i found alot of useful stuff while surfin the boards, but i'm finally tired enough of the 404 sequencer that i wanna fuck around with some other shit, i got access to a full on mac studio set up at my school, i think they are G5's, with ableton, pro tools, and a bunch of other shit i'm not 100% on yet, and they have solid monitors runnin through an m audio interface, AND i gor access into the buildin 24/7, so late night with no one else in there means shit can bump, but i'm not totally sure how i should go about this, i'm looking for a visual sequencer, so i can pretty much see where i'm placing them on a grid, kinda like the reason sequencer (its all i've had extensive experience with) and can place the MIDI notes on the grid and mess with my own swing, really get the drums and complicated chops in place, should i be usin ableton, or should i be checkin out somethin else??

ableton is great, so is reason

i'd choose one and learn that shit back to front

yeah yeah, i don't know toooo too much with reason, but i've had to do a couple MIDI compositions in it so i'm fairly familiar with finding my way around in it.....and, just to clarify, when i say the reason sequencer, i don't mean the redrum light thing, i mean when you go to the sequencer screen that has all your instruments from the rack in it on a timeline (don't know the name, i guess the timeline) and you can change the "quantization" setting between all the different note lengths (8th, 16ths, you know) and look at bars that represent that spacing, that shit is pretty much exactly what i want, so i mean i guess i could use reason, i just feel like ableton is a little more important and useful to learn fully though, i guess i just gotta bring in my sp and midi it up and fuck with it.....

so i was just readin through the SP 404 and MIDI thread in SPI section, and i didn't realize that was really what i was lookin for more than anything, at first i thought it wasn't helpful, but really the only problem i have is not knowing how to hook up my SP through MIDI, so i have a question about it though, it says i have to set the channels to be the same on both machines by turning it on holding a pad, then i says to autosync i need to turn it on holding a button, is settin the channel a general thing you do and you still need to do autosync after that, or is it two seperate uses?? i am pretty sure you need to do both, but the double start up threw me off just a little, otherwise i think i'm ready to rock

yeah man i knew what you meant with the Reason sequencer

for MIDI - it is two separate settings

it's really not that complex

setting the channel ensures the SP receives the info that is being sent to it (ie MIDI Notes which equals SP pad trigger)

and setting the Synchonise function (Aut/tMp/oFF - see p 41 of manual) dictates how the SP responds to MIDI Start/Stop functions

i recommend you read up about MIDI and don't get too confused before you've actually tried these things out with the software and machine connected

peace

also - Reason won't send MIDI (and of course nor will the 404)...if you want to sync the 404 to reason, Reason must be Rewired into another app - ie Ableton Live/Logic/Cubase

that could sort out your decision between the two software programs

yes it can, thanks for the help, i got a few resources around campus to help me get started too, they may not know to much about triggering the 404, but they definitely know how to hook up a MIDI connection and set the channels and everything, now say i trigger a pad using MIDI, and its like on a keyboard layout goin up the side of the screen and i can drag the line as far as i want, if i have the SP on single shot playback, does it matter how long the note triggering it on the timeline is??

Nope, if you got it on one shot then the whole sample will play regardless of how long the note your sending it is. Throw it on gate to get it to cut when the note is off.

Audio is hard I got an audio interface that has pro tools and a handful of other plug-ins. I know how to mess with a beat and timing, cutting, and all the other creative shit in sampling. But I am a complete noob with everything else. Check out Digizine's DJ Premier article, I can relate, same with 9th wonder moving from fruity loops to pro tools. rockin the proverbial dunce cap making "threat" for jay-z
http://remixmag.com/artists/remix_little_feat/

Minimilism can take you so far.

I don't even know what rewire means, i think it is to use a program in another program, but I start my day with a shit load of Yerba Mate and another shit load of pdf's, tweakhead articles, tutorial videos, etc.

Than trying to find a balance between obtaining knowledge and expressing creativity which in itself is a learning process.

Do all the buttons i.e. knobs and shit work with MIDI or is it only limited to pads.

What is the biggest limitation of A MIDI IN only device like the SP-404.

so it says for autosync to turn on your sp while holding timeBPM and then when you press play on your comp/whatever, it triggers patterns at the same time, and then at the bottom it says about triggering pads too (which i wanna do), but it says nothing about turning on the SP any specific way, is there anything i have to do, i just want to be able to put in marks in cubase to trigger pads on the sp, so that across the timeline i can make out the whole track to be triggered in the right timing according to the grid in cubase

^ that's fine then...as you won't be triggering any of the SP patterns

just ignore the second part (aut/tmp/off) and let the SP be a soundmodule for Cubase to trigger samples from
then Cubase handles all the tempo related stuff