I’m putting together a DAWless rig, aiming for live performance.
I just ordered an Akai Force, which will be the centrepiece and presumed midi clock master.
The Force allows an entire set from a single project, without needing to ‘reload’ between songs… So I do not need to fudge over transitions as is commonplace with Elektron gear.
… But I read people saying you should always have a second device running, so that if one unit crashes, you aren’t left standing in silence, looking a fool. Makes sense.
A Digitone seems like it would be a superb companion for my needs.
My question though is this: If the Force does indeed crash mid-set and that unit is the midi master clock, how does a slave device behave? Will the slave continue playing on at the tempo it had up until the clock disappeared, or would that too grind to a halt as it’s perceiving the tempo as 0 BPM?
Furthermore, what happens one the master is rebooted? How would people overcome the issue of getting the two units back locked into sync?
I’ve got a Force and a Digitone, I contemplated using both live, but eventually didn’t use either.
Firstly, I would say unless you’re getting paid a lot for playing live/on tour, etc, I wouldn’t worry or make allowances to have a back up machine.
If you have any issues, you should find them out in your rehearsals.
If I was using my Force live and had to have a back up, it would either be another Force or, if I wanted to be able to save face fast, I would probably use a 1010 Blackbox that’s preloaded with the same parts/tracks.
I don’t have a Blackbox (yet), I have a Bluebox, and I’ve contemplated using this live myself as a back up. The size:quality of the 1010 devices is really good.
Do you have an iphone or laptop with you anyway? You could put your loops or stems on one of those. I wouldn’t worry about midi sync, if the worst case scenario happens, i’d just calmly switch to the laptop/phone and continue from there. Maybe even with just the stereo audio and run it as a dj set. I mean what are the odds?
I can see now I could have been much clearer… I’m not looking at the DN solely for redundancy, but also because I actually want a DN.
The question is simply about ‘what happens to a midi clock slave when the master cuts out’? Does the slave (in this case the DN) stop, or will it rock on at the previous tempo?
i suspect it would matter why the MPC clock stops. if transport is set up to start/stop on Digitone by actually stopping the MPC, then yeah Digitone should also stop. but if it’s just a sync between the two devices then (in theory) i would expect Digitone to continue to run if MPC inadvertently cuts out
I don’t think there is such a memory function that just continues at the last known tempo. I’m just guessing here, but I think it would either stop, or simply continue at whatever tempo the DN is set to internally
Pretty sure the ERM Multiclock will provide this function and continue sending clock if the master fails. I have one with my Akai Force and use an audio sync track from the Force to the Multiclock and out to lots of hardware. Not tested this, just remember something in the manual about it.
