OT clock drifting alone

Elektron Gear Octatrack
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Hi guys,

For whatever reason (lazyness probably) today I decided to record a few banks from my OT mkII on it’s own, using ableton “like a tape machine”…

So, OT does its thing playing a decent 126 bpm pattern, Ableton records it, also set up at 126bpm.
No midi involved between both, remember I’m too lazy to pull this midi cable out of the box

Checking the recording I notice the clock is drifting ; OT plays at 126.02 Live says…
No big deal I know but I’m not a fan time stretch algos, especially on complex audio…

Anyway, I decided to check with my Rytm mkI (not so lazy after all)… annnd the timing is perfect.

I wonder, is this a known issue / bad unit ? Why does the rytm plays a perfect nuclear clock while the OT rushes a lil bit ?

Thanks in advance for your wisdom

Before some well known whiplash memes here are two pics :

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With OT internal recordings (recommend for lazy people including me), I never noticed clock drifting. Sample accurate recordings.

Try with 120 bpm, its easier to check samples number (multiple of 44100).
I think you made a mistake with you audio selection.

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Now I’m thinking maybe Ableton Live is lazy

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No.

Tiny differences like this in clock speed between models of instruments are common and are the reason why synchronization methods were invented.

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No internal recs in this scenario, it’s just OT playing a pattern > main outs to audio interface, recorded in live without midi sync between both.

First pic is the first BD transcient set as first bar, last pic is bar 106 without warping and in grey you can see the drift on Ableton’s grid (which is a perfect 126 bpm)

I tried recording a rim shot alone, OT plays at 120 bpm, Live records at 120 bpm too. can’t see samples numbers but if I warp my recording Live says it’s a 120.02 bpm…
Weird :face_with_monocle:

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Makes sense…
I feel lucky my rytm plays a perfect clock then…

I guess I’ll start yelling at the rest of the gear :

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What you mean with lazy?
The result will probaply be similar in any DAW though, no midi clock sync from Live was involved.

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Yep. Weird indeed. A square wave is easier to check.
A while ago I think I also noticed some drift in my DAW (Samplitude), even with an internal recording. I didn’t paid much attention.

More tests needed !

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I’ve never yet had any piece of hardware or software accurately detect BPM from a selection or file, even with the same file everything will give slightly different results.

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You’re doing DA/AD conversion without locked clock sync between the two devices so it would be a miracle to get sample accurate transfer. At one point your signal is analog so it has lost all sample-based reference and there are two different clocks in two different devices that are clocking two independant conversions… no two clocks are 100% accurate. I wouldn’t lose any time over this. It’s just the way it is.

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Actually I also noticed my OT was sometimes a little off grid about a year ago when my audio interface started to act weird which made me run some tests.
Even ran tests on different DAWs (same outcome), but the amounts of drift were so miniscule, I just thought no prob bob, it can‘t be sample accurat anyway.

If you zoom in fully on the waveform, you can read the numbers, in my case, it certainly wasn‘t in a scale that it would affect anything really.

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Thanks for your replies guys, I think Roadmovie cracked it, seems pretty logical to me !