Sending Midi Clock to Soft Drummer (Lumbeat App)

[rabbitland]

Hi all,

I do send Midi Clock from Setlistmaker to Lumbeats Soft Drummer App. In principle it works fine - everytime I change songs the tempo of the Soft Drummer App adapts to the new tempo. So I can use it as a corresponding Drum Machine.

Unfortunately part of the Setlistmakers sended MIDI Clock Data (Midi Real Time) is a short sequence of MIDI Start/Stop. This Sequence leads to a short playing of the app - each time when I switch to a new song/tempo/metronome start

Are there any ideas how to solve this?

Regards, Wolfgang

[arlo]

Do you want the drum machine to play continuously and never stop between songs? Normally you would stop the tempo in Set List Maker before changing songs (which will send the MIDI Stop message to the drum machine), then start the tempo for the new song (which will send the MIDI Start message to the drum machine). If you change songs in Set List Maker while the previous tempo is still playing, Set List Maker will stop the previous tempo (MIDI Stop) and then immediately start the new tempo (MIDI Start).

[rabbitland]

Hi Arlo,

in my setup the drum machine start/stop functionality is controlled by a midi controller and I need to start stop the machine anytime. The idea is that setlistmaker changes the tempo of the drum app each time I change the song automatically. This works so far good with midi clock, but when i switch between the songs (the drum machine at this state is stopped by the midi controller) there is a short playing - i guess it is caused by setlistmakers start/stop command. One solution could be to send simply a tempo value to the soft drummer by a MIDI Preset each time I change the song but unfortunately soft drummer has no MIDI data in for tempo - only Ableton Live sync and MIDI Clock functionality.

BTW Ableton live sync works works fine for my approach, but in that mode you cannot start the drum machine instant - because of the sync inbetween the metronome frame (syncs only on a 1).

[arlo]

So you are stopping the drum machine app with a separate MIDI controller but then the tempo in Set List Maker is still playing, is that right? Does the problem happen if you start and stop the tempo only with Set List Maker so Set List Maker's playback state and the drum machine's playback state are always the same?

[rabbitland]

'So you are stopping the drum machine app with a separate MIDI controller but then the tempo in Set List Maker is still playing, is that right?' - yes exactly.
'Does the problem happen if you start and stop the tempo only with Set List Maker so Set List Maker's playback state and the drum machine's playback state are always the same?' - yes I configured Setlistmaker to start the metronome each time when the song is changing. The drum machines playback state is then usually in stop mode. But with the change of the song the drum app plays very shortly.

workflow:
select song from the setlistmaker showlist
tempo is automatically transfered by midi clock to the drum app (metronome starts)
start drum app by external midi controller
stop drum app by external midi controller
select next song from setlistmaker (new bpm starts)

[arlo]

MIDI Beat Clock typically doesn't work unless the system is playing; you can't send a tempo value while a device is stopped, then start the playback. So in step 2 of your workflow, I would expect the drum app to start playing and step 3 wouldn't be needed.

If you stop the tempo in Set List Maker, does the drum app stop? Normally it would, and then I would suggest starting and stopping it from Set List Maker rather than from the external MIDI controller.

Or if you still want to use the external MIDI controller, you can use that to start/stop Set List Maker's tempo function, which would in turn start/stop the drum machine. The idea there is to have a single chain of events (MIDI controller -> Set List Maker -> drum app) rather than two controllers (Set List Maker and the drum app) both sending message to the drum app.

If neither of those options appeal to you, then at least stopping the tempo in Set List Maker before selecting a new song should solve the problem.