Sending clock with Octatrack confuses synths (hanging notes)

Elektron Gear Octatrack
#1

Hey guys,
I’m having a pretty annoying problem. I recently decided to take a stab at making the Octatrack my sequencer for my part of my modular system. I tested some basics before buy extra modules to make this happen and all was good. I had the Oxi Coral module which takes midi and I could sequence it just fine using a midi->trs cable.

To sync all my modulation and trigger other modules, I got a Midi Clock Divider from Flame Instruments which has a midi thru. This way I could have a bunch of clock divisions synced to midi tempo. That’s where the problem starts.

To start and sync the clock divider, I obviously have to send midi clock from the OT. Whenever midi clock is turned ON, notes hang on the Oxi Coral. I chalked it up to a Coral quirk and eventually traded the module for a RYK Vector Wave, which also has Midi in.

The exact same thing happens. It works flawlessly when there’s no clock being sent from the OT and starts choking whenever clock is introduced.

Is there anything I can do to get around this?

#2

Unfortunately I don’t have a solution for you. But I wanted to say thank you for opening this thread. I spent last night scratching my head trying to figure out why was I also getting constantly stuck notes on my Modep from OT when Beatstep Pro and midi keyboards were performing just fine. Turning off midi clock send did indeed resolve the issue like you described.
Maybe you could try Midipal or some other midi events processor to filter out the clock before the Oxi Coral?

#3

Try another device as clock master and use octatrack as slave.

Hanging notes is familiar with ot but typically it’s sending actual note data that causes it … not just clock …

#4

I think the Octatrack behaves like older MIDI devices in that it can send clock messages between each MIDI byte, this is a behaviour only found on MIDI DIN.
This results in a MIDI clock with lower jitter but possibly not every device knows how to handle this.

  • This can be fixed by going to USB and back, or any device that buffers the messages. But this may not be what you want since it can introduce jitter.

Another thing is that the Octatrack sends NOTE OFF messages as NOTE ON with velocity 0.
This is also within MIDI spec, but again, not every device knows how to handle this.

  • This can be fixed by using a MIDI translator of some sort which translates them to normal NOTE OFF messages.

Some older MIDI devices use Running Status, which sends only the note # and velocity of a note message if the last message was also a note message on the same channel, or just the CC# and value if the last message was also a CC on that channel etc…
I don’t think the Octatrack does this but given your setup it might help te be aware of this.