MIDI (Beat) Clock offset feature, please Steinberg

I’d have to test a bit with different interfaces, but from past experience I believe this delay is due to the MIDI slaves’ own processing time, not because of MIDI interfaces nor the DAW.
I typically don’t sync more than one machine at a time so only one MIDI clock destination is active in Cubase.

Hi @mlib, as MIDI devices differ a lot regarding timing precision, it’s impossible for us to make any serious statements here. You’ll have to try things out, I’m afraid.

Did you guys try the external instrument for MIDI clock slaves?
In Cubase11, there was a big bump done almost silently in this regard. Before, only MIDI notes were compensated in time, i.e. predelayed by A/D and following latency amount like insertions that aligns the time at the VST mixer’s master output.
But since C11, MIDI clock is also pre-delayed if the instrument is used as an external inst. E.g. you have a midi clock driven drum machine, and you set this up as an external inst and send the beat clock to this external inst instead of the physical midi port, the clock will be predelayed by the latency. This works perfectly for multiple inputs, like if you have a few machines connected 909,808,303 and so on, set them all up as a single external instrument which has multiple inputs to cubase, then you can even insert a big latency plugin to these individual channels and the timing will still be perfect. You can also set the offset in the external inst panel but usually you don’t need that.

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That’s interesting, thank you for pointing it out. I was completely unaware of MIDI clock being linked to instruments. I will investigate and report back. Cheers!

@Alessio
As you haven’t tried it yet, let me point out that there are a few coverts around how to use midi clock with external instruments. I wrote a few notes in the past (it was Cubase10.5 not C11), here is some snips you may find usefull.

Btw maybe I have to make this clear. It’s not an uad problem. Uad I.e. any high buffered plugin can be inserted to midi clocked external instrument track without causing a sync issue.

Procedure is as follow;

  1. On F4 menu, Set up an external inst, set input channels connected to the device
  2. Create midi device associates to the ext inst. Set midi port to the inst.
  3. Enable it as midi clock destination. There are 2 entries for the drum machine. One is called by the name of the midi port, the other is called by the name you entered to the midi device created in step 2. Leave 1st one unchecked and enable 2nd one.
  • The one you have to enable as midi clock destination is the one with the brackets and this is the virtual midi port for external instruments. There are some confusing bugs around the handling of names of midi ports like midi device name changes when setup as ext.inst. and so on. So remember to check ( )
  • If you have multiple machines hooked to a same physical MIDI port (usb/audio interface, etc), set up only 1 external instrument with multiple inputs. e.g. to drive a 909, an 808 and a 303, you set up an external inst with, say 8 inputs, 4 for the 909, 3 for 808 and 1 for 303.
  • If your drum machine/groove box doesn’t recognize midi continue messages (old drum machines and some newer flexible sequencers,), and starts from the middle of a bar when cubase/nuendo starts, enable “Always Send Start Message” option, it will ‘quantize’ the start messages at nearest bar line.
  • When sync enabled projects are open again, you may have to re-enable the sync destination. Another bug.
  • ‘Render in place’ works for midi clock slaves as long as there is an empty part on the ext.isnt. track. So draw an empty part then use the function. Unless you need to twiddle the sound, this is very handy and reliable way to ‘convert’ to audio.
  • You can use any number of buffered plugins on any inputs, and the timing will still be perfectly compensated. i.e. bd input and sd can have different plugins like uad, etc.
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Interesting info, I will have to look into this. pre Cubase 11, I opted out of using External Instrument tracks because when I tried to use, it seemed overly complicated and created worse latency… so I just stuck to basic MIDI tracks. Using a regular ol MIDI track just seemed like less hassle…

I will have to revisit External Instruments though because of your post…


Ah, I remember why I think the other reason I don’t use External Instruments… they take up an/two AD inputs… which is annoying if you only have 16 and share them for various recording duties.

You don’t need to tie an ad pair to an external inst or external effect. You can Just connect returns whenever you needed and can leave them disconnected when the ad pair is used for other purposes.

With my tests, not to say my tests didn’t have an error… when I did that, the audio didn’t come back in latency corrected… I’m pretty certain. Might need to redo that test to be sure.

I don’t know how you did but pdc works even for reconnected devices.
PDC for midi clock is new since 10.5 and need a little tips as above, so please try again. It works perfectly.

I’ll give it a revisit this week and report back… I’m pretty certain though, at least with External FX, when I tried to record things back onto audio tracks through regular inputs instead of through the External FX returns… things were not lined up (it was only noticeable at higher buffers).

But, maybe I was mistaken.

That’s because you have sent signal with external effect send then received with bare input. You have to stick on external effects if you use them.
If you need to record output from an external efx, you have to do audio export, render in place or freeze. You can also send that to a group and record back to an audio track as well, and this is also how you record external insts.

When you send signal out from an external efx, the sent signal is moved earlier to compensate the delay of da/ad and asio buffer. And when you receive the return with normal input,the timing of course breaks, cubase has no Infomation whether the input is return from the efx or normal input in that case. So just use external effects as plug-in.

Yes exactly, that aligns with my findings. I believe it is the same issue with External Instruments is it not?

When you use external inst, you don’t use input channels. The external inst instances works like vsti that you don’t use audio tracks to hear the signal.
Signal from your external inst comes back to the external instrument channel, so you route that to an audio group then receive that signal on an audio track if you want to record it.
And as said above, unless you want to twiddle the parameters while recording, render in place is the best way to record it.

Yes, this is why I don’t use the External Instruments, because the audio returns for the External Instrument, take inputs away from other things. I only have 16 inputs, and 10 external synth lines… So I don’t want External Instruments to always be fighting for those 10 inputs, and vice versa when I go to record drums.

If I don’t use the External Instrument Audio returns, and return onto regular audio tracks, then it will not be correct time as we’ve concluded.

So until I have 24 or 32 channel AD/DA and can hardwire External Instruments, I’ve opted to use regular MIDI tracks and audio ins.

@kapzz
As said, you don’t need to tie an AD input to the external inst. So when you don’t need the external inst input, you can leave the returns disconnected, while you keep all other settings remain.

Also, I don’t know much about your setup, but in most cases (if not all), you don’t need to use input for your MIDI devices even if the A/D count is less.
I.e. if you have an analog mixer with 4/8/24 buss outs, and a MIDI interface that feeds MIDI signal to all your MIDI devices, you can set up one external instrument that receives the buss out of the mixer. It does not matter which device you use, but just send MIDI notes and clock to the combined external inst, then send whichever device to the buss of the mixer and timing will be aligned. Basically, you need to set up one external inst per physical MIDI output.
If you use any other way, you have to align timing yourself, if you stick on using external inst MIDI out and audio input pair, the timing is always aligned.
Anyways, please try it once with MIDI clock slave drum machine and big buffer plugins,etc. You will know how beneficial this is. Then depending on your set up, I can help you make the best configuration.

I’ll have to re-study this a bit and rethink it because I don’t want to waste your time.

I realize I don’t have to set inputs, I just grew tired of always having to change the inputs. As with your suggestion, at a certain point, I would need to set the inputs once ready to record the External Instrument. I always want my 1-16 inputs set and never changed.

I am manually adjusting latency, or “not caring” as it’s a small amount (5-10ms). But it would be nice to have everything aligned without worry or after thought.

Once I get more inputs, I will probably do exactly what you’re saying. But for now, I had to find a balance of efficiency and reducing annoyances. Always swapping the Inputs and External FX inputs is annoying enough as it is :frowning: need more inputs