Renoise - weird midi sync issues

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A.O.S.
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Renoise - weird midi sync issues

Post by A.O.S. »

Hello everyone,

I try to make the description of the issue as compact as possible. :)

Software: Renoise Demo 3.4.3, Pipewire, Endavour OS
Hardware: Arturia Drumbrute Impact and other Synthesizers

Arturia Drumbrute is connected via USB
Other Synthesizers are connected via an USB to MIDI interface

Hardware Setup was verified with several sequencers and DAWs - works fine. Except Renoise.

Now the issue:

Scenario A:

Renoise is MIDI master clock
Drumbrute is MIDI slave clock

Renoise uses 24 ppqn as MIDI clock resolution. The Drumbrute is set to 24 ppqn as well.

Result is that with 30 BPM everything is running borderline stable. The faster the BPM is set, the issue is getting worse. For example Renoise is set to 120 BPM, Drumbrute is interpreting this as roughly 60 BPM and fluctuates violently around +- 5 BPM. This increases with even faster BPMs.

While this is happening, the indicator LED on the Drumbrute which are showing which clock source is used (INT/USB/MIDI/CLK) is flickering between INT and USB.

Scenario B:

Drumbrute is MIDI master clock
Renoise is MIDI slave clock

Renoise uses 24 ppqn as MIDI clock resolution. The Drumbrute is set to 24 ppqn as well.

Result is that at first sight, everything seems to run stable, because Renoise shows the correct BPM and is reacting to BPM changes correctly. But the sync isn't correct and has weird slow downs and speed ups in Renoise, while the BPM on the Drumbrute is stable as rock. Everything in Renoise is fluctuating between running faster or slower than the beat from the Drumbrute. But the BPM indicator in Renoise is showing the correct value and isn't fluctuating, but you can see the speed ups and slow downs in the tracker.

I have no idea what is causing this. Like I said, with other sequencers and DAWs I don't have these issues. Only in Renoise.

Has anyone an idea what the issue could be?

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sysrqer
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Re: Renoise - weird midi sync issues

Post by sysrqer »

That's strange. I just tried clocking my Eurorack from Renoise and I don't see any issues, appears to be rock solid and I know Venetian Snares runs (or has run) a similar setup.

Probably best to reach out to Renoise support. From what you've said, it sounds like the PPQN is not what you think it is somewhere, at least in scenario A.

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Re: Renoise - weird midi sync issues

Post by A.O.S. »

Well, after trying different things I fixed it partially.

I always thought I had set JACK as device type in Preferences - Audio already, but it was still ALSA set. After changing the audio device type to JACK, the MIDI clock suddenly stabilized and works quite stable now.

But the weird thing is, that I thought that the device type under Audio is affecting the audio input/output only and not the MIDI input/output.

When I am checking qpwgraph (basically qjackctl for pipewire), I cant see any differences. The patches for MIDI are staying the same regardless if ALSA or JACK is set as device type. In both cases everything MIDI related is patched via ALSA and not via Pipewire, which is possible, too.

Why it is fixed partially only? Well:

  • Drumbrute recieves stable MIDI clock from Renoise now.
  • Renoise can record the played notes from Drumbrute.
  • But Drumbrute isn't recieving any played notes from Renoise. :roll:
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