Clocks - what am I not understanding?

VCV Rack
1

Hi,

I’ve long had a confusion about VCV rack clocks and never resolved it. Please forgive my stupidity.

If I take the CLK output from the VCV Midi-CV module, and connect it to the CLK input of the VCV SEQ3 module, it doesn’t work.

If I take the CLK output from the VCV Midi-CV module, and connect it to Impromptu Clocked BPM input, and then take the CLK1 output from Impromptu Clocked to the CLK input of the VCV SEQ3 module it works perfectly.

Could someone please explain why one works and the other doesn’t? I must be missing something fundamental.

Thank you in advance!

2

because the VCV Midi-CV module is not a clock generator.

if you connect a keyboard with a built-in arpeggiator and start it, the SEQ3 will respond to it. I guess you can’t generate a “clock” signal if you are using the PC keyboard.

on the Impromptu Clocked side, it will accept any voltage in the BPM socket and will respond to it. if you shut down the “run” button it will indeed stop to run

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3

Thank you Alessandro, that was the missing piece.

If I do the same thing in the VCV plugin inside my DAW and press play on the DAW’s transport, the MIDI-CV clock works!

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4

To further demystify the CLK channel on MIDI-CV: It only sends a clock signal when you have a device (or DAW) connected to it that sends MIDI clock events.

Eg. if you load VCV as a plugin, the CLK channel will send clock data while the DAW is playing.

In the scenario you described, it doesn’t sound like any data was coming through the CLK channel at all.

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