AR problem with SND ACME 4

Hello guys

I recently got the SND ACME 4

Im having some tempo drifts on both AR and A4

sequencer settings are the same on all machines

on the ACME manual:

–The various slaves drift away from the master clock, but “meet” again in regular intervals

–Make sure that all slaves, the song in your software sequencer, and the ACME-4 are all set to the same measure

however the measure is the same in the ACME and the 3 machines and I´m not using any software sequencer, I´m using the ACME internal master clock

however on OT is rock solid… the proble is on AR and A4

all 3 machines running latest OS

there anyone here using the ACME 4 that can give me a hint?

perhaps any on the electron guys please???

thanks!

I found this on the ACME site: but my machines all have the latest OS

Note: In the past occasional communication problems have occured between the ACME-4 and some machines made by our friends from Elektron.
These have been resolved by Elektron in the meantime. Therefor please make sure that your Elektron gear is running the latest firmware.

What gear do you have in your set-up, and how is it connected?

What do you mean by “tempo drifts”?

I never experienced any timing issues as long as you don’t apply any swing or time shift to the midi clock comming from the acme4. As soon as I use swing or time shift my Analog Rytm stops playing. This seems bo be a known issue at Elektron HQ but up to now nobody fixed this.

Hi Novosonic,

This issue is only ACME-4 related. In this video the E-RM Multiclock shuffl’s an Elektron Analog Rytm without any problem.

Cheers

what firmware are you running the acme?..1.7 is the most recent version.
for me no probs at all…running smooth…you could try to lower the pulses in the setup tab a see whats going then…

hello guys

firmware is the latest 1.7

however even when the tempo display on both AR and A4 jumps from 119.5 to 119.7 they seem to be tight as I hear

I added a MD and the tempo screen shows same behaviour this one jumps from 119.5 to 119.8

the OT tempo display stays steady on 119.5, so it looks like it is not a SND problem…

by the way,…I´m not doing any shuffle,

this is the answer I got from SND

but the elektrons drifts on 119 between 119.5 and 119.7

What makes you think they drift? Due to limited accuracy their own BPM-displays will always show a certain amount of error when clocked externally. But that affects only the BPM-value show, not their actual tempo. The ACMEs absolute BPM-value may also differ by a fraction of a percent from the ideal value, but it certainly will not drift.

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Peter I just have OT AR A4 and MD connected, master clock comes from the SND itself no DAW involved… the only one wich clock stays without jump from 119.5 to 119.7 is the OT

will do a test with my mpc 2500 as soon as I get back home tomorrow

My Rytm and A4 also show minor tempo variants when synced to an external clock. But from what I can hear they are still very tight, just letting you know you’re not alone!

The answer that you received from SND that you posted above is completely correct.

The Elektron instruments that you are using are following the external clock correctly. They also need to calculate a numerical value for tempo in order to calculate timing for their LFOs and delays. The small averaging time required to calculate a value for tempo means that a single-sample error in the incoming clock signal will cause the averaging algorithm to temporarily stray from the expected average value.

If you cannot hear any tempo drifts and there is no problem with any delay effects that you are using, and the only discrepancy is an occasional flicker in the displayed value of tempo, then you have nothing to worry about.

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all right :slight_smile: , thanks for your answers guys !

Hello guys,

I have the same problem as Novosonic, the Analog Rytm stops playing when I turn up Swing at the ACME4… Is there still no solution for that?

Did anyone had a chance to talk with Sebastian Niessen about that issue?
And is the E-RM Multiclock able to swing the A4 and the OT or just the AR?

Thanks for your Inputs!

Same problem here. Analogy Rytm mk2 and ACME-4. Sync works, no drift. As soon as I use swing the ARmk2 stops playing.
Swing works perfectly with the ACME and my modular system (MI Yarns module over Midi and with the trigger out)

Can anyone confirm the ERM multiclock works with swing with the AR?

Can you try syncing the boxes manually by using the exact same BPM value on all boxes?

what do you meam by “all boxes”?
I’ve bought the ACME-4 to do the sync for me and to improve Midi sync, avoid jitter, for latency compensation and for the swing function.
Everything works great with my modular. Sync with the ARmik2 works as well. Only the ACME swing function doesn’t work with the AR.

Ah so the ACME4 is not an instrument then. Can you manually set its tempo?

If this sync/clock box tried to send shuffled MIDI clock, no wonder things go out of sync. AFAIK MIDI clock signal is not used like that, it’s only used for send ”linear” timing data to which the slave should sync its’ transport to.

EDIT: Have you tried turning ”transport sync” off from the elektrons? Maybe only setting ”receive clock” but not setting ”receive transport” would help?

Can confirm, no problems swinging AR and/or OT with the ERM Multiclock. Adding additional swing on the Elektrons themselves is also not a problem.

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Thanks for the info. Then it loooks like a problem with the ACME-4 and ARmk2. I guess i will contact sebastian niessen.

I’ve changed the “Pulse width” on the ACME-4 from “9” (default) to “14”. With 14 it works. With smaller values (10,11,…) the ARmk2 still stopps while dailing in swing.
I have to do more tests and recordings to check to timing and swing to confirm it really works reliable. So far it looks good.

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Well? Are Elektron MkII’s stable when using the ACME-4 to apply swing?

see above. For me it is work with pulse width set to 14. No problems so far.