Distributing MIDI Clock, Sync and Timing

[Darryl]

Regarding The NDLR clock, yes it's continually on, as it "should be" according to the MIDI spec. It's a choice, and Arturia for one, did it the other way, starting and stopping clock so we understand why people might think that's the way it should be. The intention from the MIDI spec perspective is that the clock is always running, and Start/Stop/Continue message control what's playing or not. These transport controls get things synced up, where not everything is necessarily going to sync on a clock start. Another benefit of leaving the clock running is when you have instruments and effects slaved to the clock, they can abruptly stop when the clock stops. For instance, you have a Dave Smith Instruments Evolver, it's synced to clock and playing along with it's sequenced effects. If you stop the clock, it abruptly stops the effect, when maybe all you wanted to do was stop your KeyStep sequence.
So, when the NDLR is slaved to an external clock, it's optimized for the "Arturia way". You arm the NDLR parts, and they start when the clock starts. We hope the choice provides a solution for both a continuously running clock, or a clock that start and stops. Having said that, it's a lot more fluid to operate The NDLR when it's using Internal clock.