Any Clock Out tips?

Fuse AudioFuse
#1

I’m just wondering whether anyone has had much luck using the Clock Out on the AudioFuse 16Rig. I’ve been trying it out today with Ableton Live 11 Suite and my Eurorack system, and while I got it basically functioning, it still feels a bit half baked and under documented.

First, here’s the setup I used to get it working:

audiofuse-16rig-clock-out-ableton-midi
audiofuse-16rig-clock-out-ableton-midi612×718 164 KB

In the Link/Tempo/MIDI tab of the Live Preferences, find the AF16Rig Clock Out port and check “Sync”. This will make it send MIDI clock to the 16Rig when the transport is running.

The bad news is that I can’t find a way to make it send any clock division other than 24 ppq. I’ve sent a message to Arturia Support in case I’ve missed something, but if not this seems pretty unfortunate. I can divide the clock with my Make Noise Tempi module, but if I don’t start recording pretty precisely in time with the divisions, it will grab the wrong pulse as the downbeat and my recordings will be off by some fraction of a beat.

Has anyone found a good use for this? I can’t even find any mention of the port in the specifications on the website and it’s barely covered in the manual. I’m not even sure whether it’s a TS or TRS jack (with the ring carrying a start/stop gate like in the KeySteps).

For now, my plan is to dedicate one of the 1/4" outputs to clock with the Ableton CV Tools pack and a 1/4" to 1/8" TS cable, but it seems like a shame to have to do this!

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#2

I came here to find a solution to exactly this.
I searched the manual but every time “clock” is mentioned, it refers to word clock. I assumed this to be customizable within the the control center like it is in the midi control center. (for the Keystep, you can chose between 1step gate, 1step clock, korg format and 24/48ppq)
It makes no sense to me, that this isn’t implemented in such an otherwise very well thought through device. Hopefully an update will bring it.

Or is it somewhere and I can’t just see it?

#3

It is odd that there is almost nothing in the manual about the Clock Out. But I think the Clock Out only acts as a pass-thru, in this case outputting whatever sync signal Ableton is generating (which must be at 24ppq). If the 16rig were able to generate an internal clock signal that it sent out that port, then it would require its own setting.

#4

Well I’m using Cubase and I have the same issue. It should be changeable in the control center.

#5

Same idea though. Your clock signal is being generated by Cubase, so any setting to change it would need to be in Cubase, not the 16rig.

#6

In Cubase it appears under Midi Clock destinations and I can only tick or untick it. So no luck there, too. But sending a CV gate signal via one of the outputs does the trick.

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#7

Both Cubase and Ableton probably just send their basic sync signal at the MIDI default 24ppq.

#8

Yes, the MIDI spec requires 24 ppq for MIDI clock signals as far as I know, so I don’t think this is configurable in the DAW (at least, not in Ableton). However, analog clock signals don’t have a standard and vary from one device to another, so it’s convenient to be able to configure it at the source. Unfortunately, a member of Arturia’s support team confirmed that it isn’t possible to change in the 16Rig at the moment. I hope they’ll implement it in a firmware update.

I think that part of the problem I’m seeing with the Tempi is that it also needs a start/stop gate in order to correctly synchronise the phase of its clock. I just tried plugging a TRS cable into the 16Rig Clock Out and a KORG NTS-2 oscilloscope to see if it carries a gate on the ring, but I don’t see anything. I’ll confirm that with Arturia as well, but if it’s true that this is only a TS jack, then it really limits the usefulness even if they do make the clock division configurable in the future.

I tried using the Ableton CV Clock Out device with the 16Rig’s front panel output 3, and that worked well. It’s just a shame to have to lose an output to that (or two, to handle the start/stop gate as well) instead of using the dedicated Clock Out port on the device.

#9

Guillaume from Arturia:
“I can confirm that the AudioFuse 16Rig only outputs 24ppq clock for now. I will submit a request hoping that such will be considered in a next update to allow different clock resolutions to be used.”

So lets hope for a change in the next update :slight_smile:

@tmoore
Thanks for the insight. Adding start/stop via another output is actually a great idea. (I’m not using much of them, so I’m lucky to have some left.)

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#10

Guillaume at Arturia also confirmed to me that the Clock Out is a TRS jack and does send a start/stop gate on the ring. I was wrong about that part. I’m not sure what I did wrong when I tried yesterday, but I hooked up my scope again after seeing that confirmation, and it was indeed sending a gate on the ring. So, that’s good news!

Hopefully the 16Rig firmware development team will implement the ability to choose a clock division in the future, but I can use the clock divider in the Tempi, the CV Clock Out device in Ableton, or some other solution for the time being.

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#11

The testing i did, I used a TRS cable, though just because that’s what I had close by. Nice to know it was the right choice! I hope they add that info to future revisions of the User Guide.

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#12

I was wondering if the audiofuse rig 16 can be used to achieve the same result as devices like the ERM multiclock or Midironome which use free plugin in your DAW to send audio pulses to your audiofuse which then syncs all of your gear to your DAW using sample accurate clocking . You can try it out in the link beow to see if it works. I don’t know if it would work - can ableton send the output of the plugin that sends pulses over usb and then use that to sync audiofuses midi ports or clock out? Maybe the audiofuse would need an audio clock in for that. I’m not sure

#13

Unfortunately, no you can’t. At least, not with the current firmware. I’m not sure if it’s something they could add in a future update, but I suspect not.

#14

it is actually a bit weirder since I would expect the Connector to send out Midi Clock (Since it shows up as a midi device) however it does not seem to do that properly ether
it would have been useful if it did because than you could just use a 3.5 mm to Midi Adapter and use it to sync up Midi devices that have there own sequencer or require the midi clock for timed Effects

#15

Well, sadly different clock resolutions didn’t come with 1.2.2. :roll_eyes:

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#16

Yeah, it’s a bit underwhelming, isn’t it? Still, glad to see any signs of life from what was billed as their flagship interface.

#17

I’m guessing this was a release for the update process to match the new devices, along with “what else do have ready to go that can be easily verified”.