Elektron Musical Instruments

Honestly, I have no idea what the MD *can* sync to. I don't think it's
MIDI's lack of precision, because the other machines sync up together
well enough and I can record from a Korg ER-1 into Cubase just fine.
I've tried syncing the MD to logic, cubase, 4 synths and an alesis
MMT8 (grey and black), and the MD keeps time like a 2nd grader at band
camp. All of these other devices sync up to each other just fine. I
would think that a machine that had a fast and high resolution clock
would sync to low resolution clocks better than other low resolution
clocks would, right? Is it because the other clocks' rates drift that
much? That would be the only reason I could think of... I look at the
MD tempo when it's syncing to an external source and when I try to
sync to a 135 bpm machine it will jump between 131.7 and 139 while it
tries to match up. It doesn't seem like the MD is keeping a very long
running average of the clock and tries to align itself like a DJ
beatmatching records, except only going on the tempo of a beat or two
rather than several bars. <SHRUG>

Unfortunately I don't have any suggestions for fixing this. When I
record from MD into Cubase I just hit record on Cubase and play on the
MD, regardless of what the tempos are, shift the recorded notes back
to the beginning of a bar and then use the track time-warp tool to
line up the notes and bars. Then I play the MD back by using note
triggers from Cubase. The only downside of this is it doesn't save the
parameter locks/curves from the MD (or can it? anybody?) and I have to
go back and draw them in by hand. 

somebody... help...

--- In elektron-users@yahoogroups.com, "dkschrage" <dkschrage@y...> wrote:
> I have the MD sync'd as the slave to Cubase SX 2.2.  When recording,
> the audio is late by anywhere from 350 to 1450 samples.  That's a
> pretty high variance.  (If my calculation is correct, at 96KHz and
> 134bpm, that means it's off by as much as 1/32 note, which is
> certainly audible.)  Is there any way to improve this, or is this just
> inevitable because of MIDI's lack of precision?  I'm trying to avoid
> correcting it all by hand, which is time-consuming.
> 
> Just to pre-empt a couple possibilities: the MD can't act as the
> master clock to Cubase SX, because it only receives MIDI timecode in,
> and the MD only sends MIDI clock (as far as I know).  Also, my
> hardware is definitely fast enough to record without disrupting
> Cubase's MIDI clock (Athlon64 3000 and a 7200rpm hard drive).
> 
> I searched the archives and found basically the same question about a
> year ago that was never answered.  Anyone have new insight now?
> 
> Cheers,
> Dan