Quantize MIDI?

[MATTHS]

Hi all,
Do we know if the OT MK2 quantises MIDI when recording from a DAW into the OT?

Here is what is happening:

Ableton is playing a MIDI clip
MIDI clip is being sent to the OT and I can hear it sounding correctly as it plays through the OT, sending MIDI on to an external synth.
All good!
I then hit record on the OT (Hold record first then play) and I record the clip into the OT.
I play back the recorded MIDI from the OT and it sounds wrong - like it has been quantised as the rynthm is slightly different.

I do have Quantize Live Rec turned OFF in the Personalise Settings of the Project so I thought this would do the trick but no.

Ive been trying to record this simple clip from Ableton for 3 hours now and to get it to sound as it should do.

I have the OT sending MIDI clock to Ableton btw - so everything is sync’d

Any advice? Things to try?

Cheers

[avantronica]

You can only have 16 notes (per page) recorded within a certain window per step, so if there’s no meaningful alignment of your pattern that lends itself to a sequencer with that constraint then the sequencer may see some notes as appearing to stack in the same step window and replace the older one - this could change the way a pattern feels - but it all depends on how densely packed your ableton note sequence is relative to a 16ths grid and whether you have quantie disabled (easiest to just random record notes into a pattern and test if they quantize) - you also may need to double stop your OT to ensure that the patterns start from a known position

[Open_Mike]

16ths grid

Yeah anything faster than 16th notes won’t work at regular resolution. You can get 32nd note resolution by setting the track tempo multiplier to X2, but then for example if your track is 64 steps it will be the length of a 32 step pattern at the regular 16th resolution…

[heckadecimal]

Or you can chain some patterns and turn up all their tempo multipliers to get up to 64th notes per step (with microtiming).
Don’t think of it like a DAW where you can (almost) infinitely zoom in and put notes between notes…
You can only have 1 per step, at whatever resolution (tempo multiplier) you’re at.
Put another way: It’s a step-based sequencer, not a DAW.

Not trying to be patronizing, I just remember when that clicked for me with sequencers and it’s a big distinction.

[MATTHS]

@heckadecimal Can you explain a little more on how to achieve the 64th notes per step please?

[heckadecimal]

Set the tempo multiplier to x4 in the scale setup menu.

[avantronica]

recorded within a certain window per step

Adding this for visualisation - it may be more confusing than it’s worth, but if you look at the bandwidth around which two consecutive steps can exist (looking at the two lower bars representing all the places where ‘2’ and ‘3’ can be (with quantize off) you can see that they can be close or far apart, but there is a limit to where step ‘4’ can then exist as its window is later on - so depending on what the sequencer is fed there’ll be notes dropping out if there’s no room left on that step’s possible window to capture

picture in this post may or may not help

Octatrack Tips & Tricks (OT Tips)

It’s 23 of 384 (384 midi seq clicks per bar from 96 ppqn [24ppqn for MIDI beat clock, int seq is 4 times higher res] ) - so it’s the finest step resolution that steps can be shifted towards, but not overlapping, the neighbouring seq step may have been neater to write 23/24, but it is what it is I guess edit: adding a figure for future ref - so you see that 2 and 3 can almost swap places [Micro timing]

[MATTHS]

Mine only appears to go to X2 @heckadecimal - can you confirm yours goes up to 4?

[heckadecimal]

No I haven’t used octa in awhile, fine x2 (it goes down to x1/4 must have been what I was thinking)

[sezare56]

No I haven’t used octa in awhile, fine x2 (it goes down to x1/4 must have been what I was thinking)

x1/8.