When using the Play as my setup’s “brain”/master clock and sequencer, the MIDI timing that it sends to my external devices sounds unsteady. Like if it was a drummer, I’d think they were a little drunk and wouldn’t keep the gig because they can’t put down a solid groove.
If I sequenced an external drum machine and the internal sampler to hit a note at the same time, they will often flam.
The correct behavior is to send out a steady tempo.
Reproduction Steps
Open the provided Play song file
Route the tracks to MIDI channels that work for your setup
Press play and listen for a few minutes.
-or-
Hook up the Play’s MIDI out to some external gear. A drum machine and a synth, a groovebox…it doesn’t matter. Just some way that you can send out sequences on 4-5+ MIDI channels simultaneously.
Sequence a typical drumbeat, but give it 16th note hi-hats throughout the pattern.
Sequence a few melodies to different midi channels (for simultaneous playback). We could say “a bass line and 1-2 leads”, but the instrument names are really arbitrary.
Press Play on the Play and listen to the timing for a few minutes. It’s very wonky.
I’m including some audio samples of the drift in action. I added click tracks (in post-production) to some of the samples to highlight the drifting timing.
Occurrence
Every time I use the MIDI sequencing features of the Play.
Hello @adam.pugliese Thank you for reporting this bug. We are sorry you’re experiencing issues while using our product. Unfortunately, we are unable to reproduce the issue ourselves.
Made a new project following your instructions and ran 7 separate sequences into my Eurorack and the MicroFreak, using the Play as the main clock source. There was only a slight difference when the external gear was not all set to 24PPQN.
from Play manual page 164
Could you give us a bit more info about the external gear you’re using with your Play?
In the most civil tone possible, my setup is currently a Play connected to a Roland SH4D. I typically run a more elaborate setup, but I’ve had to pare back my system on an attempt to troubleshoot the Play’s timing issues.
I put time and effort into creating a bug report that includes a project file and multiple audio samples of the issue. Did to happen to check those out? I’m genuinely sorry that you were unable to replicate my issue, but you should consider reviewing the files i included with my bug report. I believe that these may hold insights for you, as indicated in my original post. @Mitch expressed an awareness of this issue on another thread, and suggested that a formal bug report be filed for it. But if you’re saying “cannot replicate” and you haven’t tried my project files or listened to my audio samples, then I’d politely ask you to do a more thorough job.
Hello everyone,
I have encountered the same problem. I want to use the Play as a midi master. My looper (Singular Sound Aeros) is connected as midi slave/ receiver. Unfortunately I noticed that the looper goes out of sync after a few beats/ bars because the midiclock signal of the Play seams to bee unstable/ not even. The looper recognizes all midi signals (Start/Stop/BPM,…). I tried the looper with an Elektron Digitakt (to rule out that the problem is with the looper) and it worked without any problems. After some research in various forums I realized that the problem has already occurred with several people.
Therefore I would like to know if this problem is being worked on. Unfortunately I can’t use the Play as it is. The Play is without question a great device and the people who work on it do a great job. But I can’t use it with an unstable midi clock. I would therefore like to know what is happening with regard to this. I don’t want to put time into my production if I can’t realize it live with the Play. Thank you very much.
I had contact to the Developers of the Aeros Looper and asked on wich PPQN the Looper is operating. Aeros runs at 24 pulses per quarter note (PPQN). So this matches with the Play.
