Digitakt and Blooper MIDI synch questions

Elektron Gear Digitakt
#1

Hey All,

So, I have an Elektron Digitakt and I am basically trying to have it control my CBA Blooper in order to lay some bass and guitar parts over the drum parts I made on it, pretty basic stuff. I was using an Eventide H9 previously so I am familiar with the concept and I could make the thing work but I feel there is still a slight drift and the loops are not perfectly in sync so I guess I am looking for some best practice kind of tips on how others do it.
Here is what I have done so far:

  • Blooper is on the default Midi Channel 2
  • I have a custom made Midi to TRS cable that works as it should, I can control the Blooper
  • I had clock send enabled on the Digitakt, I also tried the ‘Half Note’ - Note Division as it was suggested in one of the CBA videos but when this is enabled the recording doesn’t start when the trigger is hit, it waits until the next beat. I guess this is more for starting the loop with a footswitch and hitting it a bit earlier than the actual beat.
  • Now I am ignoring the Midi clock and simply use a trigger on the first beat to start recording and start playback on the same beat when the pattern starts over again. On the Eventide, you could send the same Midi message multiple times to rec/play/overdub but on the Blooper these are different CC messages or if you use the Multi control, different values. I guess I could use conditional triggers on the Digitakt but it was easier for me to have Midi track A have a trigger to start recording and Midi track B switch to playback. This works but I still feel that there is a slight drift and my loops are not perfectly in synch.

Any advice on this would be greatly appreciated. What is the best way to approach something like this? It might just be me imagining that there is a drift so I was trying to come up with some measurable method, like sending a click track kind of continous beat and recording that …but so far I could not really work that out :smiley:

#2

Use micro timing and shift the record/playback CC’s a little earlier.

I have kind of the same problem with a Red Panda Tensor for sync loop and beat repest effects and using the above worked like a charm.

#3

Just to be clear -
you don’t want to use the blooper buttons, and instead, you want midi from DT to send start/stops to blooper?

The beauty of the note divisions is that it behaves exactly as you described. I use quarter note divisions on the blooper when I clock from the digitakt. But I control the recording, overdubs and stops on the blooper itself. I depend on it waiting for the next beat - that’s how I get perfect syncs. As long as I smash that button between 13-16, it’s going to start recording on the 1.

#4

thanks for the tip, I am gonna check this out. Do you use some specific value or it just needs to happen a bit earlier than the beat? I guess you use the same offset on both record and playback as well.

#5

Yes, exactly. I would like my Digitakt to create a perfect length loop without touching the footswitches on the Blooper. I totally see why the waiting for the next beat thing is useful though.

#6

I’m my case using -1/128 worked, but it think depends on every pedal. Not too much earlier though cause it’d start to happen always too early hahaha.

And yes, use the same offset for both instructions.

#7

Hi,

can you tell me more about the custom made midi cable?
Is there also a standard midi cable one can use (without the modification)?

Thanks

#8

As a ready made version, it exists like this:

There are diagrams like this for the DIY version of the same thing:
https://images.app.goo.gl/Ca3FZn4c6fgLbNW28

CBA pedals have a TRS (so like a stereo jack) connection for MIDI so you need a MIDI box or this custom cable to connect it to a standard 5 pin MIDI source. The boxes are expected to work better.