would just be hella practice. i saw gin blossoms play live and they had imperfect fingers, man it was sad watching them.

or you could sequence everyting from a rs7000 or something like that and then you could just act like you were pressing buttons or even could press buttons and every few bars the rs7000 would correct timing for you. i've also seen an act like this and they were getting a good response from the crowd but i knew what was going on and thought it was lame.

[Euclid Ov Oåklånd]

i've also seen an act like this and they were getting a good response from the crowd but i knew what was going on and thought it was lame.

That's funny JBL, ignorance is bliss and most people in crowds are happy as hell.

[dman5000]

for real you guys.
how you perform music with machines mostly only matters to other artists or critics. i saw this group the other day that was playing tracks out of pro tools and adding live effects, drop outs and extra drum hits, which to me is like the middle ground maybe of actually "performing" electronic music. but all the same i overheard someone at the show say "they arent even mixing anything, this sucks" so i really think it doesnt matter to the crowd, right now anyway, the more you know about it the more you care how its done


ps my workaround for imperfect fingers or loops that drift is creative ways to re-sync, like a cheap example would be taking it off loop and then stuttering at the end of the bar then hitting loop again with the sample back in time, you could come up with lots of other ways to, like using the bpm looper and re-triggering the samples while the sound is still looped from the first time you had it going - hope any of that helps!

[songtalk]

yeah, it's not really a necessity for us. we do fine without this...we're just always curious about where we can take things and this seemed like an interesting topic for electronic music. We love organic sounds and musical dynamic stuff so we wouldn't be using anything like this to compensate for bad fingership. Just fun and for kicks. If anything we'd try to get it to spit out weird shit like we do with most stuff when we're not working on songs.

[dman5000]

then the 404 is the bomb