BR532 Question

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If I record my drum machine songs to a br 532, can I then use a footswitch to start the song right on the beat, the same way you can start a drum machine song right on the beat with a footswitch?

I would ask the guy at Sam Ash, but he doesn't seem to know much.

GT
 
MIDI

You can use the BR to start recorded material right on beat, but you need to use MIDI to do this. Once you make the connections and settings the tempo and transport controls will be handled on the BR, meaning you'll have to set the tempo on the BR and you'll use the transport controls on the BR. You'll need to have the MIDI out from the BR go to the MIDI in on the drum machine. You then need to set the drum machine to slave so it can recieve tempo and transport info via MIDI from the BR. You'll need to set up the sequencer in the BR to trasmit MTC. I think that it's, but I actually haven't used the BR532 (just the BR8) so there may be additional settings. I would refer to the user manual for any additional settings.

Hope this helps

Stray
 
Stray,

What I want to do, simply put is store my drum machine songs on smart media.

This way I can free up my drum machine's memory, which is full.

I don't want to use midi. I would want to record from the drum machine to the BR-532 as line in.

Is there a way to have the BR-532 start right on the beat, after a recording such as this is made? Using a footswitch.

In other words, having the BR-532 act just like a drum machine, playing a song.

Can you edit out any recorded silence at the beggining, so that the drums start right on the beat?

GT
 
I'm sorry I should have been more clear. You'll still connect the drum machine to line in for recording purposes, but you have to sequence the two to do this. When you set the sync up you'll put the BR in record pause and as soon as you press play the drum machine will start and the BR will start recording. Now when you press play on the BR the drum lines will playback on the downbeat and you'll be able to control the tempo with the BR.

Hope this helps.

Stray
 
I'm an idiot

So let me get this straight, I would hook the br's midi out to the drum machines midi in, and the drums would be synced to start at the exact same time that the recording would start, with no time lag.

Then apon playbeck, I could hit the footswitch and the drums would start instantaniously, just the same as the drum machine itself?

BTW: My drum machine has no midi out.

GT
 
What Stray is saying is correct....for a BR-8 ( I have one and a drum machine hooked exactly that way)...

I too can not speak for the 532 but if it's anything similar to the BR-8 you need to run from the 532 line outs to the 532 line in's AND MIDI....

then you need to "sync" the two machines together so that your recorder will "control" the start and stops of the drum machine right on time....I believe the tempo map must be ON.

On the BR-8 this is done through the "utility" function, then to "sync"....set up is usually having your recorder as the "master" and the drum machine as the "slave"....

Once this is done, you can pretty much set up any tempo on your drum machine and as long as the line in's from the drum machine are triggered, your BR should automatically recognize this and play the beats accordingly.

This is probably a bad explanation but it should provide you with some sort of direction and place to start....

If all else fails....read the manual.

Good Luck man. I hope you can get it going....


Tele.
 
You got it:

Exactly. Like I said though, make sure to refer to the owner's manual to make sure there are no additional settings. You'll also need to figure out where the sequencer section is to enable MTC (midi time code) control. Good luck.

Stray
 
Sounds good

I haven't bought the 532 yet, I wanted to make sure that I could use it as a really good backup for my drum machine memory.

Sounds like it's just the ticket.

How much recording time do you get in stereo on say a 64mb card?

Also can the mic, line, and guitar inputs all be run at the same time?

Also, how do you guys like the 532?

Hope you guys don't mind questions, but I gots to know.

GT
 
I am performing a simlar process with my Yamaha QY-70 and the 532.

Once you have the MIDI out going to your drum machine's MIDI in, you need to sync the two. As stated above, this will allow the 532 to start the drum machine when play or record is pressed.

Yes, you can use all three at the same time. The BR-532 allows you to configure the line-in two ways: monitor and record. In monitor mode the line-in is not recorded to the smart media. This allows you to utilize all four tracks on the recorder. You hear the line-in audio, but it's not recorded. In record mode, well it gets recorded. Keep in mind that the 532 can only record 2 tracks at a time.

I tend to program about 2 measures of click track on the Yahama. That allows me enough time to get ready before things kick off. When I am done I trim those measures off the whole song on all the tracks.
 
maybe missed his point?

I'm not sure but I think you guys may have missed his point.

If he does midi the drums to the BR-532, he still has to leave the drum sequence in place in memory in his drum machine. If I understand him correctly, his purpose is to "download" the drums to the BR-532 to free up the memory in his drum machine, presumably to write new drum sequences. The midi sync steps you guys are describing only allows him to sync the drums to the BR-532, meaning when he starts the BR-532, it automatically starts the drum machine at the same time but that doesn't achieve the purpose of recording the drums to the BR-532 so that in the future, as soon as he presses "play" the drums automatically start....

However, it may, and I haven't tried this yet, but it may achieve this anyway.

SO the idea is that you sync up the drum machine and the BR-532. Then you run audio outs to your BR-532 from the drum machine. You press "record" and the BR-532 starts recording the instant the drum machine turns on. In other words, there's no "space" between when the BR-532 starts and the drum machine kicks in. That way, in the future, when you call up the file and press "play" the drums start instantly..... no gap..

Another way you could do it would be to just record the drum machine, then go back and "edit" out the space between the start of the BR-532 and the beginning of the drum machine. This might be a little difficult, but then, maybe not. I haven't tried it yet. It depends on how accurate of a "clip" you can make. in other words, you chop out the blank space before the drums.

Does anyone know if you can make an accurate "clip" of your track in this manner? How accurate of a clip can you make?

..... hope I'm not off base here..... just experimenting with this myself on the BR-8....
 
Rudd:

Your suggestion with cutting out the gap in the beginning would probably work, but why do that if you could have the drum track recorded with tempo information. This way you could edit using BPM instead of seconds and frames. The initial question was referring to having the BR act like the drum machine and the best way to do that, IMO, would be to record the track with tempo information so maybe other tracks could be added later and editing would be a breeze. Without tempo information recorded you'd be cutting and pasting with seconds and frames and from past experience I can tell you that's no really fun.

Either way will work though.

Stray
 
yeah...

I suspected asmuch. I haven't done it yet, myself so I was speculating on how to go about this. I agree though, midi and sync would provide the cleanest way to go about this....
 
GT,

I have a simple question. What type of drum machine do you have? You may be able to do a MIDI dump, and save you drums as a MIDI file.
 
Rudd:

To answer your question yes you can use the BR-8 to make accurate clips, but like I said earlier doing that using seconds/frames is really difficult even with the handy scrub feature the BR8 has. If you record tempo information you can; for example just cut a 4 bar phrase out of a 16 bar phrase and paste it 5 times to come up with a 20 bar phrase. When editing this way you're dealing with bars and beats and I found the BR8 to be very accurate.

Hope this helps.

Stray
 
Zoom 123

Buck,

The Zoom machine only has midi in, but no midi out.

With my old Alesis SR-16, I used to midi dump to tape, nice feature.

Can't do it with Zoom 123.

I had no idea this thread would get this much response, must be a lot of people in the same boat.

Allthough I know nothing, smart media sounds like the way to go, sounds like it might be very indistructable, no? Isn't it basically a chip? No moving parts?

GT
 
So is it true....

Stray -

So then is it true that I can just set up the BR-8 to transmit MTC only? In other words I just want it to start my drum machine (DR-5) and play my drum machine's patterns. I don't want my drum machine to just play the BR-8 rhythm guide patterns. Right?

I haven't messed with this yet but the only time I tried it I got my drum machine to play the BR-8 patterns. It was the BR-8 rhythms but using the "sounds" from my DR-5. I don't want that. I want to program my own sequences and just use the BR-8 to kick it off. Do I have that right?
 
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