Hey guys, I had a question for those who use Traktor’s MIDI clock with other devices (ie. drum machines).
I have found 3 different ways to setup the MIDI clock and can’t figure out which one is best for the situation. I would like to have my 4 decks and my drum machine work together without the tempo drifting.
Traktor as MIDI clock master and syncing decks A-D & the drum machine to it.
Traktor MIDI clock in Auto mode, allowing me to assign the master clock to whichever active deck.
Using the drum machine for the MIDI clock and slaving Traktor to it.
I am curious to see how you guys would route it in your setups. Thanks in advance!!
NUMBER 2! I’d rule out number 3 immediately… I would never use Traktor as a slave to another software. As far as number 1 goes… If you use the MIDI clock in master mode, your entire clock sync could be disturbed if one track goes off the master BPM even slightly.
I always use Traktor as the master clock in auto mode. All decks and Maschine sync to the tempo of the master deck. As your tempo changes throughout the night, Maschine is always in perfect sync.
Thanks Ashton!! I was experiencing the sync disruption when one of my tracks had a funky beatgrid to it.
2 seemed more like the viable option, but I have never tried out option 3 and didn’t want to rule out all options. Now I wonder if my TR-8 will adjust to the BPM automatically when the BPM shifts or if I have to sync each time. I had to do that when I was running via MIDI cable, but now that I am using USB for the MIDI clock, I wonder if it phases back into time. that question however, is going to be for the Roland forums.
You would think that happens, but it doesn’t. When I was sending a clock via MIDI out on the Audio8DJ, I had to hit sync every once in a while to get the drum machine on the same clock. I have updated the firmware on the TR-8 (which addressing some of the phasing) and also am MIDI synced via USB (rather than MIDI in/out). Hopefully when I try this out tonight it doesn’t have that same problem of needing to resync every few minutes or so.
I had endless problems trying to sync drum machines to any DAW software with any reliability. Ive tried literally every single method and done many hours of troubleshooting.
Every software based midi clock solution drifts depending on load. Every single one.
There are three solutions.
Go all internal. Software devices sync just fine in most DAWS.
Go external. I ended up using an MPC as my midi brain, as it is just rock solid %100 of the time. No drift, ever.
Get something like Expert Sleepers hardware/vst combo, which is a hardware solution that reclocks all of your external and internal devices to the same clock. Works perfectly, but is expensive.
Four solutions.
Just run your devices with their internal clocks and tap tempo them to the beat, and nudge in your track with the platters and ride the tempo. This is what I do now with my drum machines and DVS. I spend too much time otherwise trying to troubleshoot drifting problems that there is no reliable solution for.
Nudging is fun. Trying to find the right value for a millisecond midi clock offset is the opposite of fun for me.
That sux! Hope you get it worked out.
I haven’t synced Traktor’s clock with anything yet, but never had that problem when syncing Fx, loop station, drum machine, etc. I was always using midi cables though, not USB.
Theres nothing new about a sync box. They work fine if you are just working outside the box.
Its when you connect it to a software DAW, and try to sync something like Ableton to it, plus external drum machines, is when you get the midi slop. In my experience Ableton has major problems with midi slop when you run external devices from its clock. This is well known and recognised. I think the longest serious thread to date on the ableton forum was about clock sync.
There are endless discussions at livepa.org about how to get tight sync with computers and modules, from people who perform with hardware.
The high end sync setups run a hardware clock, that also has a vst that you run in the DAW. The vst allows the internal clock to be resynced at a much higher frequency than midi clock messages. It essential re-clocks your internal and external devices to the same external sync.
In the vid he talks about syncing Ableton and Traktor without using midi clock, isn’t he just using Ableton/Push as essentially an in-the-box drum machine?
around 52:40
“at different times we had sync going back and forth when we were doing the contact shows a couple of years ago…we had midi over ethernet.. honestly in the end we felt too robotic or wasn’t functioning as stable as we thought so we all we back to whats your tempo, 124? ok start… in this setup there is no sync, traktor is my master clock… some point in my show I go to ableton I set that at the same tempo then press start then on my x1 controllers i have control over the phase offset for all my turntables and ableton”
Since you want traktor as master it may not help though (or sacrifice a deck for an audio loop)
/although FWIW I think you made the right choice just to beatmatch and nudge, especially if you are playing 4/4 type stuff that isn’t fluctuating BPM wildly anyways
Yea, I mostly play techno. The 4/4 makes it easy to beatmatch. Just was looking at other options, but the old school way works best in my current case.
I have the Eurorack version of this and while expensive it does work, he’s making a new version for what you want to do, so you may want to keep an eye out.
So you could say run Ableton or logic, run the TR8 via USB into that and sync Traktor with the box
I think it would work, you can offset the midi drift as well
