Latency with drone

[kastenbalg]

Hello,

I just purchase The NDLR and love it, but I'm noticing the done is out of time from the other parts. 

Instead of starting on the "1" downbeat it always triggers on "&".  I've tried to muck around with the Drone Trigger options, but nothing seems to fix the issue. I figure that with the five dots and four completely filled boxes, I should get the drone to trigger on each beat. Instead, it is syncopated on the "&". I record four parts into a DAW and was able to confirm that motifs 1 & 2 and the pad all trigger properly and it is the drone that's out.

Also, I understand if only the right half of the boxes are filled in, the done should syncopate. I can confirm that I'm seeing the syncopated behavior with the boxed completely filled.

Do you have any advice on how to correct this issue?

Mark

This is eerily reminiscent of what I wrote about here about the NDLR syncing clock to offbeats on starting parts with CC #90: https://conductivelabs.com/forum/showthr...73#pid2173

I read the rest of this thread. From your perspective, switching to MIDI B to get transport as well as clock fixed the issue. Here is my theory why. Using MIDI A, your NDLR was synced to offbeats sometimes, because although it had clock, it had no idea where the beats and offbeats were supposed to be. Once you had transport start from MIDI B, the NDLR started synced to the beat, so it knew (you also need a synced transport start so the NDLR knows where the downbeat is for drone timing - blue flash is where the NDLR thinks the downbeat is). So absolutely use MIDI B for a synced start to make sure you are not setting yourself up to fail by syncing to offbeats, and potentially also randomizing your drone's position within the bar.


There may still be a gremlin lurking in here. My issue with CC #90 is that even with a synced start, the NDLR clock could switch to offbeat sync when the parts turned on. This was happening to me while using MIDI B in.


I think the effect can be observed from the flashing tempo circle on the NDLR. This is not obvious; the NDLR is synced to clock in both the correct and incorrect state. The indicator flashes on/off regularly, whether the NDLR is synced to the beat or the offbeat. At first glance, it just looks like the clock sync is working.


Here is the difference. The circle should be filled on the beat, and empty on the offbeat. If the NDLR is synced to the offbeat, the circle will be empty on the beat and filled on the offbeat.


As my NDLR switched between these two states when turning on parts with CC #90, I sometimes saw a flash of two filled circles in a row, with no empty circle in between. After that the NDLR would be stuck on the new sync. Regardless of any quantization, it is surprising that the clock sync would change like that.

Of course, besides a difference on the indicator, if the NDLR is synced to the offbeat, there is an audible 'late' effect on the drone, problems with the pad timing, etc. I am guessing that the immediate start of the motif parts might mask what is happening.