To be able to hardware sequence from the Octatrack and record audio into the DAW striped with the incoming tempo.
Components
Octatrack (Midi I/O)
Pamela’s New Workout (Midi O, Clock I/O)
Banana Split - 6x Midi Splitter/Thru
E-RM Multiclock (MIDI I/O, Clock I/O, USB)
MIDI synths
MIDI-synced effects
CV clocked sound generators
Macbook/DAW to record into
I’m trying to keep everything in sync and it’s getting silly complicated and feels redundant.
I want the Octatrack to trigger non-elektron synths and start and stop everything.
I want my DAW to record the audio (not MIDI), observe and stripe the Octatrack’s clock.
I want to be able to utilize eurorack FX synced to this clock
My only DAW interface is the E-RM Multiclock
Does this make sense? Am I missing something?
Octatrack MIDI Out -> Banana Split -> MIDI synths, MIDI fx, E-RM Multiclock (USB to Macbook DAW, Clock out -> Pamela’s New Workout -> Eurorack LFOs, etc)
Sometimes I feel like I might be missing an optimization somewhere. I feel like I own too many clock devices (I also have a Korg SQ-1 and Keystep) but only this seems to make sense!
Following. I have the same requirements. I don’t have the ERM (yet, or maybe not…depends) and for now am using the Octatrack as both masterclock for the rest of my equipment AND following the my DAW’s clock and transport. I’d like to stripe the masterclock to the DAW as well so I can play with fluctuating tempo generated by the Octatrack, which is useful when I compose for videoproductions. But as I see it, striping the DAW basically means recording a tempo map and the DAW must support that feature. I guess Reaper does that (haven’t been using it for a while). (Unless you have a specific SMPTE synchronizer). The biggest difficulty to manage is the clock routing to avoid receiving it twice from two different sources, and that can be a bit of a headscratcher.
In addition to my previous post: my DAW (Harrison MixBus32c V6) doesn’t support real-time recording of a tempo map so I tried recording the click from OT on a audio track and match the tempo variations manually taking advantage of the tempo-ramping markers in Mixbus. Once done, I then slaved the OT to the DAW, which serves the video track I’m syncing to as well. That works. I don’t how the OT reacts when timestretching on a fluctuating tempo but I don’t use timestretching anyway. It’s a bit tedious but doable. I might get that old MSS1 out of the attic though.
Anyway, perhaps i’ll just try setting the tempo in my DAW (easier options for interfacing with the CV clock) and leaving the start/stop and note data for the Octa. I want weirder time shifts but i’m unsure how to get that live without making something like my model:samples (with pattern based bpm) the master
So in my case the alternative path-
Macbook/DAW (setting the tempo explicitly) → E-RM Multiclock (vía USB, synchronizing through striped track or VST) → Pamela’s New → CV lfos, Octatrack MIDI out → Banana Split → MIDI synths, MIDI fx
Yeah, that video demonstrates (in an older version of Mixbus) what I said in my post. No live recording of a tempo map though. Maybe one day. But ramping is very fluid, better than a stream of individual tempo markers.
I’ve mentioned this several times. Reaktor Blocks. So…
OT can be master. Send midi out to hub or some splitter. Midi out to synths, midi into computer into Blocks. Blocks can convert midi to CV and you can control everything on your euro that way. You can send CC to your euro thru Blocks. You can use LFOs in Blocks, and even sync those to OT. It’s great. You can even smart map encoders on your OT to modules in Blocks. Basically endless functions in there you can send to your euro
either from OT, other gear, or Blocks. It’s great. It’s cheap! To can dial the tempo up and down to you hearts content and it will all sync.
Just set Blocks to receive midi from OT only to avoid multing the clock…awe shit. Do you have and audio interface that has dc coupled outs?
Just to follow up: I actually DID get that MSS1 out of the attic. It needed to be serviced. It hadn’t been running for decades and something heavy must have been crushing the number pad, so most of the buttions didn’t react. Spent two days on and off to fix it, works like a charm now. So I started testing sync. Of course I found what I knew already (and why stuff like MSS1 or ERM Multiclock exist at all): computer generated midi clock is jittery as hell and tempo’s are not reliable. The only way to get solid sync is to base the midiclock on the audio sample rate of the DAW (clocked by the audio interface) using LTC ( aka SMPTE). That is what the MSS1 is for, and that’s what the Multiclock does using a somewhat different technique. When I mean “solid sync” is really solid sync. So that when you have a drumbeat on a sequencer running alongside of your DAW, and you punch in a recording at the 300 bar or so mark (that’s 10 minutes running time at 116BPM), the kick on the 1st beat is spot on, not having chopped it’s head off, or really too late, and that ALL sequencers running simulaneously have their clicks recorded and played back within a 24 sample tolerance for 30 minutes at least. Better sync than that would need 1000’s of investment. If all the sequencers (I have 5 running at the same time plus my DAW (I’m in a recording project) are clocked by the same clock and not cascaded, the tight sync is unbelievably cool.
I just had an issue that needed to be solved: when working on large projects you don’t always start at the beginning of the timeline, and running 5 sequencers is not managable using their own arranger modes to have them respond to Song Position Pointer messages. Moreover, DAW’s and LTC synchronizers presuppose that you sync linear sequencers, that’s a leftover from the 80’s. So they will send a “start” message on beat 1, and in any other position they will send a “continue” message. Elektron sequencers also go into “pause” mode waiting for “continue” instead of “stop” and “start”. So if you’re jumping around in your timeline, the sequencers never start on the beat (only if you’re seriously lucky!). So I had this RK002 cable and programmed a sketch for it (that’s how a Arduino app is called) that basically does the following: it intercepts and discards start/continue/stop messages while forwarding the clock from the synchoniser; when it receives a SPP that announces when the master will send it “continue” message it calculates the number of midiclocks left to the next 1st beat of a bar and when it’s reached, it sends the “start” message to all sequencers so they start perfectly on the beat/bar in all circumstances wherever on the timleline you start your DAW. The syncronizer being clocked by a striped audio track (or the DAW’s LTC generator which is most often derived from the audio itself) sync is absolutely perfect. Voilà!
Sorry for the somewhat long and technical post but it might one day help someone. I can provide the RK002 DUY file if someone needs it.
Of course, the ERM Multiclock does the same thing with lesser hassle, but then again that’s a 550€ investment…worth every penny if you are serious about sync, IMO! But it doesn’t record tempo changes in real time like the MSS1 does
For those who come here searching for sync-to-DAW methods, I’d like to share this one too: I just got a Arturia MiniBrute2S, and after some messing around with the patchbay and reading the manual, I noticed that if clocked to analog clock, it’ll output midi clock. So I downloaded the ERM Multiclock VST, patched it’s audio signal to an output of my interface, and patched that output into the clock input of the MiniBrute. Bingo! Works, and I get super jitter free midiclock (All my devices display a steady BPM, not the usual jumping around a bit). Now isn’t that cool! Even better sync than my MSS1 and less hassle, and I free up a serious bit of real estate in my music room.
The ERM VST waits for the next bar to start streaming the pulses, and the MiniBrute issues a midi Start message when receiving the first pulse, and remains in sample accurate sync with the DAW once running. I just need to recode my RKOO2 to issue a “Stop” message when I stop the DAW so that all the patterns from the external sequencers reset themselves to bar1 beat 1 (I don’t use arrangers so I don’t care much about SPP). Voilà! The poor man’s USAMO. This might work with other semi-modulars than can output midi clock, who knows.
Following up on my own posts: yep the above method is cool, but not everyone has a (semi)modular, and I noticed there’s some latency between the incoming analog pulses and the outgoing midi clock.
Because I’m on a quest for perfect sync, but would really like to avoid the 550€ for the ERM (business is not what it’s used to be) I finally resorted to using Overbridge set to sync+transport and my Digitone as midiclock master. I didn’t have any use for Overbridge before, I don’t really care about it’s features, I just use the librarian every once in a while to clean up the mess I made on the +drive, so I had not thought of that possibility.
But I managed to set it up so that my recorded sequences align perfectly on the grid and when I play back recorded sequences with the live sequences running alongside, everything remains perfectly tight with virtually no jitter. Needs some tinkering with the buffer settings in the OB Control Panel, but I’m near sample accurate. The only drawback compared to the ERM solution is that we can’t adjust midi ports individually to compensate for devices that have different internal latencies. My MiniBrute2S is perfect, the Elektron devices are pretty tight compared to each other but something like 26 samples late, and my SP-16 has the most latency but it remains managable.
No OB for the OT though, but the midiclock for the DN derived from whatever Overbridge is sending to it is stable enough for live sampling to happen without artifacts. I guess OB uses the audio clock in the DAW to get its timing information, and maybe sends a high-resolution clock to the DN, who converts to the standard 24PPQN midiclock. Only guessing, but it’s remarquably jitter-free. Anyway, compared to the native midiclock from the DAW over a USB midi interface or rtpMIDI (better) is a day-and-night situation.
