If you've discovered any special techniques or tricks on your instruments or recording equipment that might help other readers, send them in to us. The sender of the best tip each month will win a super prize. This month, it's a free copy of Craig Anderton's highly informative book MIDI FOR MUSICIANS.

TIP OF THE MONTH

BPM Delays In Sync

When using computers in music (I use the Steinberg Pro-16 for the Commodore 64/128), one is always given the tempo of the piece in Beats Per Minute (BPM). I have written a BASIC program which generates a list of values in milliseconds for various BPM settings. When these are set up on a digital delay, the resulting delays will then be perfectly in sync with the tempo of the music. The delays can be set to various musical note intervals - quarter-note, eighth-note, triplet, etc - and these are listed in the accompanying table.

Having worked it out, I wondered why I had never thought of it before. The effect of being able to dial in a perfectly 'in-sync' delay is well worth the effort.
Steve Thompson, Whitley Bay.

Sample Transfer

Want to transfer samples from your Akai S900 to an X7000? Easy - connect your two MIDI cables to both instruments (In to Out, Out to In). Load a sample into the S900 that you want to send to the X7000, then go to the S900's Edit mode, shorten the sample to 32752, and reloop if necessary. Press the 0, On/+ and Off/- buttons simultaneously, then press the Down arrow button to initiate a sample dump from the S900 to the X7000. The X7000 should hopefully say 'Receiving Sample 1'. Save the sample to a 2.8-inch disk, then if desired, send over more samples and arrange them into programs.

It is also possible to send samples to the S900 from the X7000 by pushing the six black keys one at a time (starting from the bottom) and holding them down while you press the Save button on the X7000. This can be very useful for making backups, doing further editing, and for using the S900 to find the 'perfect loop'.
Bob Lewin, Bartlett, Tennessee.

DX7II - Yamaha reply...

I felt I must write in response to your 'Sound Advice' page in the November issue concerning DX7II Running Status.

Whilst the advice is correct concerning the possibility of missing notes if you use a computer or expander which does not recognise running status, it should be pointed out that the ability of the DX7II to use running status can be an enormous benefit. Using running status can save massive amounts of memory, especially if you use continuous controllers such as the Modulation Wheel and Pitch Bend in performance. As your column has pointed out, memory can be critical and any method which saves it will allow for more music to be recorded and this must be a great benefit to the musician. Of course, all Yamaha sequencers recognise running status, so there will be no loss of notes when using them with the DX7II (!).
Martin Tennant, Yamaha-Kemble, Milton Keynes.