Send midi clock only when playing

Elektron Gear Octatrack
#1

Hi,

Is it possible to set up my octatrack mkII to stop sending midi clock messages when sequencer stop ?
My problem is that OT controls a ditto x4 and I need the ditto to be free of external clock when OT stop to be able to make free loop.
This is also disturbing because the continuus clock is not sync with the start of the sequencer. If I start the sequencer on a down beat of the continuus cloc my looper won’t be sync with sequencer…
It’s maybe usefull for some setup but for me it’s impossible to deal with it. What is strange is that I never have this problem this drums machines or ableton live.
If somebody can give me the missing trick it will be heaven.
Thanks
Arnaud

#2

Welcome to the forum!

No. The MIDI specification recommends that clock messages are sent continually so that receiving devices can play at the correct tempo when a Start message is received, so in my opinion Elektron is unlikely to change this behaviour.

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#3

Thanks for your answer !
This MIDI recommandation is surprising as ableton and arturia don’t respect it. Live and drumbrute stop sending midi clock when sequenceur stops. For Live you can control the clock the way you want in fact, continuus or not.
I think at the contrary that Elektron have to opened their octatrack to be the more adaptable possible to musical ideas. They already did it in the new firmware by allowing to define tempo by patern and not just by project. They have to go on. Personnaly if not I will have to change this device to one I can deal with the way I want. For the moment drumbrute do well this task but I lost all the infinite sound capacities of octatrack. The thing needed is not so complicated to implement and will open great posibilities.

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#4

I have to agree. Feeding clocks into modular is problematic as the clock never stops. This requires unnecessary logic modules to mask the clock when it’s not running.

I’d love to see an settings option in each Elektron device to stop sending the clock on stop.

#6

Sounds illogical. Like you want to sync to something and then remove that something. Maybe its more reasonable to sync OT to external (modular) clock source instead?

#7

Nothing illogical. I just want my modular to stop when the OT stops. Pretty simple really.

#9

It seems the modular reacts to TRNSP/SEND checked differently than regular synth. BTW is it checked?

#10

I mean it’s illogical to stop the clock. It’s a clock it should running forever:) So they implement additional commands to play, stop and ect. and send em same way as notes. This is how I understand the logic of MIDI interface creators:)

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#11

I hate to offer a device as a solution, but this is a neat lil thing and possibly the device for the job.
http://mungo.com.au/syncZ.html
Also, if you are familiar with Bomes, you could get a BomeBox and have the Start and Stop commands toggle the midi clock from going thru

#12

I’m able to do it via a switch or vca - the run signal lets the clock through and stops the clock when there is no run signal - but it does use a vca / switch which could be used elsewhere.

#13

I’d also like it to be optionnal. Certain arps (AKAI Mini Play) don’t sync with Play but with clock start. So they can’t be sync with OT.

My MPC 500 send clock only when playing, and sync works with the Akai Play for instance.

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#14

I’m going down a rabbit hole with midi clock for a project im working on. Maybe i should start a new topic maybe not.

I think my main question is what devices send midi clock when the transport is stopped? The follow up question once one knows, is, if a device sends midi clock when transport is stopped, is there a menu option to turn on ‘send midi clock when transport is stopped’.

So far no gear has this specific option. It’s either they send midi clock when transport is stopped or they dont send midi clock when transport is off.

Of the gear i’ve tested thus far, the mpc live is the only box i have that does NOT send midi clock when transport is off/stopped. The following always send midi clock when transport is off:
Trs8s
DT
DN
A4
Pro3
Maschine+

I have some other gear to test but thats where im at so far. Interestingly enough only one of these, in addition to sending midi clock while transport is stopped, sends a new message i had never seen before i started these tests. Rolands tr8s send a message called active sense when transport is stopped. MIDI Specification: Active Sense

If you know what gear sends what, please feel free to drop a line. Anyways, further down the rabbit hole i go.

#15

As far as dedicated clocks go, CLOCKstep:MULTI has 5 options the user can set to determine how much Clock and Transport work in tandem, from being tightly coupled to being completely independent, and a couple stages in between. I always thought it was pretty important to let users decide this behavior for themselves.

https://jmkmusicpedals.com/products/clockstep-multi

The MIDI Spec does present them as 2 separate concerns and I think of that as the correct low-level implementation, but plenty of gear implements a higher level abstraction that ties them together. I don’t think it’s a case of right or wrong, but the option to set it should be more prevalent, IMHO.

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#16

You can filter clock with a midi processor. Activate it with START message, stop it with STOP.

Constant clock can be annoying to sync an arp to the beat. Was the case with an Akai Mini Play, synced to the beginning of clock receiving, not Start. Start makes more sense imho. So it worked well with an MPC500, not with Elektrons, sending clock even stopped.

#17

Many modular sequencers start when a clock is present, but I guess the idea with midi really was to have a tempo clock always present so that your delays and everything else are always in sync. You’d hear delays warbling and modulation catch up if the clock was only sent out when sequencers start.

For modular, I get it, but that’s more of a midi playing nicely with cv problem. There are some master clocks that only sent clock when running and you could try a midi processor.

OT metronome through headphone out can work as sync pulse afaik.
Syncing from an OT audio track would be overkill, but works great.

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#18

Dude, awesome you’re on here, my friend just picked up you’re clockstep pedal. And it looks like maybe the last one cause they’re sold out now, congrats. Do the multi and pedal both handle midi clock in the same way? Im starting to think that having the option should be a standard also. Did you ever think to run active sense when the transport is stopped? Seems like a unique thing roland is doing.

@sezare56 thats a good idea until the receiving device doesnt have filter capabilities i would assume. Interesting about the arp on that keyboard too. I have an mpk49 i didnt think to mess about with, might have to dust if off.

@Schnork “would be overkill, but works great” is a pretty good mantra to live by lol. I think in addition to the OP’s first issue with the ditto pedal and always having midi clock being annoying, and your suggestion that modular rigs benefit from it, shows the importance of having the option. Im not at my rig right now but are there other elektron boxes that send a sync pulse through the headphone out besides the OT? I have to admit the modular world eludes my brain most of the time, but im getting there.

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#19

Yes, I just ran out of the original pedal version. I have the parts to put a couple more up this year. The “Multi” version is in full swing. The 2 versions of CLOCKstep have pretty different use cases, but there are some principles behind them that are the same. Being able to decide whether you want to run the clock along with Transport Start/Stop are one of the things they both share.

Sending Active Sensing messages when the Clock is stopped so that any devices implement a “keep alive” state is an idea I haven’t really thought of. I haven’t run into any practical uses of that, I need to take a look at it closer. I could always implement that as an option the user can enable. Giving me something to think about …

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#20

Haha, yes! :laughing:

Depends on use case, but yes, many eurorack sequencers (I’m not really familiar with other formats) only have a clock input and a reset input. As soon as a signal is present at the clock input, the sequencer will run. Usually each clock tick advances the sequencer one step, so each time there’s a pulse, the sequencer goes to the next step. Feed it a clock and you have a tempo synced sequencer.
The reset input lets you reset the sequencer to step 1 (some sequencers give you some options like reset to last step or stuff like that), so you can control how long the sequence runs by sending a pulse to the reset input or reset it to start from step 1 when you press play.
If you just take your midi clock and convert to CV clock, your sequencers would always run as soon as your midi gear is powered on. So you’d have to unplug the cable going into the clock input, or feeding your clock divider or in some way stop the clock.
For midi synced midi only rigs, having clock always running is usually preferred. Start and stop are controlled via dedicated midi messages anyway. Without a clock present, some gear reverts back to their own tempo, oftentimes 120 BPM, or reverts back to the tempo you tapped in or maybe the last tempo you had set manually. So you’d hear your delays pitch warble, maybe your reverbs changing tempo with a loud burst and other things happening everytime the clock is stopped or started. Also some gear may take a few beats before they’re well synced. It’s useful in some cases, but I’ve never heard of a sequencer that does this.

The thing I forgot to mention is, you’ll lose either main outs or cue outs when using the headphone out as a metronome sync, but it’s a convenient way to sync stuff. Metronome is only output when the sequencer runs of course, so perfect for syncing modular sequencers.
OT has the option to crossfade the headphone output between what’s going through main out and cue out and you can independently control metronome volume for main and cue outs.
So you could turn the metronome up for cue outs and set the headphone output to cue out only (or vice versa with main out). This will send the metronome to the headphone jack.
Could also use one of the regular output jacks and set it up so it will output the metronome.
OT has quite powerful options for its metronome. You can set it to tonal and control its pitch from C5 to C7 or use the non tonal pulse. Fastest setting is 1/16th, slowest is 1/1, so one pulse at the beginning of the bar.

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#21

Hellz yeah. My buddy got the clockstep in this week. Super nice work. So far, of all the midi clock signals we’ve tested, your clockstep has the least amount of latency when sending midi clock, like almost negligible. Tested against ableton live, various elektron boxes, mpc and a couple other doodads. So real nice work getting that clock real tight.

This is my main take away. I think having the option is probably what will make a device like the clockstep more ubiquitous for various set ups.

I do not need to buy an OT
I do not need to buy an OT
I do not need to buy an OT
Maybe i’ll pick up an OT :sweat_smile::joy:

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#22

Cool, thanks for that feedback. I trust you guys found the option that allows CLOCK and TRANSPORT operation to either be combined or separate?

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