I currently use a Cirklon synced to Abelton 12 via MIDI DIN on my m1 macbook pro, and it's rather tight. Of course I have a small amount of latency, but it's less than 3ms.
I used to use a USAMO and ERM clock. The negatives with those were that the external clock did not always start, the USAMO plugin would start to glitch out when there were too many tracks loaded, the ERM chugged on start and the first bar was always bad.
It was never an instant start and go, and so I started going without a sync clock since the Cirklon is so tight. Still, if I can get it even tighter and get reliable punch ins, that would be pretty awesome.
Just weighing the pros and cons of trying yet another sync clock out. The Cirklon now can run a midi clock internally when Ableton's clock stops, which is cool (ableton does not send a continuous clock). But I guess U-Sync will still send a clock anyway? Does it care if I change my buffer from 64 to say, 512 later in a project? Does it care if I hop around in a session and start from random bars while im listening to certain parts? Can I power it from my Elektron overhub and not incur any timing problems? (thunderbolt ports on my macbook are limited) so I use hubs.
Just seeing if anyone has any challenges or issues that I should know about. The USAMO really is a PITA to set up, and it just never worked reliably enough so I had to ask. Midronome looks pretty slick though.
Any downsides to be aware of?
Re: Any downsides to be aware of?
Hi mr "cirklonguy"
Well that's interesting feedback to hear!
In my very biased opinion, U-SYNC is pretty flawless, it just works, and I have not heard from anyone who uses it anything related to a "chugged" start or something like that.
But for sure it has its own limitations, for example if your CPU gets very busy the tightness of the clock might start to suffer. The protocol is very solid though, and very good at catching up (which the other "audio-based" systems are not), so even if it does glitch it wil catch up without you noticing. And yes if you stop the Nome will keep sending the clock, in fact one of my favorite feature is the fact that if the DAW or your computer crashes, the Nome takes over as a masterclock without losing the beat (you won't even notice your computer crashed unless you look at it).
Regarding the other points you bring:
Well that's interesting feedback to hear!
In my very biased opinion, U-SYNC is pretty flawless, it just works, and I have not heard from anyone who uses it anything related to a "chugged" start or something like that.
But for sure it has its own limitations, for example if your CPU gets very busy the tightness of the clock might start to suffer. The protocol is very solid though, and very good at catching up (which the other "audio-based" systems are not), so even if it does glitch it wil catch up without you noticing. And yes if you stop the Nome will keep sending the clock, in fact one of my favorite feature is the fact that if the DAW or your computer crashes, the Nome takes over as a masterclock without losing the beat (you won't even notice your computer crashed unless you look at it).
Regarding the other points you bring:
- Moving around the playhead in the DAW and starting at random places is no problem at all
- Changing buffer size and sample rate does affect the latency, but we did everything we could to compensate it. You may see a couple of ms difference when you change it. It will still be stable within one buffer size, but maybe your sync was precisely as 0ms on the grid at buffer size X, but when you change to buffer size Y, it will be at +2ms. Then you can adjust using the latency slider.
- The connection to the computer is very important as the whole system relies on USB. So for sure if you have 3 USB hubs between the Nome and your computer you will have issues, but I believe one Thunderbolt hub should work very well. With modern Macs and their very few USB ports that is what most people are doing. Just avoid chaining the hubs