Best way to use external drum machine with R20?

[Nebraska]

There's no midi clock sync so I'm not sure how you'd get the two to match up perfectly.
Is this something where you could record the drum machine and then "move" the entire track to land on the clicks when you're done?
No experience with these so making assumptions.... I know the R20 has some kind of internal drum but I got externals I want to use.

 

[seamonkey]

It has USB Midi
I see the manual has MIDI implementation chart
There are common controls and clock commands listed.

An R20/Zoom forum might have more info

 

[Bonafide]

It has USB Midi
I see the manual has MIDI implementation chart
There are common controls and clock commands listed.

An R20/Zoom forum might have more info

USB midi for inputting notes - data - via the internal sound banks to the internal sequencer - no midi clock. Midi implementation chart specifies no clock commands transmitted or received.

 

[FullumMusic]

You don’t mention what drum machine you’re using, so I’m not sure what control options there are. But it looks like the R20 can be used to control a DAW. You could:

- use R20 to control a DAW on your computer.
- have the DAW control the drum machine by midi, either by programming the midi in the daw and have that control playback on the drum machine, or by having the patterns on the drum machine and having playback start/stop and pattern selection controlled by the DAW.
- have the audio going from the drum machine out into the R20.

Alternately, you could sample the sounds from the drum machine into the R20’s drum sequencer sample slots and do it onboard.

otherwise it looks like the R20 isn’t the right tool for the job. Someone more familiar with the device might know better.

 

[Nebraska]

You don’t mention what drum machine you’re using, so I’m not sure what control options there are. But it looks like the R20 can be used to control a DAW. You could:

- use R20 to control a DAW on your computer.
- have the DAW control the drum machine by midi, either by programming the midi in the daw and have that control playback on the drum machine, or by having the patterns on the drum machine and having playback start/stop and pattern selection controlled by the DAW.
- have the audio going from the drum machine out into the R20.

Alternately, you could sample the sounds from the drum machine into the R20’s drum sequencer sample slots and do it onboard.

otherwise it looks like the R20 isn’t the right tool for the job. Someone more familiar with the device might know better.

This is solid. I'm going to look into this.
I'd gotten the R20 to free myself from the desktop and just figured that, since it had USB midi, I'd be in the clear. A little disappointed to learn otherwise.
As for drum machines, I'm using Drumbrute Impact and the good ole SR16. But I also have various cheap synths that I want to add in, so lots of sync needs to happen.

Out of left field, I also am waiting for a JL Cooper Electronics PPS-1 from Reverb. I understand that in the days of tape they could use that to put a SMPTE timecode of sorts on a spare track and use that as a clock. Sounds like work but it might get me dawless.

 

[FullumMusic]

This is solid. I'm going to look into this.
I'd gotten the R20 to free myself from the desktop and just figured that, since it had USB midi, I'd be in the clear. A little disappointed to learn otherwise.
As for drum machines, I'm using Drumbrute Impact and the good ole SR16. But I also have various cheap synths that I want to add in, so lots of sync needs to happen.

Out of left field, I also am waiting for a JL Cooper Electronics PPS-1 from Reverb. I understand that in the days of tape they could use that to put a SMPTE timecode of sorts on a spare track and use that as a clock. Sounds like work but it might get me dawless.

SMPTE striping probably won’t work because I don’t think the R20 had a SMPTE output. (Admittedly I’m not double checking the manual.) And it’s been FOREVER since I’ve used SMPTE to sync anything, but without a dedicated SMPTE input/output I don’t think SMPTE will work. It’s usually more involved than just taking the audio out from a SMPTE striped track. (Again, it’s been forever so things might have changed and I could be remembering wrong.)

But also, if it can control a daw via USB, I’m mildly surprised it doesn’t control external synths and drum machines by sending the onboard midi to the devices by USB. {shrugs}

 

[FullumMusic]

Also, now that I think about it, you can skip the R20 to DAW to Drum Machine back to R20 convoluted control mechanism. Just sync the DAW and drum machine. Record the drum patterns as loops onto the DAW. Trim them to exactly 4 or 8 (or whatever number of) bars and export them to the R20. It’s digital so they should just drop right in and be the exact right length if the tempo is the same. If they’re not exact for some reason and if the R20 has any sort of audio quantization or warping feature you could tweak the loops to be exactly on and trim their length if needed. Then you have the audio from the drum machine onboard without having to deal with either the DAW or the Drum Machine.

 

[Nebraska]

Well, it's not really SMPTE...

In "smart" FSK mode, use the PPS-1 between any multi-track tape transport and any
sequencer or drum machine that recognizes MIDI SONG POSITION POINTER. Sequencer
tracks (or Drum Machine parts) are recorded first, then the PPS-1 is used to "lay down" a
special FSK sync tone, also known as "striping" the tape. Alternately, if your sequencer
allows the setting up of varying tempo patterns, you can program them first, then just "play
back" the tempo out of the sequencer into the PPS-1, and the "stripe" will follow that
perfectly. The PPS-1 will read that FSK sync tone during tape playback/overdubs/mixdown
and generate a MIDI SONG POSITION POINTER, causing the MIDI device to "chase" to
the appropriate point in the song. Then the PPS-1 will generate MIDI SYNC clocks, so that
the MIDI device stays in perfect sync

It sounds promising anyway.

 

[rudy4444]

There's no midi clock sync so I'm not sure how you'd get the two to match up perfectly.
Is this something where you could record the drum machine and then "move" the entire track to land on the clicks when you're done?
No experience with these so making assumptions.... I know the R20 has some kind of internal drum but I got externals I want to use.

I'm not a MIDI guy, but I own an R20. I can highly recommend you watch all of Gaz Rendar's videos on Youtube, as he does use MIDI devices externally with his R20.



I've thought about using something like a KAT KTMP1 multi-pad and simply laying down live drums as individual tracks, but I know from past experience that it can be pretty dicey to do that.

In Gaz's example above he does mention that the click track out could be used to sync his devices, but there's a strong downbeat on the 1 count that confuses the sync. If a user were to run the click through a limiter to even out the click volume that might do it. It might be possible to record a steady click on an audio track and then use that as a sync output from the R20.

You could assign a single audio sound (like a clave?) to the MIDI track of the R20 and possibly use that as a sync signal. The nice thing about that is the MIDI "audio" will be locked to the beat/bar measure of your project.

In any case good luck with your project, the R20 is a great machine for audio capture, which is what I bought it for.

 

[Nebraska]

Well that would be pretty elegant.

 

[Nebraska]

So this might work. The Impact has a slave mode for sync type clicks. If an r20 synth drum can be a convincing enough sync signal that would work for that one machine. But what if i have more than one machine I want to sync up?? My korg SQ-64 has sync in (and out). If I can get the SQ to sync with the r20 via this method, then it can sequence everything else I want.

 

[cheapbasslovin]

So this might work. The Impact has a slave mode for sync type clicks. If an r20 synth drum can be a convincing enough sync signal that would work for that one machine. But what if i have more than one machine I want to sync up?? My korg SQ-64 has sync in (and out). If I can get the SQ to sync with the r20 via this method, then it can sequence everything else I want.

Please update this if it does the job for you. I've been using an SDRUM which means I can lay drums on the fly, but also means that it's crude and doesn't really allow for any kind of sync beyond listening to the drum machine track.

I'd love options to have a better way. The R20s quirks are more than worth it to avoid having to use a DAW, but minimizing the quirks would be nice, too .