Cubasis sending bad MIDI clock signal during looped playback?

rs2000

Hi all Cubasis users here,
during recent troubleshooting sessions with different iOS DAWs using MIDI clock master and/or slave synchronisation, I've noticed that the current versions of Cubasis (v2.6 and v2.6 LE) won't sync properly to our beloved gear and apps anymore. A quick analysis was done with a simple 1/4 bar loop playing one note repeatedly, then the clock signal was analyzed.
It was quickly aparent that the current Cubasis version sends one redundant clock pulse after each loop iteration so the receiver will drift apart by one clock pulse each time. At 60.0bpm this amounts to 41.66ms which is already audible after the first loop repetition.
I have an older Cubasis version (v1.9.8) here for comparison that works properly without any changes (except MIDI clock send activated of course).

As I'm using other DAWs when I need MIDI clock synchronisation, I'd like to ask the Cubasis users here if I might have missed something that may lead to this behaviour or if anybody else has experienced the issues with the current v2.6.

Thank you!

AndyPlankton

When looping the clock signal is messed up yes, this is a very long standing issue and Steinberg are aware of it.
I think there is either a pulse (or two) missing, or Cubasis counts them wrongly, from the first bar of each repeat, the second beat of the 'looped' section happens too early.

rs2000

@AndyPlankton said:
When looping the clock signal is messed up yes, this is a very long standing issue and Steinberg are aware of it.
I think there is either a pulse (or two) missing, or Cubasis counts them wrongly, from the first bar of each repeat, the second beat of the 'looped' section happens too early.

I've read the other post from 2015 in which a similar issue had been discussed, the reason for opening a new topic is that It seems like Steinberg or @LFS are apparently not aware about Cubasis sending one clock pulse "too much" during looped playback.

BroCoast

I wonder if they'll ever fix it?

mrcanister

it's pretty much unusable for syncing a lot of stuff. the jitter when it loops back to the first bar is really bad. you can see the jump when syncing some app like animoog, which has the bpm displayed. good that you've manage to figure out whats going on beyond "cubasis's clock is broken." that's the conclusion i came to a while back when trying to sync my electribe with a project. it's a real let down. maybe it's not considered so important to steinberg. who knows

rs2000

@mrcanister said:
it's pretty much unusable for syncing a lot of stuff. the jitter when it loops back to the first bar is really bad. you can see the jump when syncing some app like animoog, which has the bpm displayed. good that you've manage to figure out whats going on beyond "cubasis's clock is broken." that's the conclusion i came to a while back when trying to sync my electribe with a project. it's a real let down. maybe it's not considered so important to steinberg. who knows

Steinberg has a reputation to lose when it comes to handling MIDI, they've always been going strong in this regard. And @LFS does seem to care about fixing bugs.

gdog

I’d also like to see this fixed

A related loop playback/recording issue, is if you record AU automation in loop mode, then all the takes will invisibly stack. I say invisibly, because afaict, you can only edit the last take, the others are there somewhere, just not editable..

Still, Cubasis has come a long way since it’s release, full screen AUs and MPE recording are pretty epic! Thanks for reading, wishing you all the best

rs2000

@gdog said:
I’d also like to see this fixed

A related loop playback/recording issue, is if you record AU automation in loop mode, then all the takes will invisibly stack. I say invisibly, because afaict, you can only edit the last take, the others are there somewhere, just not editable..

Still, Cubasis has come a long way since it’s release, full screen AUs and MPE recording are pretty epic! Thanks for reading, wishing you all the best

Ah, and while we're at it, the MiniSampler loop points and crossfading are completely broken too.
The reason why practically nobody can use them is that loop start / end / crossfade length, when editing, will only allow for editing in very coarse steps, making it practically impossible to get a seamless loop.
This could be a coding/number rounding error or something like this.
I mean, MiniSampler is very basic but what's on board should at least work, right?

gdog

@rs2000 said:
I mean, MiniSampler is very basic but what's on board should at least work, right?

Ideally..😉