Analog Rytm as master Octatrack as slave: constantly unsyncing, what to do?

Hi!

So, I have my AR as master and OT as slave and everything works fine except for that they won’t sync as accurate as I want them to. They goes out of sync after a while, and its like they’re one step apart.

I would like to rely on that they will be synced during a 1h live set.

Does anyone know how to prevent this? My best solution so far has been hitting stop+play on the AR whenever I hear they’re out of sync, but don’t wanna do that when they are the only two instruments playing.

Did you activate only transport send and receive on the units or do you have clock send and receive set up as well?
Is there any midi device in between them?
Are you using any odd step length patterns?
Try another cable?
:thinking:

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Thank you for your answer :slight_smile:

I have clock + transport, can try with transport only! Is that better?

No midi device in between, but one from thru of OT.

Every pattern has 16/32/48/64 steps.

Swopped cable before, with same result.

No, clock and transport is the correct way…
Have you tried with OT as master to see if that works?
I don’t got anything else for you right now, we’ll see what the other nauts have to say…

That’s not normal, mine run in sync indefinitely, left them on for days at a time playing and there was no drift. Try using the OT as master and see what happens. Just to clarify, you have the RYTM sending clock and transport and the OT set to receive clock and transport?

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hm I don’t think so. Even on such a tiny chain. Since @Open_Mike clarified the correct setting I would try some expensive MIDI cables.

Got clock and transport on both of them @knobgoblin

Will try OT as master.

And yeah, even though I’ve heard midi cables shouldn’t give any problems like this I’m willing to try a pricier midi cable. Any suggestions on what to buy? @TheDiePie

Or just try with another MIDI cable if you have several. Good idea to keep the MIDI cables as short as possible too.

fwiw I am using an analog four and the rytm and do not even use MIDI sync, just set the clocks to the same BPM and press play on the first downbeat (you can correct with left/right cursors if you miss a tiny bit). I’ve found the sync to be super solid so far, and this allows me to slightly nudge the groove of boxes if I want, but YMMV as always. I also prefer unsynced delay times wherever possible, I’m weird like that.

In the meantime my whole rig has cordial midi only :slight_smile:

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Yeah, but I’m a tempo shifter so that won’t really work for me.

Ok, so now I’m running the OT as master and so far it seems much more tighter actually!

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If you don’t have a very specific reason for AR to be master you might just wanna let OT take the helm… It likes it better especially for pickup machines and overdub…

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Yup I always slave Rytm to OT, no problems here!

I had a similar problem a few years ago.

It was the midi cables. I even swapped out one with another - but it was the same brand bought at a similar time. Took me ages, but when I eventually bought new and better quality ones it was fine.

Big lesson for me that electrons do have taste as well as charge.

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