Hello all, I am new to syncing DAWs, LFOs, arpeggiators, and the like, and was wondering if anyone out there could walk me through the steps necessary to sync the Taurus III’s LFOs or Arpeggiators to Logic Pro. I’ve got a USB cable hooking everything together and the clocks on the Taurus 3 set to MIDI, and in Logic I found a dialog that allows me to set up MTC and Midi Clock and send them to “all” channels, but for some reason, changing the tempo of the recording is having no effect on the rate of the arpeggiator or the LFOs. Am I missing something crucial? Any assistance would be greatly appreciated. Thanks!!
Depends on the version of code in your Taurus and possibly the version of Logic.
I have Logic 8 but to be honest, I run my clock from my JoMoX or from Maschine depending on what I’m doing.
Midi clock will due since the pedals have no notion of positioning but as referenced above, the LFO may need a START in order to start listening.
Some devices will ALWAYS send clock beats while others will only send after the local clock is started at beginning of song. It gets confusing and as mentioned it’s implementation specific.
Depending on routing with your Mac, you may or may not be passing Midi from one device to another. In the case of Taurus connected with USB, Logic ought to be able to communicate directly. But in the case of a clock source like a Drum machine or MPC, you’ll need something to route the clock or setup Logic to do so.
Lots of ‘ifs’ above and I apologize for that. My advice would be to keep an eye on midi traffic if at all possible so that you can confirm that Logic is indeed sending it and also to know exactly how your particular Taurus firmware deals with clock or MTC.
I’ll give it a try when I get home later but I’m running Logic 8 (old) and have older code in my pedals (beta code from a year ago at least).
Thanks so much for the reply! I’ve spent many frustrating hours with this today and am no closer than I was before. I am not sure how to even monitor midi traffic, I am kind of new at all of this. I am using the latest os for T3 (1.13?) and Logic 9 (also up to date).
All I really want to do is have the arpeggiator and/or LFO in the T3 be in time with drum loops and things of that nature in Logic, as well as any other devices that are synced to it (external drum machine, MIDI Murf, that kind of thing) to make it easier to quick-compose and mess around. Here’s where I determined how to send MTC from Logic:
http://en.wikiaudio.org/Logic:_Sync_transmission_MTC_or_MIDI_beat_clocks
I’ve tried going to the “General” tab under project settings and selecting a box that someone suggested I check regarding external clock, no luck.
I also watched some youtube videos (SfLogicNinja, at Rosser’s suggestion at Moog Tech Support) on how to set up external midi instruments but they did me no good. In fact, I can’t even get the T3 to play back Midi tracks I have just recorded in Logic at all - it pedals notes, notes get stuck on, etc.
Arpeggiator and LFO slow to almost nothing and then speed up intermittently; none of it in time with the tempo in the DAW and none of it affected by tempo changes in the DAW.
I can use an external controller to play the T3 via DIN but have tried both DIN and USB from the Mac with no luck.
I am using Lion and Logic 9 with some Mackie Control Surfaces, both of which are in Midi Ports 1 & 2 on a MOTU interface while the T3 is on Channel 16. I am ready to tear my hair out over this and any assistance at all is greatly appreciated!
I’ve deleted my last couple updates because in light of the solution they were just silly. I’ve got it to work perfectly - almost!
-Moved the usb cable off of an external hub and directly into the back of the mac. Boom.
-Set up an external midi track in Logic, from the library tab, chose “Taurus 3” and the correct midi channel that the T3 was set to (6 for now). Bam.
-In Logic preferences, chose MIDI, chose sync tab, then chose midi sync project settings.
-Chose transmit midi clock destination - Taurus 3
-Chose Midi Time Code - Taurus 3
-KABLAMMO - everything works the way it’s supposed to! EXCEPT…
Occasionally (often, almost every time) notes latch in the arpeggiator and I have to use the T3’s panic button (All Notes Off) to stop them. The result is that I can’t rely on it to build arpeggios the way I want them because often it adds the note I play to the previous note rather than replacing the previous note- in effect making a 2- note arpeggio. There seems to be a problem with the note off message going into logic. I’ve tried splitting in and out on 2 different channels, one to record with and the other to play back, but no dice. Could this finally be a job for firmware man?
Incidentally, in the midst of this journey I downloaded and installed Firmware 1.2 and it broke all of the above - a midi message was still being recorded by Logic whenever I played the T3, but it was just one note (C0?) and the rhythm matched whatever I played but then… it wouldn’t play back. So I put 1.13 back on there and it all came running back.
PSS - As a special present to me, the CP300 that I use as a master controller is playing the T3 and can be used as a controller to trigger notes on it as it would a software synth - without me having had to set up anything extra in Logic’s environment window.
For posterity: best way to set this up in Logic for recording is with an External Instrument Track.
-Create a new Software Instrument
-Choose “External Instrument” in Track I/O
-Choose the T3, the midi channel it’s sending/receiving on, and the audio input it’s plugged into.
-Create an audio track with that she audio input as its input.
-Record midi, but not audio
-Tweak as you like
-Play it back, this time recording the audio
voila!
I am reposting this on the T3 board (the other place I was whining) and copying Rosser & Perry @ Moog Tech Support, who have put in more time than anyone should have to talking to me on the phone about this when they could have been helping others. Great staff down there!
Hopefully this post will be a nice handy how-to for anyone trying to sync this bad boy with Logic.