RC300- Here's how to slave the RC-300's Tempo to (some) external sources

Started by Zymos, January 10, 2013, 06:14:31 PM

Previous topic - Next topic

0 Members and 1 Guest are viewing this topic.

Strangercat

Cool, I am about to try to work this out, fingers crossed!

Just curious if anyone has tried using the FCB-1010 with Ableton, and whether they prefer that or the RC300?

I am SO incredibly used to and comfortable with the RC300, but my friends keep trying to push towards midi controllers...


byron78

Great! An a big thanks from me!
This post, and the tricks saved me a lot of troubles. It took me a lot fo research to find it. And I was about to return my RC300, just because I couldn't sync it as slave to external tempo. It would be much cheaper to use just Ableton and get rid of the troubles. :)
It is working for me in "tempo sync" mode perfectly. And there is no "tempo drift".

The idea is brilliant and open much more possibilities! I really hope, they will develop some update, the guys from Roland, to include all the features, that would be helpful and useful for the musicians.

Cheers.

JakeCJ

Anyone have any experience or idea if this will work to slave the RC-300 to a BeatBuddy drum pedal?  I'll try it when I get home but wondering before I do if it's even worth trying?  Not sure what cc is sent out from Beatbuddy pedal but not sure it matters. Please advise if anyone can!  thanks!
- Obi Wan Jacoby

Elantric

Read about BeatBuddy MIDI Sync options (Page 21)

http://mybeatbuddy.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/09/BeatBuddy-Manual-9-21-14.pdf

( rather weak documentation since there is no Beatbuddy MIDI Implementation sheet available) 

Lape

Hey guys. I am new here because I have many problems with the rc300. I tried the tutorial
about "to slave the rc300". I just wanted something like a metronom for my drummer.
After hours of experimenting I gave up because on my drummers computer the Tempo
changed +/- 3BPM. On my macbook it was faster (+/- 0.1 BPM) but I heard clicks during playback
or on my effects (delay).

So I tried a new way. Now my drummer can control the programs of the RC300 with Reaper. If he presses a key
the looper changes the program and starts to loop track 1. My drummer gets the BASSDRUM & HIHAT 2
pattern back into Reaper where I set a very hard EQ and Gate to create a nice click sound. Because it is
an audio signal there is less of 10ms latency. <3
I know I loose one Track but I think If I really need it I can configure a Boss FS to mute / unmute the track.

Now my questions: Is it possible to control the RC300 with USB instead of Midi? I know I can use it as an interface but
I didn't saw a way to send CC via USB.

Did you use the RC300 as a sampler? Is there something I have to consider if I create wavs and copy it to
the rc300? Some "start" latency?!



Thanks guys. U got a nice community and you helped me much.

shawnb

Quote from:  Lape on April 27, 2015, 12:26:06 AMNow my questions: Is it possible to control the RC300 with USB instead of Midi? I know I can use it as an interface but I didn't saw a way to send CC via USB.

Short answer: no.   The USB exists only to copy files back & forth to the computer. 

Quote from:  Lape on April 27, 2015, 12:26:06 AM
Did you use the RC300 as a sampler? Is there something I have to consider if I create wavs and copy it to
the rc300? Some "start" latency?!

There is no 'start' latency.  The RC-300 stores its recordings internally as .wav files - there is no difference in the file format between a .wav copied from your computer or one recorded on the RC-300 itself. 

Read the manual on page 36 for the process. 

The RC-300 is VERY picky about .wav files you put on it! 
  -  .wav format (no other format supported)
  -  They MUST be stereo, no mono files
  -  16 bit depth
  -  44.1khz
  -  (*** NOT described in the manual:) The exported file must include complete measures; it MUST be sample-perfect in length

There are some early users (cut over from using the RC-50) who had samples on their DAWs who exported the content for use, and had issues.  We swapped files, and in all instances, the sample .wav file was too small - it wasn't padded with silence to the end of the measure.  I was able to correct by padding the .wav files with silence to bring them to the proper length. 

Your DAW (or whatever tool you're using to provide the sample) must provide sample-size-perfect .wav exports. 

After putting the .wav file properly on the RC-300 you must edit the track parameters to make it match, e.g., set the measures, time signature & tempo to match your file.  The RC300 will force you to enter parameters that match the length of your .wav file.   If you cannot dial in the parameters to match your recording, the .wav file is probably the wrong length. 

Quote from:  Lape on April 27, 2015, 12:26:06 AM
Thanks guys. U got a nice community and you helped me much.

Welcome to the forum!
Address the process rather than the outcome.  Then, the outcome becomes more likely.   - Fripp

Lape

Thanks! I got one more problem:
For example:
A song with tempo 202 bpm
- my drummer starts the looper and get the click through the sub out
- track one is just a 1 measure silent wav which starts because it is needed to start
The rhythm
- I got a perfect sample on track 2

Problem: if I start track 2 it is not in time! I set loop sync off and tempo sync on!
If I set loop sync on it is on click but it starts on the wrong timing

So what are the settings to play track 2 in tempo from the start?
I let my looper at the rehearsal room but I thought about the topic.
Is it the solution to turn off loop sync on every track and enable tempo sync?
The Other way it to press START ALL TRACKS - but if I need track 3 in the future
And I don't want it to start with the other tracks then I got a problem.

shawnb

I'm having a hard time visualizing the whole setup here...   (E.g., how the drummer starts the rc-300.)

But here are a few things to experiment with...
  • Based on what you're describing, I'm pretty sure you need loop sync on.  that's what causes the loops to start at common logical boundaries.   With loop sync off, you may start in the middle of a loop, which sounds like the problem.
  • If you're using 'single track play' mode, make sure you have 'loop end' selected, so you don't cut anything short.
  • I'm not sure the 1 measure silence is needed.  Have you tried setting Rec Count & Play Count?  These provide count-ins, without using up a track.
  • Do you (or drummer) need to tap tempo to change tempo while an existing recording is playing?  If so, you could probably turn tempo sync off.   It's job is to align tempos (by speeding up or slowing down audio) when the recording was done at different tempos.  I don't think this is the problem here though.

Hope this helps.   

If you're still stuck, please describe how you have the RC-300 and Reaper communicating.   E.g., do you use assigns?  What assign?   
Address the process rather than the outcome.  Then, the outcome becomes more likely.   - Fripp

Lape

Hm... I will try my setup again! :)

Goal is: My drummer needs a metronom and I want to start samples and make some loops to the click.

I am a singer and I use the RC300 for delay and some distortion effects too!

My setting:

Microphone -> Y-XLR-Cable -> RC300 Input / Mixer

RC300: Main Out -> Mixer (100% effect "wet")
            Sub Out -> Only Rhythm Track (HIHAT & BASSDRUM 2) -> Laptop Audio In -> Reaper
            Midi IN -> Midi Out Signal from Reaper (CC64 - Play Track 1)

Laptop: Audio IN -> Track 1 Reaper -> Direct Monitoring with EQ and "ToneGate" to get a nice click signal instead of the Rhythm Track
            Audio Out -> Headphones

Midi Out (Laptop)
I created as many tracks as songs we got. Reaper plays all the time. I created some macros.
If my drummer hits the key "1" Reaper mutes all Tracks and set the audio track (Audio IN / Direct Monitoring / Rhythm Signal)
to solo and the Midi Track 1 to solo.
On Midi Track 1 is a midi file that sends a program change command and the CC64 command to the RC300.
So if my drummer wants the click of a song he just has to press a key to controll my RC300 (Program change) and
to let the first track (which is 1 measure long and silenced) start.

One of the problems is that the rhythm track of the RC300 doesnt start alone . That's why I have to command him to start
Track 1.

And the other problem i: If I start TRACK 2 (a sample) with my foot the loop is not "in time". Maybe it is the same tempo
but it is not on my drummer first note. And if I set LOOP SYNC = ON and start TRACK 2 with my foot the sample is synced
but it starts somewhere (Not from the Start of the sample)...

I hope I could explain it better to you and I hope you can help me !

shawnb


That all makes sense.   And now I recall that the Rhythm won't start alone...

What does the CC64 do?   Do you have it programmed to an ASSIGN in the RC-300?

Address the process rather than the outcome.  Then, the outcome becomes more likely.   - Fripp

Syph

Sorry to say I am not surprised by your issues.

I think the best bet would be to control the RC300 in a different way. Use an assign to set the tempo, set the rhythm lvl to 0 and run your click track in reaper. You could still an save each songs tempo to a midi clip so you fire the clip and it sets Reapers tempo and starts the click, but also sets the RC300 to the same tempo. This wayyou only start the looper when you want it, no screwing around with the on board drum machine and hopefully should make the rc's loop behaviour a bit more sensible....

I have a topic here somewhere where I explain how to sync ableton and the Rc300 using the tempo assign and a CC or 2, but it is hard to find on my phone... Should be able to help you get reaper going though!

shawnb

I *think* I was able to get what you desired...   

I used one of the ASSIGNs in the RC-300 to assign CC#68 to TR1 PLAY/STOP.   
  -  I could turn track 1 (the silent one) on & off from my computer, thus starting & stopping rhythm. 
  -  Note, this will NOT turn off rhythm if other tracks are playing, it will just stop your 'silent' track. 

Tempo at Memory (patch) level was 202.
Single Track Play was OFF, so I can play my tracks in parallel.   

I created 3 tracks within my DAW, & copied them to the RC-300 via USB. 
  -  Tempo for EACH OF the 3 tracks was 202. 
  -  All 3 tracks had Loop Sync OFF, so they could be turned off & on at will.
  -  All 3 tracks had Tempo Sync ON, so I could change the tempo during performance (which works).

Track 1 had 2 measures of silence ;   Track 1:Measure thus said (BPM202.0)  2
Track 2 had an 8 measure piano bit ; Track 2:Measure thus said (BPM202.0)  8
Track 3 had a 5 measure synth bit ;   Track 3:Measure thus said (BPM202.0)  5

My biggest lesson here was the reminder that the RC-300 will not properly utilize very short audio files.  (Pg 36 of the manual says minimum .wav length is about 1.5 seconds.)   The 'silent' track did not work when it was 1 measure - it was too short.  It had to be 2 perfect measures.   Once I did that everything fell into place.   
Address the process rather than the outcome.  Then, the outcome becomes more likely.   - Fripp

Lape

Quote from:  Syph on April 28, 2015, 04:53:30 PM
Sorry to say I am not surprised by your issues.

I think the best bet would be to control the RC300 in a different way. Use an assign to set the tempo, set the rhythm lvl to 0 and run your click track in reaper. You could still an save each songs tempo to a midi clip so you fire the clip and it sets Reapers tempo and starts the click, but also sets the RC300 to the same tempo. This wayyou only start the looper when you want it, no screwing around with the on board drum machine and hopefully should make the rc's loop behaviour a bit more sensible....

I have a topic here somewhere where I explain how to sync ableton and the Rc300 using the tempo assign and a CC or 2, but it is hard to find on my phone... Should be able to help you get reaper going though!

Sorry but I tried the tap Tempo and tempo method you guys explained in a sticky and
I tried it with different midi controllers / computers.
The rc300 always generated some "plops and clicks" because midi isn't fast enough
to synchronize (or the rc300 can't handle it). I got these issues with loops and with
my delay effects! They suddenly sounded like crap!

@shawnb

I don't know if I get what you want to say. My CC64 does the same like you explained.
Assign 8 - play track 1 - cc64
I will tried different measures of the silent track but it didn't solved the problem.
Maybe (and I really hope so) my mistake was to activate loop sync on the silent track.
I hope setting loop sync off on every track will solve the problem...

Ah... And I don't think the problem is the length of my silent track because I just
recorded it with loop sync on and tempo sync on with the rc300. So it wasn't to short!

shawnb


I just tried it with track 1 (the silent track) with Loop Sync ON and that didn't change anything.

The only way I could get the behavior you describe (track starting mid-loop) was by having Loop Sync ON on the other tracks.   Make sure you have all 3 set to Loop Sync OFF and save immediately. 

Quick question - which version of the firmware are you running?   

Instructions to make sure you're current may be found here:
http://roland.com/support/article/?q=downloads&p=RC-300&id=62467493
Address the process rather than the outcome.  Then, the outcome becomes more likely.   - Fripp

Syph

Interesting. I tried the tap tempo assign and I found a similar thing, the RC300 would read ever so slight fluctuations in the MIDI clock and either delays would glitch, or artefacts would start showing up in recordings on playback etc. I don't mean to be rude, but can you walk me through how you tried to the "tempo" assign? I can't think of why that wouldn't work, and I don't think my brain will rest until I know!  ???

Lape

There is a guy who wrote about the tempo assign in the "how to slave rc300"
Sticky. But It wasn't fast enough so I came up with my solution.

Btw: I went to our rehearsal room and tried the thing we talked about.
It's okay now! I have to set loop sync off on the first track and loop sync on
on the others! Now track 2 starts always at the 1 of the click!

Thanx guys

Lape

Btw. If you like I can a "how to" about the
Pattern to click settings (eq/gate/tone generator )

Syph

Glad to hear you have it working! Digital rigs can be a nightmare at times, and the subtly to the loop and tempo sync things is weird to say the least...

I am still stuck at why the tempo assign doesn't work though. When you say "midi isn't fast enough", that makes sense for the tap tempo method since the inaccuracies inherent to Midi produce a variable clock speed, but I don't see how that would affect a direct tempo control.

I'm not saying you don't have a problem! I am just trying to figure out what it is. If there is a problem with the sync method I found I would like to find it before I try and do something crazy like play a gig with it!

For what it's worth, I have managed to 'slave' my Rc300 to ableton, protools, GarageBand and probably others I can't remember! And this is using a variety of computers, macs, ios, different sound cards, usb midi interfaces. All would successfully run for hours on end without a hiccup, hence my need to understand!  ;D

Lape

Maybe I did something wrong with reaper. If you send me a garage band project file I will try it again. But I think the rc300 is not good in every way of slaving. I think the tempo assign don't work because the rc300 sync the sample to the clock. If you press "play track two" with the settings loop sync off and tempo sync on there will be a timing issue. Loop sync on is just good if you know the measures at any moment.

Syph

Cool man, thanks for indulging me! I'll have a dig at that over the weekend, it's been a while since I opened anything but ableton  ;D

Lape

After many live gigs I come to the solution that it is not safe enough. Sometimes my drummer can't change the program because the midi command get lost or so.... Now I wrote a long eMail to Korg/Boss and told them to make a new firmware with just a normal metronome click on the rhythm section. They wrote back that they sent my problem to the technicians. So please just wrote them an email too! It's not that big problem to update the rhythm sounds!

Cheers

shaugs

Quote from: byron78 on February 08, 2014, 06:47:57 AM
Great! An a big thanks from me!
This post, and the tricks saved me a lot of troubles. It took me a lot fo research to find it. And I was about to return my RC300, just because I couldn't sync it as slave to external tempo. It would be much cheaper to use just Ableton and get rid of the troubles. :)
It is working for me in "tempo sync" mode perfectly. And there is no "tempo drift".

The idea is brilliant and open much more possibilities! I really hope, they will develop some update, the guys from Roland, to include all the features, that would be helpful and useful for the musicians.

Cheers.

shaugs

Please someone tell me how to sync my rc300 with Logic!!! I understand that only the logic can be the slave which is the way I want it. What's strange is that one bank on the rc300 lets me start and stop logic once I hit "all start/stop" on rc300 but then when I go to another bank with same settings and/or start a new loop it won't trigger logic to start.  Driving me nuts!!! Answers anyone????

celneto

Quote from: Syph on April 29, 2015, 08:00:33 AM
Glad to hear you have it working! Digital rigs can be a nightmare at times, and the subtly to the loop and tempo sync things is weird to say the least...

I am still stuck at why the tempo assign doesn't work though. When you say "midi isn't fast enough", that makes sense for the tap tempo method since the inaccuracies inherent to Midi produce a variable clock speed, but I don't see how that would affect a direct tempo control.

I'm not saying you don't have a problem! I am just trying to figure out what it is. If there is a problem with the sync method I found I would like to find it before I try and do something crazy like play a gig with it!

For what it's worth, I have managed to 'slave' my Rc300 to ableton, protools, GarageBand and probably others I can't remember! And this is using a variety of computers, macs, ios, different sound cards, usb midi interfaces. All would successfully run for hours on end without a hiccup, hence my need to understand!  ;D
Hello guys! I've been looking for informations about slaving my rc300 to ableton everywhere, and here is the only place I found some real info and people saying that made it work well.
Could you guys help me with this? I just want to slave my rc 300 to ableton, then ai can use ableton link to conect my ipad to ableton all synch in time. Is it possible someway, somehow!??! Thanks guys! Found a lot of people looking for this info everywhere but no good answers! Thanks