Midi ext Sync / one again

I have found the following annoying / buggy behaviour when reaper is synced by external timecode (spp) We all know that reaper can only be synced (as a slave) if the project tempo is the same as the external. It will spend lots of cpu cycles chasing, but ... it works. The project is in sync, all recorded events are where they should be etc... This is what I thought and also stated in the "midi hall of shame thread" ... Until I replaced the clock-master from an mpc2000 xl by a tr626. The major difference is, that the clock from the mpc is far more stable and less jittery than the 626, (except for the sounds and programming capabilities, the main reason for the replacement) Now, as reaper is slaved from the 626, the audio engine loses sync and gets glitches , stutter and spikes, as if it had a too small asio buffer size. This is the same behaviour as if reaper received a different tempo from external source than the project tempo is, this also "shakes" the audio engine. This is, according to the performance meter in reaper , no asio overload. With reaper as master, the project runs fine, but this is not an option. To reproduce : Create a new project Add one track with a long or looped sample Have it synced externally by a tr626 or maybe a 505 Play Glitches & stutter Switch the clock source to a mpc or alesis Sr-16 or a boss dr670 Play No glitches & stutter ---------------------- Hardware : win7 64, rme hammerfall, motu midi interface. Reaper 4.7 and reaper 5.newest ---------------------- Alternative scenarios : Reaper as master : does not work because .... the midi latency compensation in reaper is not fixed and will never be... .... I will have to reconfigure the routing if I work without PC Use a dedicated clock source like erm : .... As I am recording midi on several hardware sequencers in song mode, not in pattern mode, I use spp from the master to have all sequencers locate e.g. bar 33 and start recording from there on. Clock modules like erm or midipal do not provide this navigational aid. Change the drumbox : .... No way --___________ Obviously external sync by midi clock does only work with limitations.

Am I really the only one who is using outbound midi ? Or shall we wait until close to release of reaper 6 to have another "midi hall of shame thread" ?

Couldnt get to work alesis mmt8 either.jittery clocks freak out reaper. The way to turn things around is to use tape sync jack on the drumbox (reaper audio out _ sync in). This is really tight timing, and usually u can change patterns, tweak sounds, etc.

What exactly in Reaper is supposed to be synced by SPP ? Is Reaper "itself" specified to read such Midi messages (to do what ?) I understand that Reaper will pass those messages to Plugins in the tracks' FX chains by normal midi routing. So these should work as expected. -Michael (just curious)

Might be thread hijack (its zombiethread, so doesn't matter) For example i want to program beats on mmt8. Say 4 bar loop. But in reaper I would like to program bass line that is 16 bars + audio tracks. You cannot go back and redo drum part (atleast in the context of bassline and audio). Another thing that actually works is tascam 688 sync. Cassette has timecode, 688 spits out midi clock. Reaper is chasing, though with "crackles" (probably cannot handle rapid tempo changes). Midi playback is actually ok.

What do you suppose will happen to an audio stream if the playback engine adheres to rapid tempo changes ? I don't suppose any good outcome. -Michael

Probably a bad choice for a master controller since it doesn't go above velocity of 100... unless you retrofitted an upgrade :)