If by “sending a click track” from “a modern drum machine” you mean sending one timing event on every down beat into your DAW, then you are suggesting that:
- You send a kick drum on every downbeat from the audio out of your drum machine into an audio interface
- The audio interface converts that analog signal to digital information
- Your DAW receives that digital information
- Then looks for, likely, a combination of transient and frequency information over the span of a minimum of two (or more) of these detected events to make an averaged estimation of BPM.
And comparing this to:
- A plug-in or single cycle pulse waveform generated in your DAW at a resolution of no less than 24 PPQN (pulse per quarter note)
- That gets converted from digital to analog through your audio interface
- Is received by the Multiclock through an audio jack.
- And uses no more than two timing events to confirm (not estimate) BPM.
Your modern drum machine’s sampled audio information is subject to a detection, analysis, and averaging method with a timing event 4 times in one bar.
The Multiclock is structured on a sample accurate pulse with an instantaneous leading edge that can be detected many times faster than the breaching of a transient threshold from a complex waveform that your drum machine is producing. And it does all of this no less than 24 times faster than your “1 kick every down beat” method.
Add to this, the Multiclock is configured with time signature so it only needs two timing events to accurately determine BPM. Your method needs two or more (and likely 3 to 4) timing events to make an ongoing estimation of BPM.
The methods/devices serve two different purposes though. Ableton’s Tempo Following is designed to:
- Take the loose and organic timing of musicians to provide ongoing clocking estimations for Ableton to follow along with externally played instruments.
The E-RM Multiclock is designed to:
- Respond to a sample accurate timing source produced by a DAW so that external hardware can maintain tight, imperceptibly jitter-free, synchronization to a software environment.
Both have their applications. I would argue that trying to slave your DAWs timing to external hardware using a detection, analysis, and averaging method would be far more unstable than just sending it MIDI clock through USB MIDI. Unless your aim is to keep the timing of your DAW relative to the beat of your drum machine. If your aim is to impose timing structure in a hybrid DAW/hardware environment, I would suggest that there are many better ways of doing it.
Your needs may be different than mine or others though.
