Octatrack and Digitone sync

Elektron Gear Octatrack
#1

I have the following setup:

Octatrack midi out to Digitone midi in
Digitone midi out to Minitaur midi in

Master on both the octatrack and digitone is set to 128 because the minitaur pattern is set to 1/2 scale.

Octatrack is sending clock send and the digitone is set to receive clock.
The digitone is sequencing the minitaur.
When I hit play on the octatrack everything is fine one turn. When the next turn starts the minitaur is slightly out of sync, this gets worse when the next turn starts and so on.
The same thing happens when I hit play on the digitone.
I can also see that the tempo on the digitone is changing up and down, one second it’s set to 128 the next 127.9, the next 128.3…

Sorry if this is a common error but I tried finding an answer on the World Wide Web without any luck.

#2

When many electronic music devices receive MIDI clock from another source, their displayed BPM often fluctuates. This is not necessarily due to jitter from the incoming clock source, but more often just a flaw in the way the device tracks the BPM of the incoming clock. It doesn’t mean that Octatrack is sending a wildly fluctuating MIDI clock signal.

When Digitone is set to receive clock, it doesn’t matter what BPM you set Digitone to, it will follow the BPM of the incoming source. All you have to do is make sure that Octatrack is set to transmit both “clock” and “transport”.

If you are correctly slaving the Digitone to the Octatrack, there should be no reason why the Digitone’s sequencer should noticeably drift. I can think of a couple things that may be happening:

  1. Your audio coming out of Octatrack is not tight because you’re playing sampled loops which are not looping at the right time, and should be retriggered in the sequencer every time you want them to play, as opposed to being triggered just once and automatically looping upon reaching the end of the audio clip.
  2. Either your OT or DN is playing a sequence that is less than 16, 32, 48, etc and is looping at an odd time in relation to the other machine
  3. You have DN sending MIDI clock back to Octatrack for some reason and that’s causing data feedback?
  4. Your Minitaur has trouble triggering on time with the data you’re sending it (I believe I may have heard of this happening with Minitaur…might need to check and update OS version).

Any of that help?

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#3

The Octatrack and the Digitone are in sync, it’s only the minitaur that gradually and slowly gets more and more out of sync…like if it runs in a slightly different tempo even if it’s sequenced by the Digitone.
Will check the os update tomorrow.
Thanks!

#4

Hmmm, that’s strange… is there a free-running LFO active on the Minitaur that is affecting the attack portion of the sound? Are some notes coming from the Digitone out to the Minitaur that are longer than a 16th note and therefore possibly retriggering the Minitaur upon note-release, as sometimes happens with monosynths in certain legato playing modes?

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#5

The LFO is only controlling the filter. All notes are longer then 16th…is there a solution to that kind of problem? Noticed today that it’s always happening on the same place, the second note of the sequence.

#6

First thing to do is to try and pull back all note lengths until they are less than a 16th note and make sure there is no micro-timing adjustment on them. Is the problem still there?

#7

Tried everything.
Took away trigs and placed them again.
Pressed play from the digitone, smaller problem.
Pressed play on the octatrack, larger problem.
Changed scale.
Noticed that it seems to trigger the first note twice when it loops the first time causing all the rest of the notes to lag behind. When I press play on the digitone they however catch up.
This is the only patch where this has happened so we maybe just should call it a bug.

#8

…digitone should be master clock in such a setup…

#9

…and the midi sequencer in the ot is way more sophisticated…
…so .try chaining ur tools the other way around…

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