Tempo To Use behavior when receiving MIDI clock?

[drievuldig]

I’m using the Axe-Fx III together with Ableton. For some songs I want Ableton to control the tempo (it follows the drummer) and for some others I need the III to ignore Ableton and use its own tempo. I thought this should be simple by using the Tempo To Use parameter: use Global Tempo if I need to follow Ableton and use Preset Tempo otherwise. Issue I’m having is that the III always seems to be following the MIDI-clock coming from Ableton, regardless of how I set Tempo To Use.

I wasn’t expecting this because the manual says that “Global Tempo syncs to MIDI beat clock” and it also states that Global Tempo is ignored when on “Preset.”

Anyone any ideas? Is Tempo To Use overruled when the III is receiving MIDI clock or could it be I’m doing something wrong? Note that I’m making sure the Tempo To Use parameter is set for all four channels. Thanks!

 

[simeon]

after setting tempo to use = preset, are you saving the preset?

which firmware? i can double check this if you're still on 15.

 

[unix-guy]

Tempo always follows incoming midi beat clock.

Tempo To Use is about what tempo the preset starts with when it loads: it either starts with the Global value or the one stored with the preset.

 

[simeon]

well i've learned something new today. just tested and even if tempo to use is set to preset, receipt of midi clock will change it to the clock tempo. the only way round it is to plug in the actual ms values for delays and work out the hz values for lfos etc. easily done with online calculators.

 

[drievuldig]

Tempo always follows incoming midi beat clock.

Tempo To Use is about what tempo the preset starts with when it loads: it either starts with the Global value or the one stored with the preset.

Thanks, that explains it! I'll have to go for a workaround then, various ways to do it but adds a bit more complexity.

 

[drievuldig]

well i've learned something new today. just tested and even if tempo to use is set to preset, receipt of midi clock will change it to the clock tempo. the only way round it is to plug in the actual ms values for delays and work out the hz values for lfos etc. easily done with online calculators.

Thanks for the suggestion Simeon. It means I'll have to replace some global effects blocks with per-preset ones, but that may still be the best way to do it.

 

[mr_fender]

Sounds like a wish list item. Seems like if Tempo to Use is set to Preset, it should ignore the incoming MIDI clock just like it ignores the current global tempo.

 

[GlennO]

Thanks for the suggestion Simeon. It means I'll have to replace some global effects blocks with per-preset ones, but that may still be the best way to do it.

Would it work to turn off the sending of the midi clock from Live for certain songs?

 

[drievuldig]

Would it work to turn off the sending of the midi clock from Live for certain songs?

I thought about that too, but I wasn't able to figure out how the III could tell Ableton to stop MIDI clock out (it's enabled through Preferences which doesn't take MIDI control). Maybe there is some way to do it, but then the next hurdle is how do you guarantee that by the time the clock stops the Axe Fx hasn't already re-synchronized to Ableton.
An alternative would be that I have the Axe Fx tell Ableton to stop following the drummer, set Ableton's tempo to what I need and then let itself synchronize to the tempo it just told Ableton to adopt. That ought to work but it feels a bit clunky and I suspect simeon's suggestion will be more reliable.

 

[drievuldig]

Sounds like a wish list item. Seems like if Tempo to Use is set to Preset, it should ignore the incoming MIDI clock just like it ignores the current global tempo.

Wishlist item posted.

 

[zerocrossing]

You can use Live’s preferences to set that output to not send sync.

 

[drievuldig]

You can use Live’s preferences to set that output to not send sync.

Indeed, but then it's off all the time. To my knowledge you can't selectively enable or disable it via MIDI and even if you could you might induce some race conditions leading to unreliable behavior (see earlier post).