Can digitakt send two clocks over midi?

Elektron Gear Digitakt
#1

Hey,

I got a digitakt a little while back and have really enjoyed it. I keep coming back to it and uncovering more functionality. This morning I woke up with a mad fantasy: can I make the Digi send a midi clock to one device, and a divided/multiplied midi clock to another device simultaneously? Anyone know of this can be done?

I know it has two midi out ports on the back - sync A and sync B. No idea if you can configure them to send different clocks timings.

One way might be to have ableton send, say, 120 BPM over midi to the Digi. So the Digi should send 120 out via sync B. But don’t hit clock receive on the Digi, just transport receive so the starts on time. Then have the Digi clock at, say, 60 bpm. And if you select clock send it should send 60bpm over sync A. Is that right?

That’s about the only way I can imagine it might work. Any other simpler ideas? Can it be done natively without using Ableton or a second external clock?

#2

No, I think that in your example the clocks send by the Digitakt would both be 60 BPM.
Even if it would work like your example, the Digitakt would immediately start to drift from the Ableton clock because it’s not synced to anything.

The easiest way would be to use something like Bome Midi Translator Pro, a BomeBox or a MidiHub.

Making a clock divider in Bome MTP is very easy, you can even make the divider midi controlled.
Let me know if you want help with that.

#3

Well, it has one MIDI out port (plus one thru) … sync A and B are alternative standards that utilise the same port shape - but these are analog sync signals (DIN sync) and not digital and not MIDI

#4

what is your setup? what I imagine that could work for you and maybe you don’t know is that DT is able to scale the tempo per track (1/8x, 1/4x, 1/2x, 3/4x, 1x, 3/2x and 2x) both in audio and midi tracks. maybe is that enough for your plans?
And by the way, if you want to connect 2 hardware synths to digitakt, then you would need a midi splitter box or connect them with a daisy chain (using the midi thru port in one of the synths).

#5

So, I finally got a chance to test this… and it sort of works (but sort of doesn’t). Here’s the setup:

Ableton (at 200bpm) going to my interface by USB (ableton’s only sending its clock and transport), then…

The interface goes by midi to the digitakt’s midi in

I’ve got:
clock receive: off
clock send: on
Transport receive: on
Transport send: on

Both ‘out port func’ and ‘thru port func’ are set to midi.

Digitakt BPM is set at 50
Sync A (midi out) is going to one Mother32
Sync B (thru) is going to another Mother32

So here’s what’s happening (as far as I understand it, anyway). Ableton’s sending transport and 200bpm to the Digi midi in, and this is what’s going out of the Midi Thru to the first Mother32. The Digi itself is ignoring that 200bpm and just receiving the transport, and when it gets that message it sends transport and 50bpm to the second mother32.

So… what happens?

Well… the Mother receiving 50bpm from the Digi’s own clock runs at a nice stable 50bpm. Success. But the mother receiving 200bpm from ableton (via the Digi Thru port) kinda runs at 200bpm but it’s pretty bit glitchy and all over the place. It seems to be roughly about 200bpm but keeps randomly speeding up and slowing down in a very erratic and noticeable way.

I’ve tried dropping ableton’s bpm down to 50 (thinking that if it was slower maybe it would help with the glitchyness) but no luck… still pretty erratic. I’ve also tried unplugging the Sync A (didnt change anything) and setting the thru port to both din24 and din48. No joy.

So, I guess I think it was an interesting experiment but probably too erratic to use practically.

Any idea why the midi thru port would be passing on the clock its getting via the midi in port really unreliably?

#6

Man, I dont think I realised that you could scale the tempo per track on the midi tracks. That’s great, and so obvious now I think about it. I’d definitely need a splitter for using the two mothers simultaneously (there’s no midi thru on them)

#7

It’s not the MIDI thru port that’s causing this, it’s Ableton.
And not just Ableton, most DAW’s send a horrible jittery MIDI clock, FL Studio is even worse.

And since you’re comparing it with the stable clock from the Digitakt, the difference can be quite noticable.

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#8

Yeah, I know jitter can be quite an issue when using a daw clock, but I think it’s the digitakt here.

I’ve got Ableton going to my interface via usb, then interface to digi midi in, then Digi midi thru to the mother. This gives the super unreliable clock.

But if I go Ableton to interface, then interface straight to the mother via the same midi cable I get a nice stable clock.

I think there’s something happening as it goes through the Digitakt

#9

Nope, scratch that, you’re completely right. I just re-tested it and the jitter was bad directly from my interface too. Turns out I had my output buffer set too high. Setting it lower again fixed the jitter.

So yeah, turns out you can use the digi to send two clocks at once.

It’s now sending the ableton clock via the thru Sync B port, and it’s own clock via the out Sync A port. Both are running quite nicely. Sweet, quite happy with that. Got a free clock divider/multiplier out the digitakt.

I think there’s a fair chance the digitakt clock will drift from the ableton clock over time, but for recording reasonably short sequences this should be pretty handy for me.

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#10

Yeah, I guess the other option is to use Ableton to clock an E-RM Multiclock.