NDLR clock unstable to incoming clock

[HammerTime]

HI Jesse,

I am still tinkering about with my setup to see if it is something I may have done to get the system unstable when The NDLR is plugged in to it.

It seams to me that The NDLR unable to latch on to an incoming clock and maintain a steady bpm, Im in the UK so willsend you an email if I can't fix it.

thanks for your response.

[Clint Goss]

I am about to embark on synching up various components of my rig, and would love to hear feedback on this issue and / or advice on the best way to do this.

I have only ever synched a RC-505 to a Strymon Timeline, and it worked like a charm, but the RC-505 had to be the master (no prob, since I was live-looping) ...

Here's the current hookup diagram and photo for the rig I'm talking about ...

[Jesse Johannesen]

Hey Clint, we never got a chance to delve into it with the specific issue at hand, but what I can speculate about the scenario is that if NDLR is receiving MIDI clock from an external source as the master, then it literally waits for each tick to do anything at all, and runs as stable as the clock in every way I can think of, if the clock coming in is wonky, it will fluctuate, but we're talking about 96 tics per 1/4 note, so it would have to be quite a bit off for there to be a noticeable variation in the tempo. It's more than likely doing what it's supposed to, but there may be some obscure setting with the rhythm being at play here, or the other possible case is that the BPM measurement may be saying a tempo that is fluctuating over time as some artifact of the way it's measured, without there actually being a tempo variation. The entire program of the device operates around the MIDI timing as a priority, so I can't think of a way for it to go "off" time.

In your case are you asking because you are experiencing an issue, or are trying to end-run any potential issues before going live with the above setup? By the way that setup looks totally awesome, I haven't heard of the wind instrument you have there, but it seems pretty inspiring. On a side note, how did you make that connection diagram, I have been looking for a way to do something like that and these look great!

[Clint Goss]

Thanks for the reply, Jesse!

I was indeed "trying to end-run any potential issues before going live with the above setup" ...

And I was not thinking entirely clearly (imagine that?). In earlier rig setups, I live looped starting from an RC-505 and other components (e.g. stuff controlled by Cantabile) had to adopt the RC-505 tempo.

In this NDLR-based rig, it's pretty clear now that the NDLR needs to be the master. My plan is to skip HW drum machines for percussion and use a software-based setup for percussive sounds (probably using NI Battery 4 sequenced by a custom VST), again managed by Cantabile.

Some quick testing shows that Cantabile follows the NDLR tempo very nicely, so all is OK. This scheme may mean that I cannot use the RC-505 down the line, which seems to have problems as a MIDI Synch Slave. We'll see ...

> I haven't heard of the wind instrument you have there

The Sylphyo has been the centerpiece of my performing rig for the last two year. Extremely capable, miniscule latency over their custom radio link, and I was able to work with Aodyo to develop the custom (rather oddball) fingerings for the Native American flutes that I play. We still lead workshops in "real" Native American flutes, but I mostly play electronic for gigs ...

> how did you make that connection diagram

It's done in Corel Draw. Long-standing object-based design tool ideal for these diagrams. However ... they take a lot of finnicky work to develop - certainly not easy going. I am drawing everything ...

Thanks again for the assistance!