Looping a Media Player synched to Slave / Musical

Cantabile
#1

Not sure if this is a bug or a known restriction:

I have a Media Player playing a drum loop MIDI file that I would like to loop. Its Sync Mode is set to Slave (Musical) based on the incoming MIDI Clock from a NDLR MIDI controller. The incoming MIDI Clock is controlling C4’s tempo, and the Media Player does pick up and sync to that tempo … however …

The Media Player does not honor the Loop Mode Infinite setting. It stops at the end of the first play through the MIDI file.

Thoughts?

#2

Hi Clint,

The looping features for the media players are confined to having one of the media players set as the Master as far as my knowledge goes. The loop has to be set on the Master Media Player I think because the external clock as a Master clock source has no file to loop.

Cheers,

Dave

1 Like
#3

Got it … thanks. Looks like Media Player is not the right tool.

I’m basically trying to add a software drum machine to my rig. Something along the lines of this 2021 discussion: Recommendations for Drum Accompaniment

Native Instrument Battery 4 seems ideal for my purposes … I just (??just??) need a sequencer. Basic requirements would be:

  • looping,

  • the ability to track an external MIDI time sync (with C4’s transport slaved to that external sync),

  • respond to start, stop, and pause messages,

  • be able to take MIDI drum patterns from files and live, and

  • controllable by external MIDI.

  • Bonus would be some modulation capability (although the NDLR can send MOD sources to hardware devices, so it could well be able to control Battery directly).

After a several hours of searching, the prime candidate seems to be Topiary Beatz, developed by @Tom_Tollenaere. I’ve set this up in my rig and it performs very well so far. I have not yet tried controlling it via external MIDI.

However, I did hit one gotcha that appears to be an issue. I’ve logged it just now on the GitHub project for Tom … Here’s a summary:

Tracking of a Changing slaved MIDI tempo in Cantabile causes Major Tempo Glitches

Setup is: a NDLR MIDI controller sending master MIDI clock sync to Cantabile,
which is slaved to the MIDI clock. Beatz runs under Cantabile, sending MIDI to
Native Instruments Battery 4.

Everything works ***great*** until I adjust the tempo on the NDLR. Even changing
by one BPM causes Beatz to temporarily go haywire in timing. The tempo in
Cantabile appears to track the change on the NDLR nicely (the tempo change is 
slightly delayed in Cantabile ...). However, when lowering the tempo on the NDLR,
Beatz seems to ***dramatically*** lower the tempo for a while before recovering.
Solved: Using Bindings to send mouse clicks to Plugins
#4

Hi Dave,
I’d like to do the same and have the same issue. would be a nice new feature @brad.
Steinberg Groove Agent actually does the job. i’m still not very familiar with the plugin, but I believe you can set quite a few sings. At least you can upload your own midi pattern.
Maybe it helps,
Joop

1 Like