Analogue-sequencer

> That's interesting to hear that midi time code is "inferior" to MTC -
> they are two completely different things - midi clock is a time
> reference, while MTC are simply addresses.

I'm not sure what you mean by "simply addresses". MIDI Time Code  
(MTC) is a MIDI encoding of timecode (hours/minutes/secs/frames),  
whereas MIDI Beat Clock is an encoding of bar, beat and beat  
division. (MIDI beat clocks run at 24 per quarter-note; the SPP  
locator messages are more coarse, to the nearest four or six clocks  
(I don't remember which).)

If you want to lock rhythmic instruments using MTC, then they'll have  
to have the same tempo map, and be reasonably accurate following it.

> Try locking up two digital devices with "timecode only" sync, and they
> will drift after a minute - and will be really far gone in five
> minutes.

When I was gigging for mindSpiral, we had several devices running at  
the same tempo (including my trusty P3), but had problems getting  
some of the plug-in systems to lock to beat clock, so for the most  
part we let them free-run, with no discernable drift. I would expect  
devices doing MTC-to-beat conversion themselves to be no worse than  
this.

	-- N.


   nick rothwell -- composition, systems, performance -- http:// 
www.cassiel.com