When clock-syncing two Polyend Trackers, the clock-receiving Tracker plays unwanted delay sounds after the sequence has been stopped, on any instrument that has a delay effect assigned. This sound is like a second delay, with a very long delay time. The assigned delay is also heard, but is partially cropped. While the sequence is running, this problem doesn’t occur.
This happens with both with the original Tracker as clock receiver, and the Mini as clock receiver. It doesn’t happen when another device sends a clock sync to any of the Trackers (tested with a Roland SH-4D).
Although it has its own delay time, the unwanted second delay does respect other delay settings like feedback and filter.
No audio signal is passed to any of the Trackers’s Line In. They solely produce their own internal sound.
Remedies I tried which failed (problem keeps occurring):
Toggle MIDI Transport In between MIDI or Internal
Toggle MIDI Sync in Master Delay settings between or or off
Trying different MIDI cables
One thing to note: when Transport In is set to Internal, the unwanted delay effect is only heard when the sending Tracker’s sequence has been stopped. When just the receiving Tracker’s sequence is stopped, the problem doesn’t occur.
Reproduction Steps
Connect two Trackers through MIDI
Load an instrument on one of the Trackers
Build a pattern with this instrument
Set a delay to this instrument, no matter which delay time rate
Set this Tracker to be the clock receiver in Config > MIDI > Clock In: MIDI In Jack
Set this Tracker to receive Transport In in Config > MIDI > Transport In: MIDI In Jack
Set the second, clock sending Tracker to send out MIDI in Config > MIDI > MIDI Out: MIDI Out Jack
Set the clock sending Tracker to Config > MIDI > Clock Out: MIDI Out Jack
Set the clock sending Tracker to Config > MIDI > Transport Out: MIDI Out Jack
Press play on the sending Tracker, starting the sequence on both Trackers
You should hear the sequence playing on the clock receiving Tracker
Press play again on the clock sending Tracker, stopping the sequence on both Trackers
You should hear the sequence stopping on the clock receiving Tracker, followed by delay artifacts
Hey there @Wolfshoek. I’m really sorry this post didn’t get picked up within a few day of it being reported. Somehow it got missed and I sincerely apologize.
Is this still an issue for you? Curious to know the behaviour on the current firmware.
Hi @dan.lgrnd, thanks for reaching out. I can confirm this is still happening. Although I don’t own the Mini anymore, I do own a OG Tracker and Tracker+. I did the same test between these two, both are on their latest firmware.
Here’s the intended effect on the OG Tracker, without any MIDI clock sync going on. I started and immediately stopped the sequence, the delay keeps going without any flaws.
Here’s the unwanted delay effect when I set the OG to be the clock receiver and the Plus to be the sender. I again started and immediately stopped the sequence from the Plus. You can hear the intended delay being suddenly stopped, but then a second, slower delay starts running.
The cause of this error is the MIDI Clock In, because when I set this to Internal after two delay cycles, it falls back to the intended delay.
It also happens when I set the Plus to be the MIDI receiver and the OG as the sender. Here’s the effect happening on the Plus when receiving MIDI clock from the OG.
Thanks so much for the detailed reply. I have an OG and T+ so I’ll attempt to replicate this today. I’ll report back.
I know that the Tracker only sends MIDI clock while it’s running. My guess is that if the Delay FX is synced to the clock, it shuts down when it looses the clock.
So yes, I’m perfectly able to replicate this, and have interesting details to share.
On my first attempt, I was getting the same “interruption” of the delay signal but not the slower tempo. I put the tracker receiving the clock back to internal, and realized that I had both of the devices at their default tempo. So I set the receiving device to 90 and kept the master at 130. Tried it again, and the results are pretty clear. When the master device is stopped, the receiving device stutters for like 1/3 of a second, and then falls back to it’s internal tempo. If you turn the feedback way up, the delay after the interruption is significantly longer than I would expect.
What I can also confirm is that if the receiving device is getting a constant clock, then it works perfectly. I tested this using the Polyend Synth. A pretty cool and unique feature of the Synth is that the clock out is constant no matter what. Most devices will engage the clock when you press a key that starting an Arp or a Sequence, but the Synth keeps that clock going. So testing it with the Synth and not having the issue arise pretty much confirms my assumptions.
Wanted to add that from the various synths and boxes I’ve owned, and the countless eurorack modules that rely on a clock, there seems to be 3 philosophies of what happens when a device looses it’s receiving clock.
a) It maintains it’s current tempo
b) It falls back to it’s internal clock, if it’s available
c) It stops running as it uses each tick to advance.
