MID Drum Machine Tracking to Tempo...

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LewKellogg

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MIDI Drum Machine Tracking to Tempo...

OK, I'm missing something really basic and could use some help. :confused: I'm trying to record the MIDI from a DR-770 drum module. I can get Sonar 3 to record the notes. I can't get the time signature and tempos to match.

I set the tempo on the drum machine and in Sonar to the same thing (160 in this case). When I am recording everything sounds fine. When I play back the drums are at least 1/2 speed and out of sync with the measures. I've tried different time signatures amd tempos to the point that I'm not sure I understand them anymore :eek:

Can anyone one walk me through this or give me suggestions on where to look? As I mentioned, the MIDI notes record just fine. I am using MIDI sync so Sonar statrs when I start the DR-770 and thus the first note at least is at the beginning. However, all of them are just and out of sync on play back...
 
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Welcome to the board, LewKellogg... :)
It's probably DR770 send realtime tempo change message durring recording.
On playback, does the tempo changes itself after you hit play? If you open Tempo view (View-->Tempo), do you see any change in tempo line?

;)
Jaymz
 
Thanks for the Welcome". and Good guess on the tempo. However, I don't see any tempo changes. It acts like two things are wrong. The first one being the time signature not patching. I'm pretty sure I've got that part correct but anything is possible. The second issue is that the tempo on playback is 1/2 spped or slower. I played the MIDI though a softsynth to take the DR-770 nout pf the loop and it still plays back slowly.
 
Hmmm.. sorry it took a bit longer to reply..
It's been long time since I sync'd external sequencer to Sonar, but last night, I gave it a try again. It's combo Korg N364 & Sonar 3 PE since I don't have DR770. Create & record couple tracks in N364 sequencer. Done. Hook N364 to Sonar, and record the tracks into Sonar (N364 as master). Sonar recorded it just fine. Set Sonar's clock source back to Internal after record it. Play it back... normal... :)

Now, what if you open Event View? record one track from DR770 into sonar, click the track, and open Event View... Do you see any suspicious event?

;)
Jaymz
 
LewKellogg said:
OK, I'm missing something really basic and could use some help. :confused: I'm trying to record the MIDI from a DR-770 drum module. I can get Sonar 3 to record the notes. I can't get the time signature and tempos to match.

I set the tempo on the drum machine and in Sonar to the same thing (160 in this case). When I am recording everything sounds fine. When I play back the drums are at least 1/2 speed and out of sync with the measures. I've tried different time signatures amd tempos to the point that I'm not sure I understand them anymore :eek:

Can anyone one walk me through this or give me suggestions on where to look? As I mentioned, the MIDI notes record just fine. I am using MIDI sync so Sonar statrs when I start the DR-770 and thus the first note at least is at the beginning. However, all of them are just and out of sync on play back...
Click to expand...

Welcome as well........ I'm sure Jaymz will get you throught this but I'll add my 2 cents (that's about the actuall street value of it) and confuse you even more. I use an Alesis SR-16 as an external MIDI device, unfortunately I mainly do all my drum arrangements within the staff view of Sonar and just use the sounds within the SR-16, but I have on occasion recorded the MIDI signal into Sonar and this is what I found. I have found that even thought the tempos are set the same the notes will change in the staff view. What I mean is that in one measure it will change by a 16th then it will change by a 32nd then a 64th and so on until it comes back around to the correct notation.... then it will do it again....... this makes for a hard time editing those tracks. I think I had to set the clock so that the Alesis was the slave, I'm pretty sure Sonar had to start the drum module but I can't quite remember.... I haven't done it for a while. I'll try it tonight and get back to you as well.... But what happened is normal in your case , at least I can relate to you.
 
Aaah, there you go, Chris :) It's very kind of you :)

;)
Jaymz
 
Ok..... here we go.... assuming you have both your MIDI cables (MIDI In and MIDI Out) hooked up between the drum machine and your computer, and your MIDI Input and Output correctly configured this is what you need to do.
Create a MIDI track
Then you need to set Sonar's sync option.... to do this do as follows
OPTIONS > PROJECT... click on the SYNC tab.
Check > Transmit MIDI Start/ Continue/ Stop/ Clock
You may also want to check the SPP box.... but you don't have to
Choose the MIDI SYNC output port
Choose OK
After set the tempo you want ( in Sonar) and Sonar should overide the drum machine's tempo.... the best thing is to check the devices manual to see what needs to be done for the drum machine to act as a SLAVE and not the timing master. At this point you can hit record and Sonar will automatically start the drum machine and the data from the drum machine will be recorded to that MIDI track. From here you can edit as you'd like and what not... Good Luck and let me know if you have a problem.
 
James Argo said:
Aaah, there you go, Chris :) It's very kind of you :)

;)
Jaymz
Click to expand...

Gladly Jaymz :) .... just giving credit where credit is due......... there are people on this site who know their shit and you are one of them........ I'm just glad to be able to give a little back as well.
 
I appreciate all of the suggestions and everyone trying to help. Also, I double posted this on the Boss, Roland forum thinking it was a different group of readers. I have since found out that is considered bad form. I apologize for the newbie error.

In this particular case I'm was doing all of the above and still had the issue. I've been a Cakewalk user for some time and had it working just the day before. In case anyone is interested, the problem was that I had another MIDI device connected at the same time which had a different tempo setting than Sonar and the DR-770. I've used multiple MIDI instruments (hardware) before but I've always remembered to set each tempo to the Sonar tempo. In this case I had missed one, and it was causing the issue. Once I changed it everything synced up nicely. Thanks again for the help and sorry about the double post.
 
You need to set the drum machine as a slave,there should be NO TEMPO showing on the 770 whatsoever.

On the 770 there is a button labled "midi' pushing this button will bring you to a menu.
Using the cursor go to midisync or something like that.
Using the jog wheel change it from internal to midi.

I've already recorded all the patterns from a 770 with no problems,this is very doable.
 
LewKellogg said:
I appreciate all of the suggestions and everyone trying to help. Also, I double posted this on the Boss, Roland forum thinking it was a different group of readers. I have since found out that is considered bad form. I apologize for the newbie error.

In this particular case I'm was doing all of the above and still had the issue. I've been a Cakewalk user for some time and had it working just the day before. In case anyone is interested, the problem was that I had another MIDI device connected at the same time which had a different tempo setting than Sonar and the DR-770. I've used multiple MIDI instruments (hardware) before but I've always remembered to set each tempo to the Sonar tempo. In this case I had missed one, and it was causing the issue. Once I changed it everything synced up nicely. Thanks again for the help and sorry about the double post.
Click to expand...

As mentioned by Acidrock.... the drum machine should not be showing any tempo when being used as a slave the only device that should have a tempo is the master ie SONAR. As long as you're all set.
 
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