LOGIC - Sync With Rebirth

Author: admin
Date: 23-Nov-99

One of the advantages of running a PC, (especially with greater power coming in at low prices); is the ability to sync-up some other s/w programmes with your main compositional midi/audio sequencer. - Doing this you can run s/ware based drums, synths, samplers etc in sync to provide alternative ways to get sounds into your toons

Rebirth is especially interesting in that it provides a 909 & 808 drumkit, and in modified forms has RnB style kits etc... You also get the two 303's which can be useful, plus a few other bitz like the filter, distortion etc

Ok, so syncing up Rebirth to Logic audio... Pretty straightforward... baring in mind that many single stereo cards won't open both programmes' audio capability... Without a card/drivers that DO allow this, then with a single stereo card you'll be restricted to choosing between audio-sequencer out and Rebirth out activation, you might not get both...

If you need to add-in Audio-sequencer tracks to the final mix, then you can obviously sync-up rebirth to go with other outboard midi, create patterns in Rebirth, and then Stream them to .WAV audio-files... finaly loading them into audio Tracks of the sequencer to add to the final mix alongside the other audio parts... The best bet is obviously to have a multiple out card or if only for monitoring purposes, a card which allows several programmes to play-back simultaneously.

Ok... In this example we are making Rebirth 'CHASE' (follow, sync'd) Logic around, so that once we have created a basic drum pattern for our main groove, we can just leave Rebirth minimised on the Windows Toolbar, and work on other midi parts in Logic and Rebirth will start-up and play the drumparts in sync everytime we hit play... This example works fine on a 200MMX with 64mb sdram... (plus an ISA card) - in that capacity system, you can have Rebirth run fine minimised in the background, and as long as you ware very minimal with audio parts and fx, it'll allow work...

 

SYNCING, MIDI, DRIVERS & HUBBI'S

To sync two s/w programmes you need to have MIDI drivers installed that will allow internal Linking/Routing between s/w programmes.. If your drivers cannot do this, download and install: 'HUBBI'S Midi Loopback Driver' - this driver allows you to sync programmes inside the pc...

Once Hubbis is setup, open the programme - it opens onto the Windows Toolbar... now Right-Click on the toolbar 'HUBBI'S' Icon, and this appears...

... Thats the IN PORTS on the left-hand List, and the OUT ports on the Right-hand List...The HUBBI's Ports are the LB-1, 2, 3 & 4 Ports... In this example we are going to link two programmes, so Hubbi's driver LB1 IN is ticked, and so is LB1 OUT, this ticking Links the IN to the OUT driver ports.. that is what HUBBI's does... ok... so TIK... LB1 IN and LB1 OUT.. both ticked.. this Links them up THRU style..

 

LOGIC
Ok... Logic is going to be the Clock 'Master' so lets set that up first... and load up or setup a new track ready to work with Rebirth... When Logic is ready, go to the menu: Options/MIDI Options

The Picture above is of Logic's 'MIDI Options' page... at �a, tick the box marked 'TRANSMIT MIDI CLOCK', and at �b, assign the midi OUT port you want to send MIDICLOCK from... In this example above, the MIDI Out is set to 'ALL PORTS' ...

 

Ok... we have setup our MIDI Out clock & Port in Logic, now close the window, and save the song... now open Rebirth, and either load-up a test SONG file, create something as a pattern, or just go with the default 16ths bass-riff ...

 

REBIRTH
Once you've got rebirth going, go to Rebirth menu: OPTIONS... it looks like this..

The first item in the OPTIONS menu is 'SYNC TO MIDI CLOCK'... Tick it... as you see in the image above...

Ok, now Rebirth ONLY will start-up to incoming MIDI clock.... now go to Rebirth 'PREFERENCES' to set all those Clock preferences... first select the EDIT menu.....

Then choose 'Preferences'....

First up, drop the PLAY-AHEAD Slider down to zero or something Low... we need to see first if the PC needs help playing the Rebirth audio, and we need to see that Rebirth is starting when we hit play on Logic.... ok... Next, set the Incoming Sync Midi Port.. in the example above it is set to: LB1, which is a port on Hubbi's MIDI Loopback driver....

Now we have the Rebirth set to 'SYNC TO MIDI CLOCK', and we have it's Midi IN port set the same as the Logic Midi-Clock OUT port - if you remember, those two Ports are Ticked/Linked in Hubbi's already... ok... close the Rebirth preferences, and save the Song...

Now go to Logic and hit play... If Rebirth is in Pattern or Song mode, it should kick-in at whatever tempo is set on the Logic Transport - it may be totally out of sync, but it should kik-in and stop when Logic is Started or Stopped. .... Ok... you gotta get that Start/Stop sync happening first - then we move on...

The rest is simple... Here's a good way to setup your sync buffers etc...

Start Logic with a straight 4/4 on the floor kik beat playing any external midi device, and have the 4/4 on the floor pattern the same in Rebirth, but add a crash or other sound in Rebirth on the first beat of the bar... now... we wanna go back to Rebirth's 'Preferences screen again..

See above where it says: ADJUST SYNC... under the Port selector drop-down List... well use that to roll rebirth forward and backwards over the external hardware 4/4 beat until Rebirth's kik's line up...

Now stop Logic, and return to zero and restart... is the Rebirth 4/4 kik beat in sync with the outboard hardware ?... is the Crash sound coming on the first beat of the bar?... cos it is possible for the beat to sound correct cos the kiks all fall at the same time, but they are out of sync in terms of bars of 4... ok... It may be that you can only get Rebirth to sync isyou run it with a largish buffer, say 300 ish... but it may be a whole bar behind Logic... if that is all you can get, fine, what is MORE important, is that beat-1 of a bar in Logic , is also Beat-1 of a bar in Rebirth... The amount of 'ADJUST SYNC' buffers needed varies from s/w to s/w. Using VST on the same box, I need to set it up high around, 319 or so, and again settings vary depending on selected soundcard drivers etc - ...

If rebirth seems to run into audio out problems, gitches etc - set the 'Playback-Performance' until it stops, then re-adjust the 'ADJUST SYNC' buffer rate...

and that is that my friends... Rebirths X0X pallette and other drums/mod's is well up to standard to get some work done... as long as the overall clock is solid.. The only drawback with Rebirth is the inability to assign 'swing' to individual drum sounds, and also frankly the swing function aint that good to my ears... but with some judicious tweaking you should be able to use rebirth to turn out anything from House to some 2 step etc... with Rewire it just gets better if it's all working ok... Right now on a 200mmx, I've got rebirth with the settings in the pictures running happily in sync with a drumstation via Logic, and I've got a greedy high-end html editor open as well as Hubbi's and IE4 !! ... working a treat chugging away ... in fact, as there are 3 other proggies open & images in cache, Rebirth is struggling a tad at the Low CPU use setting, so I just bump up the 'Playback-Buffers'... and now it is ok, but I have to adjust the 'ADJUST SYNC' buffer rate up to about 124.... as I say, just set the 'Playback-Performance' slider until Rebirth & Logic chug along nicely, no glitches, then set the 'ADJUST SYNC' buffer rate as the two play until both drum kik's line up ... If you're having trouble overloading your cpu, turn the Rebirth 'Playback Performance' up to LESS CPU, and then you'll need to up the 'ADJUST-SYNC' setting .. with it set like that, rebirth takes a bit longer to kik in to sync, but only a touch longer... works a treat on my machine... enjoy..

Ps... for other s/w drumboxes etc like D-Lussion, Drummerboy, Fruity etc just set Logic up as above, and the alternative s/w's ports as for Rebirth in this example... with those other s/w's you can expand your repetoir into custom sample territory.. in fact Steinberg themselves have already released their own integrate-able LM-4 s/w drum-box s/w...

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