theelectricdisco

I've had some problems suddenly arise with my Prophet 08 and Logic for some reason I've had it set up as an external instrument and running successfully for a few years now but last week it just stopped responding to midi coming back from the sequencer. I'm not sure if I've moved something or a setting has got changed but I am able to see a signal going into to logic, and can record notes as expected. They even register on the Prophet when they play back but no sound comes out. However, when I move to the adjacent track in logic which is set to a software instrument, I can hear the Prophet coming through perfectly but not the software instrument?? Midi is going into Logic via a Kenton thru box into a saffire 56 Midi is coming back to the Prophet via Maschine studio which is connected via USB to my mac. Maschine is also sending midi (via the Prophet) to a DX7 and that is able to send and receive as expected. So something is happening to the Prophet in the middle and I just can't figure it out... Any clues appreciated!!

Hi Rich, Thanks for the reply. So, I just fired up my mac and checked the audio / midi setup. It had reset so that TR8 was clock and the sample rate at 96 I swapped it over again so it looked like this. https://drive.google.com/open?id=0B8sCOS6SV3GnSmp4ZGE4SkRKX1k (Sorry haven't figured out how to embed images!) I then restarted the mac and again it reset and went back to the TR8 as clock. https://drive.google.com/open?id=0B8sCOS6SV3GnNlBsbDRHUXprdjA It seems to affect the number of channels too which has adverse affects on my instruments and sessions in Logic. I get round it each session by resetting and reengaging it in Logic but it's a right pain...

Hi Not sure if anyone can help with a really frustrating issue I'm having with an aggregate device I'm using for audio in. I've got a Saffire 56 connected to a Behringer ada8200. I've created an aggregate device with the Saffire (+ Behringer) and also my TR8 so I can make use of all its' individual inputs. It works perfectly, but the problem is, EVERY time I start a new session, 50% of my inputs in logic are greyed out. When I go to the aggregate device it always seems to swap them around and make the TR8 the clock, which I dont want, so I have to change them back, and this brings some channels back, but normally I have to create a new aggregate device, every single session in order for it to work. Its very frustrating and seems to be causing some bizarre glitches with routing the TR8 into other totally unconnected channels. Any idea what I might do to lock it down so it just works? Here's hoping someone might have had a similar issue. Cheers Mark

Morning, Just wanted to check in re. this issue. I'd been around the houses and tried everything to get it running properly and was at my whits end. Then randomly while I was rerouting my gear I ended up sending clock via a different port and whammo.. everything seems (touch wood) ok now! It appears that there is a known bug with clock drift going via the saffire 56 / firewire / thunderbolt Anyway, I've routed out of the midi Thru on my Maschine and everything seems perfect! I'll keep on digging deeper in case there are still any bugs but so far it seems that it wasn't a routing / software problem but just a technical flaw! Thanks for all the feedback though. Much appreciated!

Hey Volovicg Thanks for the reply. Im away from Logic at the moment, but to assign the track to the 1st Multi instrument, is this accessed via the reassign track menu? https://support.apple.com/kb/ph12919?locale=en_US Secondly, you mentioned the 2nd multi instrument.. In the scenario I had followed, there was only one multi created in the environment, followed by the no thru, followed by a midi instrument. Should this second instrument be multi too? And will it be apparent how to assign that to the Prophet once I'm in there tonight?

Hi I'm having some major problems with my Prophet 8 getting mixed clock messages and totally losing sync when I send and receive parameter change messages from the knobs on the synth. It works with Local On, internal clock and Parameter send off but I obviously then can't record changes and it's basically just disabled all the midi connections. Things improve slightly when I record disable the midi channel the Prophet is set to in Logic, but problems reappear as soon as I start recording. It has been suggested by a couple of different people that turning off Midi Thru in Logic might fix things, but I just can't seem to figure out how to do it. I've tried a couple of things which may have actually been correct but had no impact on the sync problems First off I tried to create a midi instrument in the environment which I was then able to select in the no midi thru drop down in the Midi preferences pane. Secondly, again in the environment, I tried creating a multi instrument, connecting to a No Thru fader and then to a midi instrument. I believe the suggestion for this might have actually been on this forum. Again, either I did it wrong or it simply didn't work. It would be fantastic to get some pointers for other things I might try or ideas of where I might be going wrong. Many thanks!! Mark

Cool.. many thanks for the reply. Other advice I've had has echoed yours so this morning I've router my mic straight into the apogee and touch wood it seems infinitely better. I also cleaned up my cabling as the mic lead was previously running past a mains box, through all my speaker cables, past my macbook power lead... and Ive a feeling that that also might have been adding some extra hummage. Is that possible? Ok, so the signal is better, although when I turn on a multi effects distortion rock monster amp type affair, I immediately get some noise even when Ive only recorded an empty audio track. Its almost silent when there are no effects there but when I turn them on the noise kicks in. It kind of sounds like when you turn a real amp on, so Im not sure if this is just to be expected? Anyway, with a bit of noise gating and the quick expermintation Ive done this morning I think I'll be able to sort it. However, Im now in the grasp of the Apogee and it's in / out settings. Ive kept my decks running through my mixer (they go into my main DJ mixer first so no need for a preamp - and I also use the second mixer to send my decks to my monitors without having to turn on my mac) They currently go into the instrument 1 and 2 which I succesfully grouped in logics apogee controls and got a decent recording, but, Im now experiencing a wierd thing when I try to control the channel volume with the channel fader. It does nothing until I change inputs to none, and then back again, and then it starts working. If I dont do that then I can only control the channel volume via the main output fader which Ive not experienced before. Also, I select input 1, or input 2 for my stereo signal from my decks / mixer, which goes into the intrument 1 and 2 grouped, but Im not sure which one I should be selecting... input 1 or input 2 as they both appear to be doing the same thing. Or should I set it to inputs 1 + 2? Hmmm.. sorry, multi layered question here. Any pointers on any of the problems would be hugely appreciated once again! Many thanks again Mark

Ok, following on from my last question about mic'ing, here's a slightly bigger question about my surrounding setup. This is a general back to basics question, looking at my physical setup and wondering where it's gone wrong and what to do to fix it. I've uploaded a basic diagram of my cabling here http://www.theelectricdisco.com/images/setup.jpg Quick overview of the setup is as follows. Set of turntables, an electric guitar, a hardware synth (not on the diagram) and a mic which I use for recording acoustic guitar, all currently feed into a mixer, which feeds into the 2 instrument inserts on an apogee duet grouped together, then into Logic 8 on my macbook pro. The macbook also sends sound out via the duet and back into the mixer, which ultimately feeds two monitors from it's main audio outputs. Each channel has an FX send on which is what Im currently using to route a signal back to the duet and into the macbook. Now... this works fine for the electric guitar, the decks, the synth and for monitoring and then re-recording back from my macbook. I have only run into problems this last week after buying a mic and trying to record acoustic guitar. In theory it works. The signal goes in, records, great.. But the quality is dire. There is so much hum and background noise even on a clean signal, that when I try to insert an amp sim onto the track, it just exaggerates the background noise and makes it almost unlistenable. I think the problem is, with this route into Logic, there are so many different volumes that I'm having problems setting up a decent volume to reduce this noise. There's the main volume on the mic channel, then the trim, then the FX send on the channel, then the main effects send and it's hard to know where the problem starts. I tried bypassing the mixer altogether for the acoustic guitar and inserting the mic straight into the apogee which immediately gave me a cleaner (not perfect but instantly better) recording ,unfortunately, I dont know why or how. When I first bought the apogee, I kind of fluked the initial setup and then to be honest just left it, not fully understand what was working, just that it was. So, now to reconfigure it to receive a signal from the mic input instead would knock out the whole previous setup and all the associated audio feeds that Im currently using. So... I guess my somewhat long winded question is this... What is the best set up for my needs and with the equipment that Ive got? Am I best off feeding the mic straight into the apogee and bypassing the mixer? I have a feeling that this is the case.. And if so, does anyone know, or have any suggestions of how I can then set up my apogee (via maestro? or straight into logic?) so that it can accommodate all of my requirements, mic, decks, electric guitar, synth etc... I hope this isn't tooooo confusing, I'm desperate to get it hooked up properly so am online nonstop at the mo and will add whatever missing details might help unravel this audio spaghetti junction! Thanks as always.. Hopefully hear back from you soon Mark

Hey thanks for the reply. Thats useful re. the mic settings. I'll ammend on my next visit to the stage! I'll also try going straight into the apogee and see what that throws up. I guess my reluctance with that was that I've somehow bumbled my way into geting it set up so that it works with the stuff that's being fed from my mixer, and now this would necessitate a different setup. Is it it easy to toggle between settings on the duet for different inputs? Im using the instruments 1 and 2 grouped together to recieve a stereo left and right from my mixer at the moment, this includes an electric guitar feed which goes into one channel, the mic feed which goes into another channel, my decks on another and the fx loop which I use to send the computer audio back to logic for sampling. So.. if I then broke out of that setup for just the mic, can I toggle back to the above easily or is it the beginnings of a ball ache? Im quite new with the apogee so Im not sure whether this is something super simple or as hard as Im actually envisaging it might be! hmm...

Hi My first post here, so apologies if this ends up in the wrong place. Looks like a cool forum so I'm probably gonna be hitting it up every couple of hours from now on!! Anyway... Finally picked up a mic so I can start recording my old man playing his acoustic guitar and getting it down in logic. Problem is, Im getting a rather nasty amount of hiss on all the recordings. I can get it so that it's tolerable, but as soon as I kick in any channel strip setting for an amp sim for example, it amplifies the hiss to an unpleasant level. I've got an SE SE2000 mic going into a mixer input which then outputs into an apogee duet then into my macbook pro. I had a few issues with monitoring, feedback and software monitoring but I think Ive got that sorted and am just listening to the click track via headphones and everything else has the volume right down. I'm getting a middle-ish signal going into logic from my record channel, everything looks ok, but Im just getting this daft buzzy hiss all the time! I'm gonna do a separate post on how Ive got my duet set up with the mixer routing audio into the mac as I was wondering whether I should just use the mic in on the apogee rather than go through the mixer as well. I did try this very quickly and didnt really see any difference in the results.. I use the apogee to record vinyl (through the mixer) sample audio back in from logic (again via the mixer) and also for hardware synths (again, via the mixer) so it would mean a different set up if I started putting a mic track in bypassing the mixer. I dont know if this is a big deal as I havent really got to grips with the apogee yet, but as its working for everything else I dont want to mess with it just yet.. So, is there something obvious that Im doing wrong that could cut back on the hiss? Record levels? Output levels on the mixer? The mic has got a 0db to -10db switch and a second switch with a horizontal line icon on one side and a line which dips down at the end on the other side. The manual doesnt really help with what these do (ive only just got the mic) so Im not sure if these are in the wrong position or if they are standard mic features? Wow.. epic first post.. Sorry about that... but anyone? Any clues as to how I can clean up my audio? thanks in advance Mark