Moog Music Forum

Hi,

I have: 1 Sub 37 and one Beat Thang (drum computer).

I'd like the Beat Thang to use the master MIDI Clock the Sub 37 sends out.. but other than that, I don't want the Beat Thang to need to hear the Arp/Seq start/stop message. I want to manually control the start/stop on the Beat Thang, and just have it keep tempo with the Sub 37.

Currently, I manage to get Beat Thang to start playing when the SEND ST/STP option in menu CLOCK OPTIONS is set to YES. But when I set this option to NO, I can't get the Beat Thang to honour the MIDI Clock. It just doesn't play at all.

Anyone can help me out with this ? I'm new to syncing devices together.

BTW, The Beat Thang MIDI settings are:
* Sync/Slave Mode: MIDI Clock
* Send MIDI Clock: No

Thx.

Laurence

Well, if the BT doesn't have an option to ignore MIDI Start/Stop then a work-around might be to create an empty pattern that 'plays nothing' during those sections when you want to stop the BT.

Why don't you try it the other way round, and use the Beat Thang as clock master?

In my experience, drums computers are more suitable to be used as master. For example, the Sub 37 will probably change tempo when you load another preset (so do many other synths). Most drum machines don't do that.

Using the BT as a master doesn't give me the real-time convenience of a tempo knob, as present on the Sub 37. The BT doesn't have a dedicated tempo knob, which is a real shame. But the argument of switching presets on the Sub, which does change tempo, may indeed force me to start using the BT as master, and deal with its limitations.

The BT is my very first drum machine, and it's clear after owning it for 6 months, that it has a few things that it cannot do, which any drum machine should be able to (the BT doesn't have a dedicated master volume knob either.. , it doesn't have proper documentation , and more.. )

Ive tried various ways with my Aira TR-8 as the sync master after disabling the midi channel to 0 so that the sub wouldnt play notes from the tr8. Maybe you could use Ableton as the source, while I admit it may not be perfect with sync I havnt had any problems that way around.

whatever route you choose have fun with it.

Ableton is how I've got my gear sync'd works pretty good for me.

I use a MIDI controller to send program changes to my external gear too