A4 MIDI sync question (Tanzmaus, Volca Bass)

Elektron Gear Analog Keys/Four
#1

Hello fellow synth people!

My Analog Four is sending MIDI clock signal to my MFB Tanzmaus and trough Tanzmaus’ MIDI Out port to my Volca Bass. The thing is, the two behave differently.

-When a sequence is playing on the A4 they both play in sync, but Tanzmaus doesn’t stop playing when pushing it’s play/pause function, whereas the Volca stops and jumps to the beginning of the pattern just nicely using it’s play/pause button.

-When no sequence is playing on the A4, Tanzmaus can start, but doesn’t sync and I can change it’s tempo freely using it’s own tempo knob. Volca remains firmly synced with the tempo.

Is there a combination of settings, maybe on the A4 's end, to get Tanzmaus behave more like my Volca? Or are they simply different machines with different MIDI behavior?
I’ve tried a bunch of different settings with no success.

#2

hey,

it’s beacuse MIDI out sends only MIDI out and not what you needed: MIDI thru, the doubling of Tanzmaus’ MIDI in from the A4.

#3

Well now I tried connecting Tanzmaus to Midi Out and Volca to Midi Thru, and the Volca doesn’t sync at all with any settings. Can I even send clock to two devices at once from the A4?

I’m still all kind of new to MIDI syncing, so sorry if these questions are very basic. The main question remains: why does Volca remain synced when recieving clock signal from a paused A4, but Tanzmaus doesn’t?

#4

You can send (chain) the clock to as many devices as you like - your problem here is that Tanzmaus and Volca have limited midi routing capabilities cause of missing ports.

If you send a clock from a device it is normally routed through MIDI out. This signal runs to the slaved device and could be chained if there was a MIDI thru port.

In your setup you can only sync ONE of the two devices if A4 is master - you have no chance to ‘double’ the clock on Volca as on Tanzmaus. You will need a merger for this setup.

But you could consider the Volca as Master to MIDI in/A4 and Thru/a4 to Tanzmaus.

That’s no problem, everyone here started with basic problems. When working with Elektron devices it is highly recommended to dive deep into MIDI. For every other synth as well. Please use the search function, there were several courses for basic midi posted last time.

I hope your question is already answered now! :slight_smile:

#5

Hello folks…!

I want to midi sync A4 and digitone so that A4 sends time sync and pattern change. Proplem is that when i press mute track in A4 it also mutes digitone track. Is there a way to avoid this?

#6

Yes. The most precise method would be to set MUTE DEST to “INT” on the Analog Four.

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