Syncing the Pro-3 to Ableton Clock is all over the place?

[Sonic Neutronic]

I know about midi jitter from Ableton. I've seen it on a few synths, deviating by a few bpm here and there.

The Pro-3 when synced via USB direct to my computer, or through midi cables from my Focusrite18i20 seems to jump 10-20 bpm per second.... it's all over the place and really visually distracting when wanting everything to run right.

I put a quick video on my channel showing the issue. Anyone else seeing this?


Many thanks
SN

[extempo]

What you're seeing in the display for the external clock tempo is a rounded value and may not be completely accurate depending on a few factors. If you're also sending a bunch of other MIDI data in the pipe, this complicates things.

However, you should be able to hear that any time based elements such as the arp/sequencer/clock-synced LFOs are tightly synced.

[Sonic Neutronic]

What you're seeing in the display for the external clock tempo is a rounded value and may not be completely accurate depending on a few factors. If you're also sending a bunch of other MIDI data in the pipe, this complicates things.

However, you should be able to hear that any time based elements such as the arp/sequencer/clock-synced LFOs are tightly synced.

Everything certainly sounds "right" and "in-sync" - I just hadn't seen that much deviation before in my other Sequential's
I'll just carry on and try and make some "music" with it
Thanks,

[tarekith]

Ive been seeing that sort of thing for two decades now on some gear when midi synced.  If it sounds right, ignore the display. 

[Sonic Neutronic]

Ive been seeing that sort of thing for two decades now on some gear when midi synced.  If it sounds right, ignore the display. 

yes that's the plan, and although i'm probably around your age, I didn't touch a synthesizer until about October 2018 for some reason...?  - I do see this in much smaller increments on the Rev2, not so much the Prophet 6..... but wildy so on the now to be ignored Pro-3 display.....

[W07]

Also seeing the clock jump around a lot more even than on other DSI synths. Also, sometimes the clock randomly displays values in the 250+ range, almost as if it's displaying a multiple, but the audio timing is still roughly correct.
I know i should trust my ears, but even then i do hear some ramping up and down.
To be honest i've been using the USB connection, and only just now installed the new firmware. Will see if that helps tomorrow.

[W07]

Tried syncing the Pro 3 (using both arp and sequencer)to a daw project today, as is it is almost unuseable. There is significant tempo drifting, and even when the arp is set to quantised mode, it will often start out of phase when the midi sequence from the arp starts. I had to record and warp almost every bar to get a tight rythmical sync.

The Ob 6 syncs fine, though.

I will try to use midi today to see if this improves things.

[W07]

Went back and did all the finetuning and settings to optimise the sync.
I found i was using midi for note info and usb for clock, which is said in the manual as not a good thing, set both via midi clock.

I offset the device latency by 8ms (currently the i/o latency of my computer is set at 7.5 ms so that makes sense) and midi clock latency by 68 ms.

Now the sequencer syncs fine, but the arp was still strange: it does seem to get the tempo right, but only after one bar of playing. starting the clock earlier does not change this.

i think i fixed this by changing the setting on the input channel of the pro3 from 'clock' to no input. Strangely this clock input was not armed, so it shouldn't really have an effect at all. But now the arp starts correctly from the first bar?

So it seems like the problem was more to do with ableton live/ or the compatibility of Live and DSI.

So far so good, we'll see how it holds up.

[MrBentleyDean]

Okay so I had some issues with ableton's clock before any kind of jitter you get when syncing with ableton's clock is most likely from Ableton. I just ordered a stand alone clock this morning to run as a dedicated master clock because everything was all out of whack last night haha.

I just tested all the clock sync modes on the Pro 3 with ableton and i'm not getting any bpm reading at all. Mine currently says "Ext Sync" and just below "Ext BPM". Perhaps the new beta firmware? I only just updated this morning, but the Pro 3 is holding sync with ableton a lot better than my Slim Phatty. Both using USB but the Slim is connected to my motherboard I/O vs Pro 3 on a powered usb hub.

TL:DR - I think i'm going to try out Bitwig over Ableton and see if the clocking improves all around

[Pym]

Because we were getting so much confusion on the BPM we're trying an option that just says we're seeing clock, so you'll just see 'EXT'. The raw value you were seeing on the screen simply wasn't a good metric to determine if things were synced up correctly. If it sounds like it's synced, it's probably synced fine

Okay so I had some issues with ableton's clock before any kind of jitter you get when syncing with ableton's clock is most likely from Ableton. I just ordered a stand alone clock this morning to run as a dedicated master clock because everything was all out of whack last night haha.

I just tested all the clock sync modes on the Pro 3 with ableton and i'm not getting any bpm reading at all. Mine currently says "Ext Sync" and just below "Ext BPM". Perhaps the new beta firmware? I only just updated this morning, but the Pro 3 is holding sync with ableton a lot better than my Slim Phatty. Both using USB but the Slim is connected to my motherboard I/O vs Pro 3 on a powered usb hub.

TL:DR - I think i'm going to try out Bitwig over Ableton and see if the clocking improves all around

[MrBentleyDean]

Sounds good to me. I prefer being able to see that, I still believe my sync issues came from ableton. The Pro 3 seems very solid in that area.

Because we were getting so much confusion on the BPM we're trying an option that just says we're seeing clock, so you'll just see 'EXT'. The raw value you were seeing on the screen simply wasn't a good metric to determine if things were synced up correctly. If it sounds like it's synced, it's probably synced fine

Okay so I had some issues with ableton's clock before any kind of jitter you get when syncing with ableton's clock is most likely from Ableton. I just ordered a stand alone clock this morning to run as a dedicated master clock because everything was all out of whack last night haha.

I just tested all the clock sync modes on the Pro 3 with ableton and i'm not getting any bpm reading at all. Mine currently says "Ext Sync" and just below "Ext BPM". Perhaps the new beta firmware? I only just updated this morning, but the Pro 3 is holding sync with ableton a lot better than my Slim Phatty. Both using USB but the Slim is connected to my motherboard I/O vs Pro 3 on a powered usb hub.

TL:DR - I think i'm going to try out Bitwig over Ableton and see if the clocking improves all around