Hi,
I’m interested in finding out about hardware sequencers or drum machines which can send separate midi messages for midi clock and transport (start/stop/restart).
I know Octatrack can do this and the MPC Live II and Roland TR-8 cannot. That’s the pitiful extent of my current knowledge.
Why? ‘Cos sometimes I want things to start at the same time, but not necessarily stay sync’d.
Cheers!
They’re already separate messages.
I guess you’re asking about devices/software that provide separate control over whether the device sends both types of message.
“Why”? is a design question you’d need to ask the teams behind every device that sends any clock and/or transport, separately. It wouldn’t be fair of us to attempt to answer that. Having said that, your use-case sounds unusual (and interesting).
You could look into MIDI filtering tools to strip out one class of message.
Indeed. OT allows you to choose whether to send and receive transport, clock, both, or neither. But it seems everything else only allows you to to sync to clock on/off. Which, for me, is a pain.
I’m trying to use multiple sequencers similarly to multiple tape loops. I have about 7 or 8 machines with internal sequencers of some kind, only one of which allows me to send transport and clock messages separately (the aforementioned OT).
Looked into the possibilities of this with te Akai ME80p midi Patchbay, but again, no separation of transport from clock, you can filter out both but not one or the other.
Investigations ongoing.
Any leads very much appreciated.
Analog Rytm, A4/AK, Machinedrum and Monomachine give you seperate control of clock and start/stop mesgs.
If you’re looking for a midi processor that can filter either clock or start/stop/restart, the Blokas Midihub - Link to documentation can do that.
Thanks, I’ll look into it. 
Just from Elektron’s current lineup alone:
OT
AR
AF
DT
DN
It would be easier to list the sequencers and drum machines that you are interested in and then check if any of those don’t have separate settings for clock and transport messages.
Thanks @PeterHanes
Half the problem is that most synths / drum machines with built-in sequencers do not recognise transport commands separately to clock messages. Roland TB-3, TR-8, SH-01A do not. So the only option if you want to start them at the same time but not sync them is to simply play at the same time. Even a sequencer (OT here) with separate options for clock and transport won’t help.
A sequencer capable of putting out separate clocks with individual tempo controls for each track would be great!
Not a mass market product I guess.
Are these low-end Roland machines your main focus?
Why would you want to start sequences at the same time but not sync their tempos?
Depending on your needs there are likely to be several workarounds.
When a synth with sequencer or drum machine does not have the option to turn start/stop off and you want to sync them and sequence them from another device, just use a blank pattern. Not ideal, but works well.
Some gear can be synced with analog clock or trigger pulses, which lets you utilize clock dividers, but also for midi sync, you can use clock dividers, for example the
They’re some I have in the studio I’d like to use with this method.
So you can have 2+ sequencers running simultaneously but unsynced, like tape loops.
It’s the idea that Steve Reich’s Piano Phase is based on. Here’s a performance of it using humans:
…and the ER-101 version:
The same idea is also used on a few Robert Hood and Surgeon tracks, and I’m sure others too. It just seems difficult to accomplish with primarily midi based gear.
I don’t want to sync them, I want to start them together unsync’d with independent control of tempo.
I see. I’ve played around with that technique in my OT.
Then probaply a good idea to get yourself a midi processor that can filter the clock msg.
ERM Multiclock has four outputs (din sync, analog clock or midi clock) that can be shifted individually back and forth, might also be worth checking out. All your devices would start at the same time, but you could then shift them in time.
Afaik the Multiclock does not output a clock signal when stopped, that’s something I personally would not want, but depends on the gear used.
Trouble is, even if you filter out the clock messages you usually can’t change the tempo of the receiving sequencer when it’s set to receive transport message (I’m looking at you Roland Boutique).
The Multiclock will offset multiple simultaneously running sequencers, but that’s different to having them run at different tempos where over time they phase against each other like tape loops.
It really seems like the only pieces of midi gear that can do this are Elektron OT, DT, DN, A4, A4K, AR, which I find difficult to comprehend when the idea of tape loops has been one of the most influential in the history of late 20th / early 21st Century music. It’s as if sequencer designers have never heard of Brian Eno. Even the Cirklon doesn’t get close.
I don’t find it difficult to comprehend. Syncing is harder than not syncing, so 1000s of people have spent multiple person-lifetimes working hard to get their disparate systems sync’d. That’s the entire problem-domain of MIDI transport + sync.
Your use case will be fun to listen to, but it’s fairly out-there. Brian Eno is fairly “out there”. Why would systems designers choose to cater for the needs of two musicians (you and Brian) over the 100,000s that want the complete opposite of that feature, with an easy UI and to always work? There’s dedicated devices and tools for this. Get a MIDI filter or write something in Max/MSP, or PureData (which is free).
Honestly, most people don’t care about this “influential” technique. (I care. This one’s my favourite: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bVnmgIdhKu0)
I’m gonna add a +1 for MidiHub because it should achieve what you’re after even with the behaviour of the gear you’re describing. It basically acts a midi merger/splitter that you can also put processing ‘pipes’ between MIDI connections, including filters for certain kinds of messages (clock in this case). It can do more than this though: you also have generator ‘pipes’ which create MIDI messages from no input. You could use clock generator pipes to send a different BPM clock to all your connected devices. So you’d have a patch like
Stop/Start Device MIDI in -> Clock Filter -> Device A
Stop/Start Device MIDI in -> Clock Filter -> Device B
Stop/Start Device MIDI in -> Clock Filter -> Device C
Stop/Start Device MIDI in -> Clock Filter -> Device D
BPM A Clock -> Device A
BPM B Clock -> Device B
BPM C Clock -> Device C
BPM D Clock -> Device D
Which would get you five devices that start/stop at the same time, but all run at different BPMs. In fact, the clock pipe is a little smarter, and can itself be told to listen for start/stop/continue from a certain MIDI input, so the patch would be even simpler:
Start/Stop Device connected to MIDI in A
BPM A Clock [listening to stop/start on input A] -> Device A
BPM B Clock [listening to stop/start on input A] -> Device B
BPM C Clock [listening to stop/start on input A] -> Device C
BPM D Clock [listening to stop/start on input A] -> Device D
So now you don’t even need to be filtering clock from your stop/start device, as it isn’t even making a direct connection to the other devices. It’s adaptable around your use cases.
It’s a good little swiss army knife device that can either do prosaic things like simply connecting all your gear while ensuring only certain channels/clocks/etc go to certain places, or quite interesting things using its more complex MIDI processing and generating capabilities. It’s very easy to set up and it’s at the centre of my set up.
Thanks, looks promising, I’ll look into it.
I should say, I haven’t used the clock generator at all myself, so I’m not 100% that the ‘listen to stop/start/continue from another input’ will also send stop/start/continue MIDI messages from the clock generator pipes, which may be significant for devices that need an explicit start message to start (respectively for stop). It will definitely engage/disengage the clock appropriately, so you may need a combination of the options I described depending how the follower devices behave. I could imagine that the thinking behind ‘listen to stop/start/continue from another input’ is for devices which don’t use a clock signal to actually calculate a BPM, but instead use it to advance steps in a sequencer, so stop and start are equivalent to disengaging the clock and engaging the clock (I’m just speculating here, however). I will test it and report back - I’m confident that some combination of what I’ve described should work for whatever gear you want to do this with though.
Each of the four outputs can individually be shifted +/-.
I always used audio loops in my OT (crossfader can give you more pitch precision and you can use the delay for simulating tape, modulate with bumby lfo designer wave, +/-3-5 with little lfo depth), for this technique, but your post made me curious to try it with two or three sequencers.
But it’s clearly not the entire usage domain.
I’m not asking sequencer designers to cater for a smaller demographic of potential users (though much larger than two) OVER any other more populous demographic. I am saying that there is a usage case which is not being catered for (only partly by Elektron, and then, depending on your setup, only when you buy multiples of their products) which in most cases could easily, quickly, and cheaply be fulfilled.
Some extremely “out there” music for you from (another) two artists (that makes 4!) obviously far too avant-grade to gain any kind of traction in todays musical climate.
The Midihub looks very capable. But I’m making a concerted effort to keep computers and screens out of my musical creation (head)space. If I were to start using a computer for musical creation again then Ableton has more simple to use and very powerful tools for making as many tape-like midi loops of different lengths to a very accurate degree than I would ever need. There really isn’t a hardware midi sequencer in existence which gives you the (very simple) tools that Ableton does to adjust loop lengths of individual tracks.