MIDI out BPM are dynamic and messing pedalboard delay

Cubase
1

Hi All,
I’m trying to use Cubase as a MIDI BPM sender to control the delay effect of my pedal board, Fender’s Tone Master Pro, which accepts MIDI In and Out over standard MIDI cable.
The aim is to get dynamic delay depending on the song tempo.
Problem is that after setting Cubase and playing the track it starts sending the tempo, but it is not stable. I see BPM changing a lot, if the song is 150 bpm I’ve seen it going even to 119.
As you can imagine, this messes up the effect out.
I’ve tried also a different pedal board, but results is the same: bpm are somehow “dynamic”.

Can someone help me to understand what am I doing wrong?

Many thanks!

Raoul

2

This is mainly on Fender´s side. Please have a look at the manual and see how to set it to an external sync - in this case Cubase.

3

It was my first thought as well, but then (as I wrote) I tested the behavior also on another pedalboard (Headrush Core) and it was the same.

4

Hi again to all,
I’ve made additional tests and realized that problem must be on Cubase, for several reasons:

  • Problem happens with different audio interfaces, I’ve used TASCAM 20x20 and a Focusrite Scarlett 2i4 and the result is identical: the track starts, the TMP BPMs start to drift.
  • Problem happens with different external destinations, I’ve used both Tone Master Pro and Headrush Core, and the result is the same.
  • There seems to be no correlation between using internal sync or other settings, and neither the “use system timestamp” which in some cases (Midi clock drifts and timing issues - #2 by Eran) seemed to fix the issue.

Does someone have any suggestions on where else to look?

Many thanks,

Raoul

5

Dear Raoul
Unfortunately after struggling with every piece of information , the only solution to overcome that problem of unstable midi clock timings due to jitter over midi , is to get an external hardware like : sync gen from inner clocks / erm multiclock / Nome II / Midronome
Steinberg are actually sort of ignoring the important need to let Cubase act as slave to an external midi clock source so even with an external clock take in mind that you will need to use your audio card out (1/2 depends on hardware) in order to send audio pulse to the external device that will send stable sync clock to your other gear

6

Hey @Eran, thanks for the message.
It is still to be found where actually the problem generates.

I’m speaking also with Fender (see Discord) and their technical team verified the problem, and said they will look for a solution.

What is curious is that I got the same behavior with another hardware (Headrush Core), so you might think that it is a Cubase problem, but you will find out by looking into the Discord thread the problem happens also with other DAW.

So at the moment the problem could be on both sides of the wire… I think the suggestion you propose (external MIDI clock) could be a way to solve the problem, but to me the problem is not so critical to invest money on new hardware.

7

Hi Raoul
The problem exist on any daw that allowing you to send midi clock. The cause is the midi jitter U can read about it. Abelton and Bitwig can be synced as slave Cubase and Logic don’t let you sync them as slave to an external clock hardware like Beatstep/Keystep and others over usb. If it was an option i would make the Beatstep pro as master clock without the newd for dedicated hardware only for clock. the only way you can solve the timing issue is using the method i suggested earlier. If u found any other method will be nice to know about it