Digital backing track MIDI controlled

How did you try FAMC? if you emailed you may never get an answer. If you use the ticket support on their website you should get a quick answer. I always did that way....

Using the support ticket system. It's been a few days now, and I think I may have figured out a workaround, although it is becoming a much more frustrating venture than I thought it was going to be.

Originally I exported a midi track from reaper, and put it onto the card. Exported as single track aka type 0 which is the only one the liquid tracks supports. For some reason it still won't see it. So, I decided I'll just plug the midi out of my focusrite into the midi in of the liquid tracks and record the damn track. It creates its own midi track. Hey they should work. Yes, it did create a midi track, but of course even though I tried hitting all the buttons at the same time its off from the audio click track it should be playing with.

Next I decide to take the midi track back into reaper so I can fix the timing, but I think somehow it automatically timestamped the midi track as 120bpm even though it was recorded at 129bpm. There is no option to change this on the liquid tracks. So, in reaper when I import it into a track at 129bpm its now much faster than it should be. That's where I am now.

I'm thinking if I start a brand new reaper file set at 129 bpms, import the track, then slow the project down to 120bpms it will automatically change the track back to the speed it should be and then export it yet again hoping that this time the damn thing will recognize the midi track.

So far that's what I've had to do just to get a damn click track and midi track to play together.

Party!
 
Well unfortunately after probably 6-8 hours of trying to get the liquid tracks to do what I want I have to say I'm going to get rid of it and I cannot recommend this product for what I wanted to do. For making say automated patch changes to your axe-fx or something similar it probably could do the job, but not for this.

A little more detail and the problems I have run into.

Here's what I'm trying to get 1 preset to do:
-Play 1 audio track and send left and right to mixer. Left to FOH, Right to IEMs with a click. Audio track is panned accordingly.
-Play a midi track with arpeggiated note information and send it to a synth. (think how muse sounds on bliss, starlight, etc.) Midi out is hooked up to our synth because the keyboard player is getting control over the actual note sounds but the notes are to fast to be played reliably live by anyone.

I exported successfully an mp3 track and everything was kosher there. Then I tried to pair a midi file with it in the preset. First off it turns out Reaper doesn't actually export in type-0 midi format which is the only one the liquid tracks understands. Not a big deal, I found a little converter online that was recommended in the manual of the unit. Now the liquid tracks understands the exported midi file.

Problem: The audio track doesn't actually play at the correct speed. It is a click track set to 129 BPM. It actually plays slightly faster than that for some reason. No problem, the liquid tracks has something in it to modify the speed of the audio file in the preset. Got it back to 129. This shouldn't have to be a thing, but it is.

Problem: The midi track DID have tempo information in it, but the liquid tracks automatically interprets it to 120BPM. Ok, the liquid tracks can force it back to 129 bpm and I did so.

Problem: The midi track is now off starting point to the audio track. Again, there is a fix for this within the unit of a delay setting. I get that setup properly and finally things are looking up.

Unfixable problem: The midi track pauses/stutters randomly. During playback the midi track will stumble, stutter/sputter, and generally get off time. It's like the processor is lagging. Happens probably 8 times out of 10 trying to run a 2-3 minute track. I'd be lucky to get through it. Note that I made sure all the cables were good. I tested this exact same thing with the audio and midi track playing in Reaper. The midi out was going out of my scarlett 2i4 to the synth. Everything works exactly like it should.

Problem: Absolutely 0 support from FAMC in the last 2.5 weeks. Sent emails, used the support ticket system. Not one reply. I know the liquid foot products get great reviews, but unfortunately I will never buy one of their products again due to this lack of support.

So, in my opinion, if you want to do midi and audio together, do it with something like a laptop and ableton. That's what I'm going to do.
 
What I do is use FL Studio and a XR-18 With this setup I can trigger FL studio to play backing tracks or MIDI tracks with a midi controller or computer keyboard. I run this on a laptop. . I can then have my backing tracks play on the XR to separate channels. This is great because if another musician sits in with you you can take out the bass part, or whatever from the backing track. The mixer also has great onboard effects and EQs so your computer does not need to use any DSP processing power. I have one buss dedicated for my monitor mix with cues and melodies for me only. This is not heard thru FOH. From FL Studio I can also have midi trigger the presets on my AXE FX XL There are so many things you can do with this setup, it is unreal. Things like scrolling lyrics, triggering lights etc. etc. Not to mention you can also record your shows at the same time.
 
It's really hard to beat Ableton Live on a MBP for this specific scenario. I now have it running video on screens in addition to multiple backing tracks, MIDI click, and various program change triggers.
 
The TC Helicon Voicelive 3 extreme seems to have some really powerful functions with backing tracks and automation. Also a nice selection of I/O
 
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