Hi all,
I’m wondering if there’s kind of a “known issue” with Digitone in external MIDI sync mode, where it has trouble starting from the beginning of the pattern at higher bar counts (like bar 82 for example) in some circumstances? I’m wondering if it might have something to do with MIDI Song Position Pointer messages, or the difference between MIDI Start vs MIDI Continue messages coming from the clock source…? Or both?
I’ve searched the forum and it seems like people using Ableton can switch sync mode from ‘SONG’ to ‘PATTERN’ to solve this. But is there any option for people not using Ableton?
My case:
I was really pleased last week when I gave Digitone drum duties beneath my ESQ-1. It sounds great. DN synced up great to the ESQ-1. (Note: I was using ESQ-1 just in pattern mode, and hadn’t switched to song mode yet.) Using the performance features on ESQ-1 (MIX mode with data slider, almost like 
scenes & fader 
) while turning knobs on the Digitone was 100% wonderful.
But when it came time to record, I changed my recorder (VS-880ex) to be the MIDI clock source (a feature I love), and switched the ESQ-1 to External and patched the DN to the VS-880ex also (using my DMC MX-8 patch bay) and … began recording at around bar 82, and DN was really out of sync with everybody else. After about the 14th try, I think it latched on at the right point and I was able to record.
I’m pretty confident there’s no MIDI Clock loop here, as the DMC MX-8 only does merging when you explicitly ask it to. I was not feeding any MIDI into the VS-880ex, so MIDI soft thru would not have been an issue there. That said, I know these things are complicated and I could be missing something.
I’m recalling having similar issues when I first started using a Model:Samples, which may have contributed to my quickly loaning it to a friend. Other equipment (ESQ-1, Roland drum machines, …) don’t have trouble syncing to the VS-880ex or VSR-880 even at higher bar numbers.
I know the VS-880ex’s capacitors will be 100% fish oil someday soon, but I really like this feature of lining up my recordings to bar/beat/measure by making it the MIDI Clock source. Maybe some people here are trying similar things with Bluebox?
Should I try filtering out MIDI SPP? Or could it be a Start/Stop/Continue issue that I’ll never get around?