Alesis MMT-8 Instruction Manual
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Alesis MMT-8 Instruction Manual

Multi track midi recorder
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ALESIS MMT-8
Multi track MIDI recorder

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Summary of Contents for Alesis MMT-8

  • Page 1 ALESIS MMT-8 Multi track MIDI recorder...

  • Page 3: Table Of Contents

    Alesis MMT-8 Instruction Manual Alesis MMT-8 Instruction Manual ...i Introduction...1 PART Mode...2 Selecting and Playing a PART ...2 PART button...2 Selecting a PART ...2 Selecting TRACKs for playback ...2 FAST-FORWARD ...3 REWIND ...3 Recording a PART ...4 Selecting the RECORD TRACK ...4 Entering RECORD...4...
  • Page 4 Storing to disk using MIDI system exclusive data dump ... 33 Syncing the MMT-8 to tape... 34 23.1 Recording the sync tone ... 34 23.2 To clock the MMT-8 from tape sync ... 35 START/STOP footswitch ... 36 Memory ... 37 25.1 Remaining memory ... 37 25.2...

  • Page 5: Introduction

    Each set of 8 tracks is called a `part'. There can be up to 100 parts in the MMT-8's memory ( 00-99). These parts can be combined into lists of parts, which are called `songs'. There can be up to 100 songs in the MMT-8's memory, and each can contain a list of parts up to 255 steps long.

  • Page 6: Part Mode

    PART Mode Selecting and Playing a PART When power is first turned on, the sequencer will be in SONG or PART mode (SONG or PART LED lit), depending on the mode that was selected before power was turned off. The song or part number will also be the same as when power was turned off.

  • Page 7: Fast-Forward

    part is selected, all eight tracks are turned on. At any time, the track selection can be changed with the track select buttons. Pressing PLAY will start playing the selected part from its beginning, and the PLAY LED will light. The display will read, for example: The display is now showing the current beat number and the part number that is being played.

  • Page 8: Recording A Part

    Recording a PART Selecting the RECORD TRACK To record on a part, press the RECORD button. The RECORD LED will light. The track to be recorded always defaults to the lowest numbered empty track. For an empty part, track 1 will be selected. If a part has all eight tracks used, no track will be selected, and the RECORD LED will not light.
  • Page 9 Pressing the PLAY button is also the same as punching out, except that the part will immediately start playing from the beginning. The rewind and fast forward buttons will also punch out. Pressing STOP/CONTINUE also punches out, but stops the part from playing as well. When recording for the first time on an empty part, the track will continue recording until STOP/CONTINUE, FAST-FORWARD, REWIND, or PLAY is pressed.

  • Page 10: Length

    LENGTH The LENGTH button is used to set the length of a part to a specified number of beats. While holding the LENGTH button, the display will show the current length of the current part. If it is an empty part, the display will read: This indicates that no length has yet been set.

  • Page 11: Erase

    ERASE Erasing a PART The erase button is used to erase a single track, part or song. When in PART mode, pressing and holding the ERASE button causes the following display: The number 01 would actually be the currently selected part number. All 8 track LEDs will be lit. To erase the selected part, press RECORD.

  • Page 12: Erasing A Song

    thru This feature makes it possible to erase specific data, such as the after touch on one track, without affecting the other data on that track or part. If erase after touch was selected and RECORD was pressed without selecting a track, all after touch on all eight tracks of the selected part would be erased. Erasing a SONG In SONG mode, holding the ERASE button will cause the following display: Pressing the RECORD button will erase the currently selected song number.

  • Page 13: Copy

    COPY The copy button is used to copy or append a track, part or song, to another track, part or song. It only functions while the COPY button is held down. If the COPY button is released (either before or after the copy is executed), the previous mode will show up on the display, and copy mode is exited.

  • Page 14: Copying A Track To Another Track Of The Same Part

    Copying a TRACK to another TRACK of the same PART To copy a single track to another track of the same part number, press and hold COPY, and select the source track. The selected track's LED will remain lit, and all the other track LEDs will turn off. Now select the destination track.

  • Page 15: Copying A Song To Itself

    Copying a SONG to itself In SONG mode, pressing and holding the COPY button will result in the following display: The 01 display will actually show the currently selected song number. Like in PART mode, pressing RECORD will append the current song to itself, making it twice as long. Copying a SONG to another SONG If a new song number is selected, the display will show the newly selected song number, and pressing RECORD will append the source song number (the number selected before pressing COPY), to the...

  • Page 16: Edit

    EDIT The EDIT button is an on/off switch with an associated LED. All operations as discussed so far assume that EDIT is off. When edit is on, individual note editing can be achieved in part mode, and the list of parts in a song can be edited in song mode.
  • Page 17 Pitch bend amounts can be entered with the keypad, but the only way to achieve negative numbers is to use the `-' button until negative numbers are reached, after which any keypad entry will be negative. For after touch, the display includes the beat, sub-beat, MIDI channel, and after touch amount. The after touch range is from 0 to 127.

  • Page 18: Erasing An Event

    Erasing an event Any event being displayed can be erased by holding ERASE and pressing RECORD. Erasing an event removes it from the track, but does not alter the timing of the track. For example, removing a quarter note at the beginning of the track does not move everything else forward a quarter note. Adding an event An event can be added by using the COPY button.

  • Page 19: Editing And Creating A Song

    You can select which tracks will playback at each step of a song by turning off the tracks you don't want to hear (LED's off) and leaving on the tracks you wish to hear (LED's on). The MMT-8 will store in memory which tracks were selected for playback at each step.

  • Page 20: Song Mode

    SONG Mode SONG button Press the SONG button to enter song mode. The display will read as follows, with the last song entered being indicated in the number portion of the display: Selecting a SONG The 00 is underlined to indicate that it will be changed if a new number is selected with the keypad or the +/- buttons.
  • Page 21 Pressing STOP/CONTINUE will stop playing the song, and the display will return to the select song display. Pressing STOP/CONTINUE again will begin playing the song from the beat at which it was stopped. Pressing PLAY will always start the song from the beginning of the first step. When a song reaches its end, it will stop and the PLAY LED will turn off, unless LOOP is on, which will cause the song to loop back to step one and continue playing.

  • Page 22: Loop

    10 LOOP The LOOP button is a simple on/off switch with an LED indicator. When LOOP is on, a part or song will loop back to its beginning when it has reached its end, and continue playing indefinitely. If LOOP is off, a part or song will stop when it reaches its end.

  • Page 23: Midi Echo

    MIDI channel. This feature allows the user to hear a part playing on the desired synthesiser while it is being recorded. System exclusive information and polyphonic pressure are not echoed, and MIDI clocking information will be echoed only if the MIDI clock is being used for clocking the MMT-8. - Page 19 -...

  • Page 24: Name

    12 NAME The NAME button is used to change the name of a part or song. The name of a part or song is 14 characters long. An empty part or song will always have the name "EMPTY PART" or "EMPTY SONG", and cannot be changed.

  • Page 25: Merge

    13 MERGE The MERGE mode is provided so that two tracks can be merged together (overlapped) onto one track. In part mode, when MERGE is held down, the display reads: The eight track LEDs will be off. Press the first desired track (it will light solid), followed by the destination track (it will flash), followed by RECORD.

  • Page 26: Midi Channel

    14 MIDI CHANNEL Like the COPY and ERASE buttons, the MIDI CHANNEL button is only active while it is held down. It is used to select the MIDI channel of a track or part (it has no function in SONG mode). When held down, track one's LED will light, and the display will show the MIDI channel selected for that track: The keypad or +/- buttons can be used to change the selected track's MIDI channel, and other tracks can be displayed or changed by selecting the desired track button (only one track is lit at a time).

  • Page 27: Quantize

    15 QUANTIZE The QUANTIZE button is used to correct the timing of notes to any desired beat value. QUANTIZE only moves note events, and does not alter controllers, pitch bend, after touch, program change, and system exclusive information. While holding down the QUANTIZE button in part mode, the most recently recorded track will be lit, and the display will read: The 10 quantize choices are 1/2, 1/4, 1/6, 1/8, 1/12, 1/16, 1/24, 1/32, 1/48, 1/64.
  • Page 28 When entering a value with the keypad, the sign remains unchanged (except when entering 00, which is always positive). To change the sign, the +/- keys must be used to "pass through" zero to the other side. Each track can be selected and set independently. Of course, the first beat of the first part of a song cannot be advanced (it can't read minds...).

  • Page 29: Transpose

    16 TRANSPOSE The TRANSPOSE function allows for a track or part to be transposed by a user specified number of semitones. When TRANSPOSE is held down in part mode, the display reads: The keypad can be used to enter a two-digit number of semitones to tranpose up from the original pitch (00-99), or the +/- buttons can be used to increment or decrement the amount.

  • Page 30: Tempo

    17 TEMPO The TEMPO button is used to change the tempo of a part or song. The tempo is stored with a song, and not with a part. While in part mode, the tempo remains at its previous setting until changed. While in song mode, the tempo changes to the programmed tempo each time a different song is selected.

  • Page 31: Midi Filter

    Pressing the `+' button changes the display to ON, pressing the `-' button changes the display to OFF. If a function is off, it will not be recorded into the MMT-8, and will not be echoed out the MIDI OUT jack if MIDI ECHO is on.

  • Page 32: Clock

    INTERNAL clock source, MIDI CLOCK OUT ON, and AUTO START ON. There is no TAPE SYNC out switch, since this function is always active. The MMT-8 does not need to turn on or off its internal clock, since it intelligently determines what clock to use when necessary. A functional description of the clocking...
  • Page 33 If tape sync and auto start are on and a part or song is playing, it will stop playing automatically if the tape sync signal is interrupted for more that 1 second. If auto start is not on, the MMT-8 will wait in play for more sync pulses.

  • Page 34: Click

    20 CLICK The CLICK button is used to set the rhythmic value that the metronome will have. Holding the CLICK button results in the following display: The 10 click value choices are 1/2, 1/4, 1/6, 1/8, 1/12, 1/16, 1/24, 1/32, 1/48, 1/64. The +/- buttons or the keypad can be used to scroll through the choices.

  • Page 35: Tape

    21 TAPE The TAPE button is used to access the tape interface features of the MMT-8. This allows the user to save and retrieve sequence data with an ordinary cassette recorder. Pressing and holding the TAPE button results in the following display: Pressing the RECORD button initiates the save to tape.
  • Page 36 For sending data to the MIDI OUT port, pressing RECORD from the SEND ALL PARTS & SONGS OUT MIDI page results in the display showing: Again, the RECORD and TAPE buttons can be released, and the display will continue until the operation is complete, with the currently loading or verifying part or song number being shown in the display.

  • Page 37: Storing To Disk Using Midi System Exclusive Data Dump

    The MMT-8 send to MIDI function is provided so that the data can be stored on a computer, a Yamaha MDF-1 (MIDI Filer) or a Yamaha DX-7IIFD. The data is sent out as one block of system exclusive data, with the length being determined by the amount of memory being used.

  • Page 38: Syncing The Mmt-8 To Tape

    23 Syncing the MMT-8 to tape It is possible to sync the MMT-8 to a tape recorder with the help of the TAPE SYNC mode. In this mode, the MMT-8 reads a master clock pulse from a track of a tape recorder, which keeps all of the sequencers/drum machines perfectly in time with the recorded information on the tape machine.

  • Page 39: To Clock The Mmt-8 From Tape Sync

    Use the keypad or +/- buttons to select TAPE SYNC IN. The display should read: Put the tape machine into PLAY. The MMT-8 will automatically start as soon as it receives the sync tone, causing any other sequencers connected to it to play. Be careful to return to the beginning of the sync tone since the MMT-8 will automatically begin playing any time that it recieves the sync tone.

  • Page 40: Start/Stop Footswitch

    24 START/STOP footswitch The START/STOP footswitch jack is provided for a momentary normally open footswitch that connects the jack's tip to its sleeve (ground). While in stop, the footswitch will function like the play button and start a part or song from the beginning. While in play, the footswitch acts like the stop button, and stops playing.

  • Page 41: Memory

    This is due to the fact that the MMT-8 requires enough memory to duplicate a part before it can be recorded on, or length changed, or offset, etc. If a large part is attempted to be altered when there is not enough memory to...

  • Page 42: Auto Locate

    26 Auto Locate The MMT-8 has Auto Locate ability that allows you to go directly to a specific beat of a part without playing through the beats prior to the desired beat number. 26.1 Part Mode: A: When the MMT-8 is in PLAY -- Press and hold either the fast forward or rewind button.

  • Page 43: Midi Implementation Chart

    27 MIDI Implementation Chart Function Channel Default Changed Mode Default Messages Altered Note Number True Voice Velocity Note on Note off After Touch Key's Chan's Pitch Bender Control Change 0-63 64-122 124-127 Program Change True # System Exclusive System Common Song Pos Song Sel Tune...

  • Page 44: Troubleshooting Chart

    Won't record after touch or system exclusive data Won't save or load to tape Won't sync to tape. If problems aren't solved after troubleshooting and referring to the manual, consult your Alesis dealer for assistance. What's Probably Wrong Didn't record.

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