? start them all with md

Ooh hello dear electronauts!

Is it possible to start analog 4 and octatrack sequencer from the machinedrum?
Master starter!!

Eh?

Of course. You have to set your MD to send MIDI sync, and set other machines to recieve external sync. This is all in the GLOBAL menu.

You may want to get out the manuals!

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But the Machinedrum has a bit of a reputation for having a somewhat jittery MIDI-clock, so maybe you should slave your MD and A4 to your Octatrack instead! It supposedly has a very solid MIDI clock. :slight_smile:

yeah been doing a thing yesterday to test against a sync issue with the A4:

AF sends clock & transport to MD.
MD has something short with a snappy transient on a track (e.g. FM hats),
MD audio out into one track of the AF, where the amp envelope’s attack phase is opened slightly to soften the attack from the MD’s sounds, using an envelope with exponential attack phase.
Both machines have one full bar of 16th trigs on that track.

this setup is super sensitive to slight variations in timing… i cannot say any values, didn’t record anything yet, but well audible variations between individual notes… not sure if this is MIDI jitter or maybe some analog inaccuracies or maybe something else entirely tho.

Best not to test timing accuracy, because its shocking how unreliable it often is!

I spend years trying various setups and I can say that every device I have used syncs most of the time but will just do something stupid occassionally. My most stable setup at the moment is a tascam 2488 recorder sending MTC, a MPC2500 converting MTC to midi clock (and being my sampler), then the MD is excellent at syncing along to the MPC but the MnM won’t always start at the right time. Doepfer Dark Time syncs but will never start at the beginning of the sequencer.

As far as I am concerned, its not reliable until it is printed to a recorder track.

B

I sync my A4 with the MDUW, and it works perfectly. I also send program changes from the MDUW and once again, it works perfectly. So when switching from A1 to A2, the A4 follows. What I had to do was in the machinedrum settings change the base channel default setting of 1-4 to “—” and then the MDUW didn’t trigger notes on the A4, but the clock synced, the control synced and the pattern changes synced.
If I wanted to use a midi machine on the MDUW to trigger A4 sounds (like a drum sound etc), there were no issues.

***EDIT… just make sure your swing amounts match. The midi clock will not send swing information. To do a test set a hi-hat pattern on both machines and get them to match. The swing settings on both the A4 & MDUW are indentical

Ok great! Its possible!! Actually ive been fiddling around in the global menus and i suspect i didnt check the external sync! or local control or something…
Yeah i will use octatrack as the grand master when i get it back from elektron.

Yhank you very much everybody -’) best wishes!!