Elektron Musical Instruments

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

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

> 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.

Hi,

I've had too some syncing problems. Here are my findings:

METHOD ONE:
This would be the best one for me. I set MD to Start and End with 
midi-clock (cubase), but I don't take tempo from it. Now I record 
every 16 drumsounds (or Pad or machine) to their individual channels. 
I mean that I get BD to one channel and SD to another and so on (so I 
mute everything other than BD for record for example). This would be 
great, BUT some odd reason things don't end up synced to cubase. For 
example I record BD to track one and then again (for sync test) to 
track 2 and I see they don't sync at all somewhere after one minute 
(and yes I've trimmed the starts to sync sample-accurate). I really 
don't understand this...

METHOD TWO:
This is the way I do it now. I set MD to take tempo too from cubase. 
BUT now I lose the perfect swing setting, because when tempo is taken 
from some other source than MD, the MD will quantize the swing to 50, 
60, 70, and 80% I guess. And yes I get some varying tempos when 
syncing outside, but things seem to align pretty good. (I talked 
about this to Daniel and he said the I shouldn't be paying attention 
to what MD shows. Maybe he ment it represents tempo some odd way). I 
would really like to use Method one, but I don't get anywhere tight 
beat that way, so it's bye bye swing... :(

There might be some ways achive better results, but I haven't done 
much research. I tried some other things too, but I can't remember 
what they were and how they worked. 

If anyone can achive tight beats with method one, I wouild love to 
hear how do you do it?

Toni

Forgot to say, that the methods I descriped were doen with OS 1.12. I 
read that 1.19 has some midi things (sync) fixed. Maybe things will 
get better with new OS?

Toni

> METHOD ONE:
> This would be the best one for me. I set MD to Start and End with 
> midi-clock (cubase), but I don't take tempo from it. Now I record 
> every 16 drumsounds (or Pad or machine) to their individual channels. 
> I mean that I get BD to one channel and SD to another and so on (so I 
> mute everything other than BD for record for example). This would be 
> great, BUT some odd reason things don't end up synced to cubase. For 
> example I record BD to track one and then again (for sync test) to 
> track 2 and I see they don't sync at all somewhere after one minute 
> (and yes I've trimmed the starts to sync sample-accurate). I really 
> don't understand this...

Yes, I've experienced this too.
I've been trying different methods of syncing the MD to my Akai DPS24
multitrack recorder and when I let the MD ( with the old OS ) run on
internal clock and make two recordings on my multitrack recorder, and make
sure both recordings start at the exact same time, after a while both
recordings run out of sync. 

I've tried syncing the MD to the DPS24. This gives even worse results.

The following method gives me the best sync :
- MD uses internal clock
- I let Cubase sync to the DPS24. 
- I set BPM the same on MD as on Cubase. 
- On each bar I let Cubase trigger a MD pattern

This way, when I make two identical recordings and listen both tracks back I
only hear some phasing effects - never do I hear sounds being triggered
twice, as I would using the other method's I've tried.

Of course this method has some drawbacks ( handling mutes for example )

Hi,

I'm thinking of buying an MD and was wondering if anyone uses an MD 
linked with a Yamaha RM1x? Would the timing mess up?

thanks 

mike

--- In elektron-users@yahoogroups.com, "tahvenaine2002"
<toni.ahvenainen@p...> wrote:
> METHOD ONE:
> This would be the best one for me. I set MD to Start and End with 
> midi-clock (cubase), but I don't take tempo from it. Now I record 
> every 16 drumsounds (or Pad or machine) to their individual
channels.  I mean that I get BD to one channel and SD to another and
> so on (so I 
> mute everything other than BD for record for example). This would
be 
> great, BUT some odd reason things don't end up synced to cubase.
For 
> example I record BD to track one and then again (for sync test) to 
> track 2 and I see they don't sync at all somewhere after one minute 
> (and yes I've trimmed the starts to sync sample-accurate). I really 
> don't understand this...


I just tried this method, and I get MUCH better results than I do when
trying to sync to Cubase's tempo.  After a little over a minute
(recording a BD pattern twice and comparing), the two recordings drift
to about 200 samples apart, which is MUCH better than the terrible
numbers I reported before when sync'd to Cubase.  Moreover, there is a
constant drift here--one is just a bit slower than the other, and
continues to get further behind.  This is very different from sync'ing
to Cubase, where the signal would drift back and forth--sometimes it
would be early, sometimes late.

For now I've just accepted this as a fact of life: the quickest way
I've found to correct the drift so far is to use Cubase to slice the
recording into individual hits, select all of the slices in the part
editor, and quantize.  This moves all the slices so they start exactly
on the beat.  I haven't tried this with very complicated patterns,
though.

I should note that I have also not yet tried OS 1.19B--my MD is barely
a week old, and I wanted to get a feel for it before upgrading the OS
(otherwise I probably wouldn't notice any bugs I did find!).

Thanks for all of the suggestions so far!  Keep 'em coming!

Cheers,
Dan

> METHOD ONE:
> This would be the best one for me. I set MD to Start and End with 
> midi-clock (cubase), but I don't take tempo from it. Now I record 
> every 16 drumsounds (or Pad or machine) to their individual channels. 
> I mean that I get BD to one channel and SD to another and so on (so I 
> mute everything other than BD for record for example). This would be 
> great, BUT some odd reason things don't end up synced to cubase. For 
> example I record BD to track one and then again (for sync test) to 
> track 2 and I see they don't sync at all somewhere after one minute 
> (and yes I've trimmed the starts to sync sample-accurate). I really 
> don't understand this...

I'd like to post a follow up to this :). Is it possible to record the
parameter locks from the MD into cubase as well? I hate having to draw
in all the curves and pans and all that by hand afterwards.

On Jul 12, 2004, at 2:44 PM, djsonicat wrote:

>  I'd like to post a follow up to this :). Is it possible to record the
>  parameter locks from the MD into cubase as well? I hate having to draw
>  in all the curves and pans and all that by hand afterwards.

MD and MnM don't export parameter locks at all.

Joe

[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]

> For now I've just accepted this as a fact of life: the quickest way
> I've found to correct the drift so far is to use Cubase to slice the
> recording into individual hits, select all of the slices in the part
> editor, and quantize.  This moves all the slices so they start 
exactly
> on the beat.  I haven't tried this with very complicated patterns,
> though.

How do you do this quantize thing in cubase? Is it automatic or do 
you have toi splice every hit separately. I would love to hear that 
there is quik way to do this..

Toni.

--- In elektron-users@yahoogroups.com, "tahvenaine2002"
<toni.ahvenainen@p...> wrote:
> How do you do this quantize thing in cubase? Is it automatic or do 
> you have toi splice every hit separately. I would love to hear that 
> there is quik way to do this..
> 
> Toni.


It's quite simple.  Cubase places all of the hits for you.

Here's the process: After recording (or importing) your audio into
Cubase, double click on the audio in the project window to bring up
the sample editor.  In the sample editor, click the "Hitpoint Mode"
button (the same option is on the menu at Audio | Advanced | Calculate
hitpoints).  It pops up a dialog to set a few options--the most
important thing is to get the BPM range close to that of the actual
sample (and since you recorded from the MD, you should know the
tempo).  After the hitpoints appear, you can adjust the sensitivity to
make sure you get all the indidividual drum hits.  After this, select
"Create Audio Slices" from the Advanced menu (under Audio or on the
right-click menu).  

This divides the audio clip into a series of audio events, each of
which contain one hit.  Now you'll be back in project view. 
Double-click on the audio track again, which brings up the part
editor.  Select all of the slices (Edit | Select All, or just
highlight them all with the mouse).  Now select MIDI | Over Quantize,
and it should move all the hits so they're lined up with the beat.  If
that's not quite right, Undo and go to MIDI | Quanitze Setup... and
make sure you're quantizing to the right notes (probably 1/16 if it's
coming from the MD).

This method has worked fine for me for a lot of different patterns. 
If you have trouble, try recording using a few separate outs so you
have multiple but simpler audio tracks--the hitpoint algorithm works
much better on simpler audio, it seems.  And though this all may sound
complicated, you can literally do this in 30 seconds after you figure
it out the first time.

Cheers,
Dan