Master Clock For Live Performance

[Tom Aragon]

Here is the scenario....

Outside of my original music I have a separate live set-up that consists of a Mackie 1202, a portable Dat Recorder, A Roland SP-808 and a Quasimidi Sirius.

I use this system for trance dance type of music and this works just fine as a stand alone system. I created this system to just go out and have fun without the horrendous job of hooking up all my other gear to perform my original music of which I don't do any longer.

 

Sometimes I like to play in conjunction with my friend who has a similar but not matching system. He has a Roland MC-505, Roland XP-30 and a Roland SP-808 and a Yamaha RM-1X.

 

The best we have been able to do is to use the Quasimidi Sirius to control tempo and we had to get a Midi Filter to even be able to do that. This was before he got the Yamaha unit which we haven't tried yet but prior to that he had a Roland JP-8080 which couldn't be synced properly in conjunction with the other items.

 

Basically we need a stand alone device strictly for live that is a Master Clock for Tempo so our sequences will stay locked between the devices that are playing BPM information.It should control 4 such units.

Is there such a device?

 

Thanks

 

Tom Aragon

 

 

This message has been edited by Tom Aragon on 01-02-2001 at 03:28 PM

[Curve Dominant]

One solution would be a third person, with a G3 laptop w/ sequencing software, connected to a MOTU midi interface like the XT4, connected to ya'll. That way you're free to excercise some stage-craft, knowing you got a plumber keeping everything flowing to the groove.

 

Sometimes ya get to a point where ya just gotta get more doggz in ya crew.

[Max Ventura]

Ciao Curve bro.

 

Here's the solution to Tom's problem: it will cost him about $ 150:

get a RedSound MicroSync, which is a small device devised for DJs who want to sync Midi gear to turntables or CDs: it will output a master Midi Clock, either detecting the tempo of any given input, or by itself, with a start/stop button. After that, with a short Midi cable, you put a MIDI splitter/distributor, a small passive box that splits an incoming Midi signal into 4 or 8 equal outputs, and you send those independently to all those machines you have.

 

Doing a Midi daisy-chain is NOT advisable at all.

There you go.

[Curve Dominant]

RedSound MicroSync? $150? That's amazing, I never even knew such a thing existed. Does Galassia303 sell these? Bumpin' website Massimo, by the way.

[Tom Aragon]

Thanks for the info.....

My Quasimidi has a beat recognition feature but it's pretty worthless.

I did some research on the Redsound products per your suggestion.

 

Here's a link http://www.elfa.co.nz/redsound/redsoundhm.html

 

This message has been edited by Tom Aragon on 01-04-2001 at 09:34 PM

[Max Ventura]

No, Curve, the RedSound thing should be only $ 100; the remaining $ 50 should cover the Midi distributor box. That's at least what I sell them for over here.

What do you think of my website? Beside the fact that's aimed only at our Italian market, is it smooth? Does it visualize well? Do all the pictures appear?

Thanks Bro.

 

Tom:

Trust me, that's the only solution, the simplest, the quickest and the least expensive ever. Additionally, because the Redsound device only outputs Midi clock and no other Midi message, you won't have to filter out other midi events that often bring errors with them.

 

To do this type of live syncing, I use a digital mixer/multitracker (Roland VS-1680) to send out the midi clock to all the machines that run live, and then I take their audio outs and bring them back into the VS for mixing, along with tracks that are pre-recorded in there. You could do that even with Roland DJ-2000 mixer, but that's expensive.