Motifs sometimes run off the beat when sync'ed externally

[prinsarian]

Hi, 
First of all thanks for making a great product. 

I'm struggling a bit though with some things. One of the things is that I seem to be getting Motifs that sometimes run synced to the beat, but sometimes seem to start (and run) off the beat. 

This is the way I can reproduce it:
1. I use cakewalk, it sends out a midi clock (90 bpm in my example)
2. Ndlr clock in=> USB 1
3. I have drone and motif 1 "on" before starting the sequencer. Motif 2 is off. Simple 1/8th patterns
4. I start the track on cakewalk, drone and motif 1 run in sync with Cakewalks metronome
5. Now using the switch on the Ndlr, i switch Motif 2 on. Sometimes it will run exactly on the beat. Sometimes it will start in the middle of the beat and stay that way. I can switch off and switch on again and sometimes the motif is on the beat again, and sometimes it will be off the beat. So completely independent. 

I have a feeling it has something to do with how close to the beat I switch the Motif on, but it's really hard to make certain it doesn't go wrong, so this will make it very hard to use in a (semi) live fashion.

Hope i'm not repeating something that has been asked before, I have searched.

By the way, version of the firmware: 1.1.066.

Best regards,
Arian Prins

[Jesse Johannesen]

Hi, 
First of all thanks for making a great product. 

I'm struggling a bit though with some things. One of the things is that I seem to be getting Motifs that sometimes run synced to the beat, but sometimes seem to start (and run) off the beat. 

This is the way I can reproduce it:
1. I use cakewalk, it sends out a midi clock (90 bpm in my example)
2. Ndlr clock in=> USB 1
3. I have drone and motif 1 "on" before starting the sequencer. Motif 2 is off. Simple 1/8th patterns
4. I start the track on cakewalk, drone and motif 1 run in sync with Cakewalks metronome
5. Now using the switch on the Ndlr, i switch Motif 2 on. Sometimes it will run exactly on the beat. Sometimes it will start in the middle of the beat and stay that way. I can switch off and switch on again and sometimes the motif is on the beat again, and sometimes it will be off the beat. So completely independent. 

I have a feeling it has something to do with how close to the beat I switch the Motif on, but it's really hard to make certain it doesn't go wrong, so this will make it very hard to use in a (semi) live fashion.

Hope i'm not repeating something that has been asked before, I have searched.

By the way, version of the firmware: 1.1.066.

Best regards,
Arian Prins

Hey Arian, 
Let's see if updating the firmware to the most recent version has any impact on this issue. You can find the info on how to do the FW update here and the current firmware can be found on this forum under here. Hopefully that sorts this out, but if not let me know and we can try a few things to see if we can find the issue. 
Jesse

[prinsarian]

I downloaded and installed 1.1.071, and the problem is still there.

[MrBlaschke]

I tried to reproduce this error for the last 2 hours - nevermind, just wanted to play with the NDLR and experimented with the settings anyway

I recreated your setup but i do not have Cakewalk - i used my AUM (iPad) as a Clock and the NDLR stays rock solid.
The 2nd difference is i am on FW 1.1.070.

No chance to get him off the clock.
Do you have another clock to verify that - maybe the clock from Cakewalk is jiggly?

Another try would be to reset the device, but in that case i would suggest to update to 1.1.70/1.1.71.
You will loose the stored Rhythms/Patterns in that case!! Be aware of that.

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Damn - during testing and writing my prev questions there where some answers...Sorry...Should have refreshed before writing.

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I would strongly request testing with another clock as i have some „unstable“ clocks in my arsenal for sure that tricked me from time to time.

[prinsarian]

Thanks MrBlaschke,
I tried another DAW that I have, Harrison Mixbus. This seemed to work properly. Back to Cakewalk I tried fiddling with ticks per Quarter-Note (Mixbus doesn't allow you to tweak this, let alone tell you what it uses). Cakewalk has choices that range from 48 - 960 while the NDLR seems to work between 1 and 24. Anyway, it seems to be working now. So thanks.... hopefully it'll stay this way :-)

Best regards

[MrBlaschke]

Glad you got that sorted.