External Sync is Deactived but drum computer starts when press play

Cubase
1

Hi, I’m a Cubase 14 Pro user. Have an external drum computer. Sometimes I want to disable external sync. According to the manual, you can disable it on transport→Activate External Sync or in the Project Synchronization Setup →sources →Activate External Sync.

The drum computer is also checked on the destinations page MIDI Clock Destinations and MIDI Timecode Destinations.

The drum computer starts and stops when I press play/stop in Cubase. Fine, sync ok.

But when I disable Activate external sync (no selection), the drum computer still starts/stops when pressing play/stop in Cubase.

To stop this sync, I need to unselect the drum computer in both destinations completely. I tried to unselect all other options in the Project Synchronization Setup.

When I do a midi dump, I see that Cubase still send a clock and MTC messages to the drum computer even when the activate sync is unselected.

Is this the way it should work or not? Do I miss something? Are my thoughts right?

2

The External Sync switch governs only whether Cubase will be synced by an external device.
It doesn’t switch off Cubase sending sync signals.

1 Like
3

I think you need to disable MMC Master Active so that the drum machine is no longer started/stopped by Cubase. Unfortunately, there is no shortcut for this; there is only one for the Project Synchronization Setup panel.

4

There are drum computers that support MMC nowadays? My knowledge is a bit rusty. Which ones would that be?