Roland MC-909 Groovebox Audio & MIDI Scripts Utilities for ACIDizing and preparing samples, BULK IMPORT
This is a set of scripts for ACIDizing and preparing WAV files samples, oneshots and audio loops for Roland MC-909 Groovebox sampler. These scripts solve the following issues :
- no more need to import samples manually one by one or use third party tool like MC-909SampleEditor ! just copy all prepared samples to the SmartMedia card or the MC-909 internal storage, bulk process all your samples in one go !
- no more need to set loop tempo manually on the MC-909 ! use ACID metadata from WAV files
- no more need to set loop points manually on the MC-909 ! use sustain loop points from WAV files
- no more need to set sample root key manually on the MC-909 ! use filename from WAV files
- Node v20 or above
- TS-NODE to run the scripts as they are written in TypeScript
- VSCode (recommended)
- npm i or pnpm i to install the dependencies
Support ACID chunk in wav files:
- Set ACID beatmapped tempo
- Set ACIDidized loop length in beats
- Set sample tempo based on previous ACID metadata, no more need to set loop tempo manually on the MC-909 !
NB: ACID chunk metadata can be edited manually with audio editor like SoundForge
- support standard WAV sustain loop points and convert them to Roland MC-909 loop points, no more need to set loop points manually on the MC-909 !
- set sample root key based on filename, no more need to set sample root key manually on the MC-909 !
- Although the wavefile package support resampling and bitdepth reduction, they are not implemented in the scripts yet, samples for MC-909 must be 44.1Khz 16bits stereo or mono, so you must prepare your samples before using the scripts with a batch processing tool like SoundForge or EZ CD Audio Convert to prepare the samples to the 44.1Khz samplerate and 16 bit depth.
- for oneshots samples, root key can be provided directly in the filename like this : BA MySample Cm.wav or BA MySample C.wav, the root key is extracted from the filename and set in the MC-909 sample metadata, supported root keys are : C, Cm, C#, C#m, D, Dm, D#, D#m, E, Em, F, Fm, F#, F#m, G, Gm, G#, G#m, A, Am, A#, A#m, B, Bm with C being a C3 (midi note 60), C# being a C#3 (midi note 61) and so one until B being a B3 (midi note 71)
- All scripts are located in ./scripts directory
- Before running any scripts, edit SAMPLE_ROOT_DIR to the location of your samples that must be imported to the MC-909, the scripts will process all the samples in the directory and subdirectories.
- The script can be run directly from the VSCode run icon or with the following command : or
ts-node ./scripts/scriptname.tsornode --no-warnings=ExperimentalWarning --loader ts-node/esm ./scripts/scriptname.ts - a script report is generated at the root of this package : ./report.log
- set-acid-beatmapped-tempo: set ACID beatmapped tempo
- set-acid-loop-1beat: set ACIDized loop length in beats : 1 beat loop length
- set-acid-loop-4beat: set ACIDized loop length in beats : 4 beats loop length
- set-acid-loop-16beat: set ACIDized loop length in beats : 16 beats loop length
- set-acid-oneshot: set ACID oneshot metadata
- check-acid-loop-tempo : check ACID loop tempo for a targetted tempo, set TARGET_TEMPO_BPM to the desired tempo
- 1-gather-stereo2mono : detect mono samples using 2 channels, they should be converted 1 mono channel for file size reduction as 2 channels are identical
- 2-check-names : check if the samples are named correctly and respect the 16 characters limitation of the MC-909
- 3-check-samples : check if the samples are 44.1Khz 16bits stereo or mono, which is the sample format used by MC-909
- 4-count-sampleslots : count the number of sampleslots used by all the samples contained in the SAMPLE_ROOT_DIR
- 5-process-dir : mains script to process all the samples in the SAMPLE_ROOT_DIR and subdirectories and rename the samples to smplxxxx.wav format where xxxx is the sample number of MC-909 starting at SAMPLE_START_INDEX, the folders and subfolders are processed by alphabetical order.
- This script check wav format 44.1kHz/16bits and creates the Roland MC909 chunk metadata for each sample with
- sample name based on the filename
- for loops :
- tempo based on ACID metadata, beatmapped or ACIDized loop length in beats
- for oneshots :
- write loop points based on WAV sustain loop points
- write root key based on filename
-
1-process-midifile : import midi from external sequencer to MC909 exported SMF file
- ref.mid: exported pattern as SMF from MC909
- new.mid: exported pattern as MIDI from your DAW (Studio One, FLStudio or others), the midifile can contain one or several midi tracks, each midi track must be named CHxx where xx is the MC909 part number (1-16) is the part number, each midi track can contains midi messages (note, CC, pitchbend, aftertouch, etc)
- ref-updated.mid is the resulting merged midi SMF file to reimport in the MC909
-
2-copy-midi-template : copy COMP,MFX1,MFX2,REVERB config from template file to a MC909 SMF pattern
known issues : negative values that raise issue during midi conversion for noteon / noteoff overlaps, can be avoided when avoiding noteon/noteoff overlaps bu using quantize end function (Quantize End in Studio One), or manually drawing midi notes in your DAW to aavoid overlaps
- dump-chunks: dump all chunks of a wav file to chunk.json format
Recommended MIDI settings to sequence the MC909 from your DAW :
- Sync MC909 with you DAW sequencer clock : MC909 > System > Seq/MIDI > Sequencer Sync > Sync Mode : REMOTE
- Allow MC909 to receive all 16 MIDI channels from your DAW : MC909 > System > Seq/MIDI > MIDI Rx > Remote Keyboard Switch : OFF
Library and scripts based on the following packages:
- wavefile https://www.npmjs.com/package/wavefile
- uttori-audio-wave https://github.com/uttori/uttori-audio-wave
- uttori-data-tools https://github.com/uttori/uttori-data-tools
- midi-file https://github.com/carter-thaxton/midi-file