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MIDI clock feedback loop - default settings suggestion

Irritable_EwokIrritable_Ewok
in Loopy Pro

TL;DR even with appropriate settings on the hardware interface, the default settings in loopy pro can cause a clock to send>through>receive>send etc which creates a feedback loop and could damage equipment.

Both clock source AND clock destination were turned on after I connected Loopy to my interface (I don’t recall changing these settings myself). This caused the tempo to increase exponentially and create audible feedback.

Has this happened for anyone else?
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I’m relatively new to midi and have a decent idea of how it works but this had me stumped for a while.
Loopy was increasing tempo when I hit play or started a new loop. I’d set it to 115 and it’d jump to ~117 and loops would be out of time. Usually it was only 1-2 bpm faster before it settled but occasionally this would cause a feedback loop and shoot tempo up to 7000+(!) bpm. At first I thought this might be a weird interaction where loopy was interpreting the bpm of my drum sequence and getting confused.

I have loopy connected to a line 6 helix via USB which is passing midi via DIN through to a Roland tr-8 drum machine. The drum machine is sending audio back through the helix to loopy.

I made sure to set up the helix to receive midi clock from loopy. I turned off the helix’s clock send. There was also an option to choose between ‘midi’ or ‘usb’ for midi output so I set this to ‘midi’ presuming it wouldn’t send anything back to loopy via usb. After much faffing about (and freaking out that I may have damaged inputs/outputs) I found the clock send/receive settings in loopy and realised that the helix was passing loopy’s own clock back to loopy via usb. I turned off loopy’s clock receive and all is well. Luckily nothing died.

Couple of suggestions which may prevent this from happening to others.

  1. Default to only send OR receive clock, not both.
  2. A warning pop up to let people know that turning them both on at the same time isn’t usually a good idea.
  3. A maximum tempo/clock limit that could prevent the clock getting into oscillator frequencies. I noticed there’s a tempo limit functionality (set to 150bpm) but this didn’t work in my scenario.

P.S I’m so impressed with the power of loopy pro as a new user having barely scratched the surface. Hats off to the dev/s, incredible work. Looking forward to many seamless gigs in the near future.

Comments

  • rs2000rs2000

    Good point. One way to solve that could be a kind of new MIDI clock rate detection that will pop up a message asking you what to do, while temporarily muting incoming MIDI clock.
    It's not that one couldn't avoid it by proper planning ahead, but getting a notification would certainly help in debugging a setup that seems to act weird for no reason.

  • catherdercatherder

    I never heard about MIDI clock loops damaging equipment. These are data packets sent through the cable and apart from a “packet storm” that renders the MIDI setup temporarily unusable there should be no imminent danger.
    Could it be that you have anything connected to your interfaces MIDI input? Many MIDI devices are by default configured for MIDI thru to allow daisy chaining of multiple devices.

  • espiegel123espiegel123

    @Irritable_Ewok : loopy pro’s default sync setting is clock send and receive both off.

    It would be a bug if either clock out or clock in was on but you didn’t turn them on. We have heard of a few people this has happened to but never been able to reproduce it.

    Are you able to reproduce the situation where they are off in Loopy Pro’s settings and turn themselves on?

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