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Topic: What does MTC/MIDI Clock data look like? (Read 1225 times) |
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chumbo
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MIDI-OX Rules!
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What does MTC/MIDI Clock data look like?
« on: Feb 26th, 2019, 12:39pm » |
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Hi,
Completely noob! 
I'm trying to troubleshoot sync problem and thought MIDI-OX could help.
It's a very simple setup, a drum machine and a DAW (Reaper).
The drum machine slaves perfectly to Reaper but the reverse doesn't even work at all!
When I try to make Reaper slave the drum machine, I get absolutely nothing!? It's not out of sync, slow starting, just....nothing! It won't even start at all.
So I thought I would see what I can find out about the problem with MIDI-OX.
So I'm monitoring only the incoming MIDI Clock and I do get some data incoming but....I of course don't understand it at all?!
So my question is, what does proper MTC/Midi Clock look like?
This is what I got from just quickly hitting start/stop on the drum machine. Does that look correct? (I just find it odd that it's all just note on/off messages?)
 https://i.imgur.com/ZwxjzQt.png" alt="" border="0">
(don't know why the pic is not showing? I used the proper tool for that in the message creation page?)
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Breath
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Re: What does MTC/MIDI Clock data look like?
« Reply #1 on: Mar 1st, 2019, 12:48am » |
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Hi
there is only Midi device info and Note On and Note off Midi messages in the pic.
So your drum machine is sending the notes (drum sounds) but no Midi timing.
Reaper will work with Midi Time Code (MTC) and Midi Song Position Pointer (SPP) and Linear Time Code (LTC).
You will see this in the "Use input" drop down box.
My guess is the one you want is SPP.
Syncing is one of the hard parts of Midi to understand.
MTC and LTC involve sending video type information - Hours:Min:sec:frames
SPP is where to go in bars and beats.
Usually the first message is SPP to tell the slave where we are about to start from.
After that there is a 'GO' message (Start = F and then a timing pulses sent 24 times a quarter note (Clock = F to keep in sync.
Until there is a Stop = FC message.
Here is some info about SPP Midi including Midi clock
http://www.somascape.org/midi/tech/spec.html#syscommsgs
You don't say what drum machine you are using, but trying it out on my old SR-16 I find that the SR-16 only outputs a START, STOP and MIDI CLOCK in pattern mode and Reaper gets a bit confused.
In Song mode the SR-16 also puts out SPP at the start.
With my very old copy of Reaper (v501/x64) as the master it works very well.
With Reaper as the slave it is OK trying to record with it, but only at fairly slow tempos.
Hope this helps.
Royce
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chumbo
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Re: What does MTC/MIDI Clock data look like?
« Reply #2 on: Mar 1st, 2019, 3:55am » |
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Hi Royce,
Thanks for the reply!
Ah, ok, interesting stuff. So my drum machine (Boss DR-770), is not sending the proper MIDI info then?
You are correct in that, my drum machine understands SPP only so that's what I used as well in Reaper, but only with success when Reaper is master (and like you, a great master! The drum machine is locked tight and starts-up instantly!).
But as I said, with Reaper as a slave...nothing. And now that you explained to me what that SPP MIDI info should look like, it seems my drum machine isn't sending out the correct SPP info.
But from what you are saying, it looks like, even though you - contrary to me - do get Reaper to slave, it's not working well.
And in my case, it could be a combination of both Reaper and the drum machine not operating very well.
I guess there is no fix then? Some nifty function in MIDI-OX to address this or any other utility, plugin that would get Reaper to slave properly?
I should mention that this scenario (drum machine <-MIDI-> Reaper) is really for testing purposes and that the end goal is to actually sync two laptops, one using Ableton, the other Reaper.
And ideally, they should be able to sync both ways, with either Reaper as slave or master.
But in this last scenario it was even worse!? There was sync in some cases, but the lag/delay was terrible and the incoming bpm was all over the place! When the master DAW was supposedly sending 120 bpm, the other was receiving anything from 118-121 bpm, fluctuating rapidly every second!
Yet, I know it's done all the time, musicians do live performances all synced up and tight, that's all we're trying to achieve as well!
Just don't understand what we're doing wrong here?
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Breath
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Re: What does MTC/MIDI Clock data look like?
« Reply #3 on: Mar 5th, 2019, 12:20am » |
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For the DR-770 check that you have set the clock back to INT .... page 88 of the manual
"I guess there is no fix then? Some nifty function in MIDI-OX to address this or any other utility, plugin that would get Reaper to slave properly?"
You can always use MidiOx as your SPP master and send it to
the DR-770 via a hardware Midi interface
Reaper via MidiYoke1 (or LoopMidi1) Reaper Midi clock input would be from MidiYoke1
The SPP data comes from the 'Midi-Ox Event Port"
"I should mention that this scenario (drum machine <-MIDI-> Reaper) is really for testing purposes and that the end goal is to actually sync two laptops, one using Ableton, the other Reaper.
And ideally, they should be able to sync both ways, with either Reaper as slave or master."
I'm not sure why you would need to.
In performance I would inevitably get confused and would definitely screw up at some point if I had to swap sync masters.
I would highly recommend that you decide on what is the master and sync EVERYTHING to it.
If Reaper is your normal Master and you develop a piece with just Live and have a complex tempo track I would still write the Tempo track to Reaper and use Reaper to drive everything.
In performance always hit the same buttons for stop and go.
If you are going to dynamically vary the tempo, do it through the same DAW (perhaps via Midi CC on a controller)
Work out which software you use the most and / or has the best real time tempo changes and make that your master.
The only time this changes is if you are also syncing video then the video automatically becomes the Master and you use LTC as input to your Master DAW and let it convert the LTC to SPP . If this is something you want to do, make it a factor in choosing the Master DAW right at the start.
"But in this last scenario it was even worse!? There was sync in some cases, but the lag/delay was terrible and the incoming bpm was all over the place! When the master DAW was supposedly sending 120 bpm, the other was receiving anything from 118-121 bpm, fluctuating rapidly every second!"
There could be delay caused by the computer hardware working so hard it is playing catch up.
This could be caused by it having VSTs to process (freeze the tracks)
Too many tracks (mix the tracks down to a sub mix and mute the originals)
In many ways the simple SPP falls down.
It relies on an associated Tempo track so the sync generator needs to be in the DAW with the Tempo track.
If you use Midi Time Code (MTC), that just sends out the time like LTC, the separate DAWs can calculate their own position based on the Time received and their Tempo track
(This also means the synced hardware/software can have different Tempo tracks for really strange stuff.)
It also means you can have a single hardware controller just for transport and Master time sync generation.
This is the usually way it is done when working with video/film with all equipment synced to this master clock
"Yet, I know it's done all the time, musicians do live performances all synced up and tight, that's all we're trying to achieve as well! "
Should be doable. Keep trying.
Feel free to be very specific, even on a project by project basis, and I'll try to help.
All the best
Royce
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