Hey guys.. I need some help starting a live click setup for my band.. here's my scenario:
Drummer: DB90 (going into an in-ear monitor box/Rolls [not important])
Guitar Pedalboard - full of effects pedals tempo-driven by a single pedal.. also branches to 2 other pedal boards doing the same
-How can i use setlist maker to set the tempos on the DB90 AND pedal boards, as well as starting the click (at the same time?)
-What hardware is needed from the Ipad (30pin)?
Thanks in advance!
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-How can i use setlist maker to set the tempos on the DB90 AND pedal boards, as well as starting the click (at the same time?)
Does all this equipment follow standard MIDI Beat Clock messages? If so, you can follow the instructions on this page under "To send timing (beat clock) messages":
http://www.arlomedia.com/apps/setlistmaker/tutorials/sending_MIDI.html
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-What hardware is needed from the Ipad (30pin)?
Some suggestions are here under "MIDI interfaces":
http://www.arlomedia.com/apps/setlistmaker/support/hardware.html
Thanks Arlo. As Im not super MIDI device savy, Im pretty sure though that they all follow beat clock messages.
My next question is can the app send a Start MIDI out to these devices? that way all devices have the same bpm and also START the click at the same time?
Yes, when you start or stop a tempo in Set List Maker with the beat clock function turned on, Set List Maker sends tempo start and stop messages as well as the actual timing messages.
Arlo. We have this setup working now. An iPad is docked into an Alesis iO dock and successfully sending midi clock and start clock to my DB90, but the tempo on the DB90 is jumping around/not staying still. We then hooked it up to a Disaster Area Midi clock pedal which is linked to even tide delays, and it is doing the same thing. I've been searching the forums for threads on this but haven't had any luck. It's a 30-pin iPad with iOS 9.3.5
Any thoughts?
How much does the tempo vary by? And what kind of iPad do you have?
it's varying by anywhere from 5-8bpm above and below the correct meter. The iPad is a 30-pin iPad 2.
I wonder if iOS 9 on the iPad 2 is just not leaving enough processing power available.
Are you doing anything else while playing the tempo, like playing recordings or auto-scrolling?
Are you playing audio tempo clicks and do those sound accurate?
Hi,
Let me share some things I noticed today while playing around with the metronome function in Bandhelper (beta version).
I did some testing, and this one I will share.
Perhaps it helps vinding a solution.
1.
I played the metronome of the app Tempo and Bandhelper at the same time.
The accuracy of the metronome in Bandhelper in my opinion is perfect.
Sometimes I thought I noticed a heardly noticeble differency, but perhaps it was because I listened to long to both apps clicking together.
But perhaps there was a indifference thats no problem for the human ear and feel.
But in a digital world this could be a problem.
For me music is emotion, so such a hardly noticeable indifference when playing the metronoom of BH is not important.
But I doubt the metronome of BH is not accurate !!!!! It sounds fine to me.
2.
Another observation is when I used a Downbeat-setting in Bandhelper.
Sometimes I noticed an indifference in click at the downbeat.
Perhaps this causes the problem with use of de DB90?
3.
Otherwise I think it is not fair to compare stand alone professional metronomes like the app Tempo and the hardware DB90 with the metronome in Bandhelper.
The metronome in BH is a feature within a totaal concept of the briljant app.
I realize I tested the metronome and not the Midi tempo connections.
I've hooked BH and a TD12 together a few days ago.
I don't have time the comming day to do this again to test this setup.
I will keep it in mind to do so.
Hope this is of any use for solving this toppic.
Greatings,
Bertwin (Awash drums)
Hi,
Perhaps it has something to do with tempo-subdivisionsetting?
If you use this I hear a sound like flame-strokes played on a drum.
I eliminate this sometimes by dubbling the tempo (example: 160 in stead of 80).
The subdivision can interfare digital speaking coherent communication between midi gear if they pick up two clicks (like playing a flame- stroke on drums).
Hope this helps to solve this issue.
Bertwin (Awash drums)
The tempo downbeat or subdivision settings shouldn't affect the MIDI beat clock. The way that works is that on every beat, it queues 24 MIDI messages for the external device, with equally spaced timestamps. Then the iOS MIDI framework sends the messages, and the external device measures their interval and calculates a tempo from that. I would like to know if Set List Maker's own tempo clicks feel accurate on this device, and that would tell us whether Set List Maker, or the iOS MIDI framework, is what can't keep up.
Hi,
Arlo, Thanks for the clear explaination.
Will try Midi with Roland TD12 in a few day and report.
Hope Jlbourge will experiment and report his/her observation.
Greatings,
Bertwin
Hi,
I promised to do some tests.
I will do so after the update release of BH that will come availeble in the comming days.
Greatings, Bertwin
Arlo,
We changed it up a tad. We picked up an iRig MIDI 2. So this is where we are
iPhone 7 --> iRig MIDI 2 ----> M Audio MIDI Sport 2x2 ---- splitting off to a BOSS DB90 and a Disaster Area SMP (which then goes to an EvenTide Time Factor). The tempo on the DB90 still does the same thing.. the bpm number jumps around up and down but the clock seems to be 97% solid. However on the pedal board side, the eventide's tempo is going nuts up and down.. and when the guitar is played, you can hear a flutter in at effect played.
We then tried going directly to each the pedal board and directly to the db90 and got the same results. My iPhone 7 is on iOS 10.2, the most up to date firmware... and has nothing open.
Okay, I just checked the timestamps of the outgoing MIDI beat clock messages from an iPhone 6 and found that the sets of 24 pulses are accurately subdivided, but each set is shifted forward or back by 2-6%, about the variance you're seeing. I'll do some more testing with that and see if something changed with a recent version.
That would be awesome. Thanks Arlo.
My iPad Air 2 doesn't vary by more than 2.5%, and I would expect an iPhone 7 to be more accurate than that. Are you using the latest app version that was released last week?
I downloaded it over the weekend, so yes
Does this work better in the new app version released today?
Just tried it with the newest version of the app thru both my iPhone 7 and our iPad 2(.5) thru our Alesis dock. We got these same results on both devices. We didn't have the iRig on us at the time of this video but ill follow back once we test it with that instead of the dock. We tested this video with multiple midi cables and got the same result.
https://youtu.be/g_9ou-QhAvA
So we tried it with the iRig, taking the dock and the 30pin to lightning adapter out of the equation. The tempos are MUCH more solid.. alternating somewhat but I'd say 90% on point. When the signal makes it to the eventide which handles the delay effect, there's still a "warble" sound but it's almost hard as hell to notice and it's kinda rare in occurrence. This is happening cause the tempo is still varying a little here and there.
Do you think the midi clock can be any more solid than this last update you did? I ask because this is damn near awesome for us and we'd love to use this rather than going an ableton/laptop route.
When you say 90% accurate, are you talking about with the iPad 2 or with the iPhone 7? I would suggest that you don't even bother with the iPad 2 if maximum accuracy is your goal. That's a five year old device running a much heavier operating system than it was originally designed to run. But if you're getting the same performance with the iPhone 7, then my concerns about that are wrong.
i mean the ipad2 and iphone 7 are both producing the same results. Like, the tempo is almost dead solid across the DB90, eventide, and disaster area. It's just creating a little up and down on the eventide, causing a slight delay warble every once and a while.
overall im saying whatever adjustments you did to the MIDI clock on that last patch were awesome. Im just seeing if you were able to get it even closer.
Okay. When you say 90%, is that something you can measure, or just an estimate? When connecting an iPad Air 2 to a Mac via wi-fi, I'm seeing a maximum fluctuation of 3 ms, which is only a .6% variance at 120bpm. That might still be enough to create the "warble" you're hearing, I'm just trying to identify precisely what the problem is.
Sorry I should have said it's an estimate and really I should've said 95%. We will be in the rehearsal room testing it out much more thoroughly tonight. I'll let you know how it goes!
I've heard from a few people that my optimization was confusing some MIDI devices, which apparently don't interpret the beat clock messages according to MIDI standards. Anyway, I reverted this change for the next app version because it seems to be creating new problems without really solving the current problem. Hopefully I can come up with a different optimization in the future.
I'm experiencing the same issue with inter app midi clock. Apps receiving midi clock from BandHelper show the bpm jumping erratically and causing fluttering with with the sound when playing software synths on my iPad Pro.
Can you guys try turning on Help > Utilities > Use Old Audio Engine? I think that will be less accurate for audio tempo clicks, but might be more accurate for sending the MIDI clock.
In the latest iOS apps (BandHelper 4.1.12 and Set List Maker 6.1.10), you can turn on Help > Utilities > Use New MIDI Beat Clock to try some new code. It runs much more accurately for me. How does it work for you?