I seem to be having a problem with LFO’s going out of sync on really long tracks. By long I mean they are set at 1/8th speed so that they are essentially 32 bars long. When I use an LFO with the same settings on a 4 bar track it works fine. I’ve tried using both Trig and Sync Trig modes for the LFO. They are audibly out of sync by the 16th bar.
The samples are long loops, so there is just one trig at the beginning for the LFO to sync to.
is it out of sync when using trigged material aot a long time-stretched sample - ie is it lfo or sample or both ?
It’s the LFO for sure, the samples are not time stretched at all. I create them and use them at the same tempo. Also there is no problem with the long tracks’ audio going out of sync with Track 1, which is just 1 bar long (short kick drum sample, not a loop).
Also, in case it is relevant, I am not using the most recent upgrade. Still using 1.25E.
fwiw I tried this - at 1/8th speed on a 64 step pattern with an lfo of combined speed 8 it will repeat after halfway
ran at 300 bpm it sounded close enough for jazz
ran at 60 bpm it sounded slightly delayed (a few ms) compared to the initial trigged lfo
that was with 125G
ask support if it’s outside normal sync expectations/specs or a sign of a rounding error etc - it wasn’t that far out IMHO tho
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no long samples just two tracks, one with metronome the other with an lfo ‘VCA env’
A rounding error may make sense of something new I noticed. It seems that the higher the MULT setting is, the more of a sync problem there is. So if SPD is 32 and MULT is 4x, that creates more of a problem than SPD 64 and MULT 2x, even though they should theoretically sound exactly the same.
There is still a problem in both cases though, and SPD only goes up to 127. I suppose I just can’t use the LFO the way I was wanting to on these tracks.
if you can use sync mode, are you not able to retrig the lfo at the zero point of the cycle?
It does jump back into sync once the pattern restarts, if that is what you are asking.
mm not really, are you saying one LFO cycle is 32 bars long? how many bars is the OT looping? maybe i can try to replicate here
^sync mode is not any different if you have a trig on 1 afaik
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why not explain why plocking the lfo to ‘re-trig’ again to correct lfo phase won’t fly - i assumed you wanted a very slow lfo
but if the lfo is fairly fast then it should be an easy fix
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not sure what you mean by speed only goes up to 127 !
but fyi - some Elektron values at extremes snap to the value you’d hope - may not apply here - but 32,64,128 etc often hit sweet spots - when there’s only 127 to dial up it will often give the ‘full effect’ as though it read 128
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7bit midi allows 128 values, so 127 steps - so a bipolar knob may go -64 and + 63, yet the effect is the same(inversed) at either extreme, and also at 32/-32 - so there’s a bit of ‘correction’ applied - depends on the context
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but tbh - i’d be amazed if 32x4 was any different to 16x8 etc wrt the lfo speed - i’d be very amazed !!
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might be simplest to explain what you want and see how best to use what’s there - if you want basic pattern based syncing then you need to be looking at combined values for the factor of speed & factor that are 2^x (x is an integer) … 2^7 is 128 and this gives a bar (for a periodic wave like Tri) - but i think that you’ll find that 127x1 will give the desired effect (same as 64x2, 2x64 etc)
why not explain why plocking the lfo to ‘re-trig’ again to correct lfo phase won’t fly
Like I said, the track in question is 32 bars (512 steps) long. By the time this has played halfway through, the LFO sync has drifted enough to ruin the rhythm. That leaves 16 bars of wrong sounding rhythm before it jumps back into sync.
but tbh - i’d be amazed if 32x4 was any different to 16x8 etc wrt the lfo speed - i’d be very amazed !!
I guess prepare to be very amazed then, because this is exactly what I found when I tried it. The higher the MULT setting is, the worse the sync problem becomes. I will upload some audio for you.
https://soundcloud.com/calmnesia/ot-lfo-sync-problem/s-ANVq2
First section: MULT = 2x, SPD = 64
Second section: MULT = 4x, SPD = 32
Third section: MULT = 1x, SPD = 127
TRIG is set to TRIG in all 3.
As you can hear, the 4x version goes out of sync worse than the 2x version. Also, the SPD = 127 version sounds really bad and clearly does not get interpreted as 128.
if you can use sync mode, are you not able to retrig the lfo at the zero point of the cycle?
why not explain why plocking the lfo to ‘re-trig’ again to correct lfo phase won’t fly
Like I said, the track in question is 32 bars (512 steps) long. By the time this has played halfway through, the LFO sync has drifted enough to ruin the rhythm. That leaves 16 bars of wrong sounding rhythm before it jumps back into sync.
yeah the drift is pretty obvious here! but i think we offered the only workaround solution, i’m not sure if you have tried that but it seems like your only hope to keep it in sync.
What exactly do you mean by p-locking the LFO?
Alright I figured out a solution. Every 8 sequencer steps I set a new trig and locked the STRT parameter to intervals of 16. That resets the LFO and keeps the sample playing properly.
i mean using trigless trigs, from the manual…
TRIGLESS TRIGS
Trigless trigs function similarly
to trigless locks, but
trig LFOs and FX envelopes. They can
only be applied by converting sample trigs or trigless locks.
Trigless trigs are indicated by green full-bright
LEDs. An already existing sample
trig can be turned to a tr
igless trig by pressing
[TRIG]
+
[EXIT/NO]
. To turn a trigless lock to
a trigless trig, press
[TRIG]
+
[ENTER/YES]
. When pressing the
[TRIG]
key of a trigless
trig, it will turn into
a sample trig. Press the
[TRIG]
key again to remove the sample trig alto-gether
Ah I was not familiar with trigless trigs. That probably would work, but actually my solution works better for my situation. Now I do not have to wait for the full 32 bars to pass before a newly loaded sample starts playing. Your comment sparked that idea though, so thank you.
trigless trigs - restart the phase - as discussed, I assumed you meant you had difficulty with a sloooow lfo because there’s always a way to resync phase with trigless trigs - partly their raison d’etre after all
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anyway looks like you’ve found them now
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it does drift a tiny bit I agree at those extremeties
yes, locking the start points to the grid works too. nice one