Syncing Rack 2 in a Daw (Reason 11 for example)

[marc_boule (Marc Boulé)]

@Squinky

can you “tell” Clocked what the expected tempo is to it can start immediately, and stay in sync if, in fact, the MIDI clock tempo is close to the one you tell Clocked

Yes, and this is what I meant by just temporarily running clocked at the BPM we want it to start with, so that it can be primed with that BPM. Then when you start it again, it will implicitly use this BPM until it can establish the new BPM (and if the new one is the same as the old BPM, then it should potentially sync faster)

@Squinky

have you ever used the “nord” protocol for reset, as an alternative to the “send it at the same time as the clock but ignore clocks for a millisecond afterwards” protocol?

No, since I didn’t get the impression that this protocol was popular in Rack. In know Antonio offered the Nord reset option also, but with the lack of a general concensus on this approach, I went with the 1ms-ignore approah and that eventually made it into the second paragraph of this section (after having discussed it with Andrew in that infamous issue 938 in the Rack github issues):

Voltage Standards - VCV Rack Manual

And another related link w.r.t. the 1ms thing:

Impromptu Clocked: coming changes and call for discussion

Declared a standard at https://github.com/VCVRack/Rack/issues/938#issuecomment-455836149. I decided that 1ms is the obvious choice, since nobody needs clocks faster than 1000 Hz (and if they do, they should expect undefined results for other reasons too), and 44.1kHz/1000Hz = 44 samples is more than enough to support reasonably long chains of cables (which each induce 1 sample delay).

@Squinky

It would be great it you (or someone) would write up a guide to syncing in VST

Agreed, but seeing how often the P24 thing comes up all the while the Clocked manual available literally two clicks away (in the right-click menu), with a dedicated section on external sync, I’m not too motivated to write about this since I doubt it would be read much. I think Omri and Latif’s existing youtube videos on the topic are probably the best for this.

[auxmux]

Another option would be a host sync module that is always listening to Host BPM, similar to what’s mentioned above. There is a module like this in miRack and Clocked slaves to BPM without delay there and I haven’t encountered a similar sync issue. It’s not super intrusive issue but would be great to have perfect sync in the VST mode.

[falkTX]

I mentioned somewhere else that this would be the best option for syncing frame-perfectly to the host, since the host typically already has a timeline with all the time / sync related details and gives it to plugins, they can just make use of it.

on the plugin version/variant I made this was one of the very first things to do. It just makes sense (to me at least) to grab the info from the host.

As extra, this also allows smooth ramps for beat phase and bar phase, in case you want a signal to be modulated by how far the timeline is on the current beat or bar. In theory it might even be possible for some plugin formats and DAWs to have a full-song ramp phase too, but I did not try this yet.

The timer shows song time in 1st row, bar-beat-tick in 2nd row, so it is easier to understand what is going on in the module

[auxmux]

Yes, exactly. I was going to mention Cardinal as well. Would you consider porting this to VCV?

[falkTX]

core modules cannot be ported. besides this info is only available when Rack runs in plugin form on a host, which means Rack Pro, and that one is not opensource and possible for us to change.

[auxmux]

Got it, that makes sense. Hopefully, something that will get considered for VCV.