Sim'n Tonic Forums

Hello,
I own a Digitakt II which we use in our band. I would like to use Midronome/Nome II mostly to have a click the drummer can hear to follow the sequence of Digitakt. For songs with no tempo changes it's fine because I can configure my Digitakt to follow Nome clock.

However, if I want to sequence a song in the Digitkat with tempo changes, I would like the Nome II to follow those changes and keep the audio click on time, but as far as I know, Nome II can work only as master clock, but not slave. Is that possible somehow? I know Nome II can be synchronized with Ableton via USB, but does it work with the Digitakt?

Thank you!

Hi!

Welcome! And well that's an interesting setup
So if I understand correctly you would set the Digitakt to follow the Nome for songs without tempo changes, but for songs with tempo changes you want the Digitakt to be the master and the Nome to follow?

There are 2 ways I can think of:

1. The Nome is still the master but the Digitakt would send MIDI commands to the Nome at specific bars through the song to change the Nome tempo according to the song. I'm not sure if the digitakt can do that.
2. You dedicate one of the outputs of the Digitakt to send a 24ppq audio signal (i.e. audio pulses sent every 96th notes) to the Nome, which the Nome can follow. It can be any sound as long as it's loud and very short. If the 24ppq signal starts precisely with the beginning of the song (i.e. first pulse is sent on first beat of first bar of the song), then the metronome will also be in time with the song.

The second method does not allow for time signature changes through the song, you could potentially send a more complicated audio signal to handle that, you would need my help to set that up probably.

Let me know how that works for you

Simon

Hello Simon, thanks for replying so fast.

Let me clarify. For songs with no tempo changes I was suggesting to have the Digitakt following the Nome because it's the simplest approach. If Nome could work as slave out of the box, I would let Digitakt be the master and synchronize Nome as the slave, but that's not possible I guess.

Anyway, for songs with changing tempo, I have the song defined in my Digitakt sequencer as a list of patterns, each of them having a different tempo. That's why I was asking if it's possible for the Nome to work as the slave. I've seen there is (or will be) a tempo preset feature viewtopic.php?t=211, so I guess I might be able to create the song presets in the Nome as well, right?

Option 2 won't be valid for me, since I don't have any free audio output in my Digitakt. Regarding option 1, yes, Digitakt can send MIDI commands over CC. However, I would need more info about how is Nome able to change the tempo based on MIDI messages. Is that available anywhere? One of the potential problems I see is that CC values are in the range of 0-127, so that could be a limitation.

Thanks!

I see

Well actually the Nome might not be the best product for you, it sounds like you "just" want a metronome that could follow your Digitakt?
The Nome is a Master Clock as its core, so yes it's designed to give a stable and jitter-free clock to your gear, if it allowed using your Digitakt or even worse other devices to be the master it kinda defies its whole purpose, as the clocks coming out of the Nome will be only "as good" as the source clock.
Using audio or U-SYNC as a master is a different deal because audio tends to be much more stable than MIDI (at least as stable as your audio sampling clock is).

gBarreras wrote: ↑12 Jan 2025, 23:58so I guess I might be able to create the song presets in the Nome as well, right?

Yes from FW 4.0. Then you'll be able to recall any preset using the controls on the device or using a MIDI Command as well.

gBarreras wrote: ↑12 Jan 2025, 23:58Regarding option 1, yes, Digitakt can send MIDI commands over CC. However, I would need more info about how is Nome able to change the tempo based on MIDI messages.

Yes, see the Nome Manual, section MIDI Commands

Let me add that for now you can only send MIDI Commands over USB - so since both the Digitakt and the Nome have USB device only, you'll need a USB host to transfer the information between the two. That could be a computer or a small box like the Kenton MIDI USB Host.

Or, as I said - unless you want to use the Nome for more than just a metronome - you'll be better off looking for a "MIDI to Metronome" device

Thanks for your response. Yes, I know Nome is not the perfect fit for my case, but I haven't been able to find many other options without carrying a laptop.