LATE BRAINS = NO BRAWN

Correcting the midi clock input problems with the Akai MPC 4000

Everyone will know that we ruined the planet when the water levels rise, submerged land masses, our weather systems so intense airplanes can’t fly. We’ll all say we knew the whole time. Because we did. We do. We just aren’t doing anything about it.

Well, we are… I am… I know you are too… but we make up less than 1% of what’s wrong. That means if every single one of us never used single use plastic again, composted and recycled everything, and got an electric car today it wouldn’t make a bit of difference. That sucks.

So when we are faced with a massive and powerful groove box like the MPC 4000 (repurposed from the 00’s) it’s pretty clear that Akai have imagined it is going to be the brains of our operation.

This isn’t olden days thinking. Most sequencers today are missing full midi implementation – can’t pass data into their internal tracks, bungle the clock, and really don’t function well at all unless they’re in control. The problem is that most sequencers haven’t got much more up their sleeves than programming parts and switching between them (or chaining them together to make songs to re play) This is just how it is, and it’s what we’ve learned to use. There are some marvelous exceptions (the Alesis MMT8 is a timeless one, and the Squarp Pyramid is another) they allow us to trigger and mute sequences in real time. Nothing is pre set unless we want it to be. That’s the way I like it, and so that’s why the MPC 4000 is destined to be a sub sequenced device which also requires multiple channels of midi access to its multi from both the main sequencer and its own internal sequecer. Easy. The MPC 4000 does that in style (and it sounds great!)

But there are problems to address:
CLOCK
The internal clock is solid. It sends clock out just fine

It does not receive incoming clock without a 0.26ms delay

So it doesn’t sync properly as a sub sequencer.
They never corrected this code oversight and they’re not gonna.


So we need a clock shifter – E-rm Multiclock, Audiowerkstatt clock shifter – something to set its incoming clock to -0.26ms.

Once you do that, everything works beautifully.

I’ve heard about bad starts and mis aligned clocks when using this technique. This makes sense, we’re trying to take the start and clock data and send it backward 0.26ms in time. So far I have not had that problem. But I can imagine that this would be another problem to solve. One thing I do know is that the MPC series are capable of stopping, and starting from the top, as well as continuing, while a reliable midi clock is coming in. So need ing to make adjustments may curtail some of the dramatic fun of live, improvised performances, but now that the clock is correct, it’s not impossible. Practice makes perfect (and errors in live performance seem to absolutely thrill the audience, so don’t be shy!)

Hope this information was helpful.

Enjoy!