Re: Syncing to MIDI

[matthias@bahianet.com.br (Matthias Grob)]

Anton Chovit:
>>> I have also noticed that when syncing to MIDI (sync= IN), if start the
>>> MIDI (drum machine, seq, etc.) then hit record, the plex goes to 000 
>and
>>> waits for the MIDI "one beat" (as it should).  However, if I delete 
>this
>>> loop or try sereral takes, eventually, the plex looses the "one beat"
>>> and jsuts starts recording as soon as I hit record.  The only way to 
>get
>>> things working is to shut off/on the plex, stop the MIDI and start
>>> over.

The Man Himself:
>>Yeah, I've run into this problem many times as well.  It's kind of a drag
>>to have to power down, power back up, then start from scratch every time
>>you want to sync a new loop.  Perhaps this is yet another element
>>corrected in the upgrade?

Kim:
>Should be. We worked on midi syncing a lot. I'll have to revisit it to see
>that it deals with the situations you guys are talking about it.


This sound like two different problems to me:

One is, that the Plex only knows that you want to sync to some external
clock, after in Reset, the one beat passed once. It means that you have to
wait for the left green dot to flash once, before you press RECORD,
otherwhise it starts recording immediately.

The other problem is, that MIDI does not tell the Plex, when the one beat
is. So if the sequencer continues running and you stop and do another
Record, it might wait, but not for the correct one beat. This can be fixed
by stopping and restarting the MIDIclock, in other words stop and start the
sequencer.
The Plex watches the MIDIclock coming: After there was none for some time
(sequencer stopped), the very next is considered a beginning of a note.

Confusion in this talk can increase because MIDI puts out 12 clocks during
one 8th of a note. So one problem for the soft is to find the first of
these 12 clocks (the stop-start trick), and another problem, probably
rather of the user, is to get the right note as the first of the bar.

I hope this is correct (I do not use it myself and treated it some time
ago). If this does not solve the problem, please tell me and I will go
though it more seriously.

Matthias