Unicorn Digital Timepiece, User Manual, Page: 76 / 101

D I G I T A L T I M E P I E C E & O T H E R S E Q U E N C E R S
76
USING YOUR SEQUENCER AS TRANSPORT
MASTER
Once you’ve set up your sequencer to slave to the
Digital Timepiece, you are then either slaving the
Digital Timepiece to another time code source
(such as SMPTE time code from a video deck), or
you are using the Digital Timepiece itself as the
time code master (in one of its
Internal time base
modes).
When an external source (such as a video deck) is
the time code master, you control your sequencer
(and the Digital Timepiece) from the external
source (the video deck’s transports).
When the Digital Timepiece is the time code
master (i.e. it is in one of its
internal modes), you
can control the Digital Timepiece (and everything
connected to it) directly from your sequencer’s
transport controls — as long as your sequencer
supports MIDI Machine Control, as shown in
Figure 10-1. Your sequencer sends MMC
commands, such as play, stop and locate, to the
Digital Timepiece, which follows them. The Digital
Timepiece, in turn, sends MIDI Time Code back to
your sequencer, which follows in perfect sync. For
example, when you press your sequencer’s play
button, your sequencer sends out a play command
to the Digital Timepiece. The Digital Timepiece
begins generating time code, which your sequencer
then slaves to. This all happens quickly enough that
it feels like you are actually making the Digital
Timepiece follow your sequencer. Actually, you are
just triggering it from your sequencer.
Figure 10-1: When the Digital Timepiece is the time code address
master (i.e. it is in one of its Internal time base modes), you can
control it (and everything connected to it) directly from your
sequencer ’s transport controls. Your sequencer sends MMC
commands to the Digital Timepiece, which sends time code back to
your sequencer.
Setting up MMC control in your sequencer
Setting up MMC control in your sequencer varies,
of course, by product. Please see your sequencer
documentation for details. However, the one
important thing you need to know is that the
factory default MMC device ID of the Digital
Timepiece is 1. Be sure to indicate this in your
sequencer — unless your sequencer uses a zero-
based numbering scheme (0-127). If so, set it to
zero (0).
The goal here is to get your sequencer to send play,
stop, and locate commands to the Digital
Timepiece when you click the buttons in your
sequencer’s main transport controls.
Your sequencing software
running on a computer
Digital Timepiece
MIDI Time Code (MTC)
MIDI Machine Control (MMC)
Other devices
slaved to the
Digital Timepiece