PG Music Home Forums General Discussion Off-Topic Looking for a drum machine with ONE specific feature

My JU-06a Roland sound module has a sequencer built in. It works fine as it is. However... (there's ALWAYS a however, isn't there?) the speed selection can't be dialed in accurately by BPM. However, there IS a MIDI clock in that is a 1/8" jack. The only drum machine I have doesn't have a MIDI clock out. My old Roland TR-707 did, and I used it often. But stuff breaks, gets sold off, traded out... and yada yada yada I no longer have a drum machine that will send MIDI clock over a 1/8" plug to go into that 1/8" jack! MIDI through the DIN plug isn't really an option because of how the JU-06a is built.

What say you all? Anybody know of something right off the top of your head? I am headed out to the infrawebz to search now but I wanted to give this place a shot.

Eddie,

From your post, I'm not sure what your looking for. Do you want a DIN to 1/8th adapter? Some that outputs midi clock? Other?

No sir. 1/8" on the clock device to 1/8" into the synth module. The MIDI ports on the module are occupado.

MAN do I miss that Roland 707 right about now. There it was, right next to the rimshot's 1/4" output, in all it's miniature glory, was a clock out over a 1/8" cable. I plugged that into my Roland Juno 60, set the arpeggiator to do what I wanted it to do, and the drum machine played the drum pattern as it sent midi clock to the Juno and it played that arpeggio in time with the drum machine. The JU-06a, which is (roughly) a modular version of the old Juno 60, allows me to set up the arpeggio but the only control I get is the note value. 1/8" notes, 1/8" triplets, etc.... but nowhere to control the speed. I am essentially trying to apply 30 year ago analog technology here in this digital world. I HATE the thought of spending $500 for a Roland 707 drum machine JUST for this! Though I suppose if I had the 707 I'd use it....

There are adapters all over the place. What do you intend to use to send the clock without the 707?
Can it be RB or PT?
..or other DAW?
Or do you require a hardware device?

I am hoping to find a hardware device. Whether that is a drum machine or not doesn't matter. I just need true BPM control of how the JU-06a plays sequences.

This Korg drum machine shows what I need



to connect to the Ext Clk In jack at the lower right of this.



And it's comparatively inexpensive.

Just got off the phone with Sweetwater and this drum machine WILL do what I want. I'll have it here Tuesday.

Sweetwater sound like a great company, wish we had one over here.

Looks like they give a guitar a thorough check before they send it out, don't know about drum machines.


https://www.sweetwater.com/store/detail/WCG25SCE--washburn-comfort-g25sce-natural

video at bottom of the above page

They give them a good setup before they ship. I usually don't like to buy guitars I can't touch but I have bought a couple from them and they were very good when I got them.

Same here on the guitar and bass I purchased in the past.

Eddie,

The old Juno ran on sync 24, not midi clock.
As the JU06a is supposed to sync to vintage equipment, it likely runs on the same.
Not sure what the Korg is outputting, but might be an idea to check?

I asked Sweetwater, and the port on the JU-06a itself says Ext Clk In. If it doesn't work I can just send it back.

Well apparently you have a USB MIDI available also.
If it doesn't work may want to try that. You can set Clock setting to always sync with USB.

Actually sounds like if the 1/8th" jack isn't connected it defaults to the USB port next for clock.
So you could probably configure RB to send a clock .. then you could sync your arpeggios to RB tempo clock.
just a thought, I think I'd go that route myself, unless you need it Live or something. Though having a little drum machine comes in handy sometimes.

I will know more Wednesday when it arrives. The issue is this. The MIDI in on the Roland box is spoken for. However, that is just a matter of me being so lazy that I like to wire stuff up and never have to touch it again. To use MIDI for clock I would have to change cables and unplug the keyboard controlling the module and plug a MIDI cable it from the drumx to the module. It's not fatal, but, ya know....

And as is my addictive personality, I want to gather stuff and may use this once or twice and forget about it. I have a couple of Alan Parsons-ish things I want to do which will have that persistent synth arpeggio playing throughout, so it has to stay in lock step with the drums or it will sound as bad as how it sounds when I play manually!

I came to terms LONG ago with being an impulse buyer and having no regard for money whatsoever. This drum box was $150 and I don't care. I mean this is a guy who once grabbed a commuter flight to NYC to have pizza for lunch at Ray's and then flew right back on the same commuter flight.

The San Diego story you don't even want to know about...

BUT back to topic, this will be an interesting experiment trying to make this stuff do what I want it to do. I have actually only had a MIDI cable plugged into my interface once, and that was for the vocoder experiment where I wanted to record the keyboard inputs that the vocoder would sing, play them back with a cable from interface MIDI out to vocoder MIDI in and then just sing the part into a mic (which worked fine), but other than that, what MIDI parts I do use are all in the box. Most of my MIDI experiences was real time on the rig I played on. I had an MX-8 MIDI patch bay that was a marvel of technology and I was able to control any of 6 sound sources from any of 3 controllers. Programming it was an exercise I can best describe as crossing the River Styx in an aluminum fishing boat, but eventually I got it done and it was great. I had 11 different setups stored (out of 50 available) and a Roland remote patch changed, so when I needed setup 3 I just had to put in 3 and hit enter and it changed all the boards and routings. Oh, and the right discs in the samplers. I don't think I could even draw up how it was all wired and routed 30 years later. That and getting used to patch numbers in raw MIDI, how patch 1 is 0, etc. That got weird with bank 3 patch 8 being patch 23 in raw MIDI. I literally had to draw numbers on paper to get them right. And all the synths were different!! The Ensoniqs had banks of 10, the Yamaha TX-81z I don't even remember, the samplers, though both Ensoniq were different. I think it took me like 12 days to get that done, because in addition to patch numbers I had to go through every song and figure out that the EPS would be a master and play horns and control the Mirage in the rack, playing different horns. Or that for What's Goin' On I needed a tuned bell sound mixed with slow attacking strings and a vocal aaah patch in the TX-81. But, I won! And I will win with this too.

Harv, this is what is in the placemat which is the user manual (I HATE this trend!) about sync.

SYNC IN/OUT jacks
Use these jacks with the included cable to connect the volca beats to a monotribe or other compatible equipment, such as an analog sequencer, and synchronize them. The SYNC OUT jack sends a 5V pulse of 15 ms at the beginning of each step. If the SYNC IN jack is connected, the internal step clock will be ignored and the volca beats sequencer will proceed through its steps according to the pulses that are input to this jack. You can use this jack to synchronize the volca beats´s steps with pulses that are being output from the audio output of a monotribe, another analog sequencer or a DAW.

That 5v is exactly what the JU-06 manual (placemat! grrrr.) says it wants coming into the Ext Clk In port to play sequences in time with an external clock. So I think this will work like I want it to. And the value add is that it IS a drum machine (though only 8 voice) so I can also play kick, hat and snare on it. That fits the techno kind of thing I have echoing around in my cavernous head at the moment. I watched an Alan Parsons concert that I have on my hard drive AGAIN last week and if there was anybody I would like to be in my next life it is Alan Parsons. That blend of techno and funk he performed was (pun intended) music to my ears! I LOVE that stuff. Alan Parsons, The Thompson Twins, Talking Heads, Howard Jones, Thomas Dolby, a lot of the underpinnings of Pink Floyd... I could listen to that all day forever. Tom Tom Club got kind of way off into left field though.

Okay so my toy got here and it works IF I connect it via MIDI out on the Roland JU-06a to the Korg MIDI in. They sync nicely. Now I have to write the sequence I want and write a drum pattern, though pattern 1 that came with the Korg is okay for starters. Still have not gotten the "ext clk" thing sorted out but I am looking into that now. Will update when I find anything out.

The next test is to run a MIDI cable form my Focusrite and see how it works from Real Band's MIDI clock.

It sounds like the Roland is controlling the clock, which is the opposite of the original goal I thought (?)

BUT if you get RB to control the clock, maybe both will be in sync ..

I'm sure that if I connected the Focusrite MIDI out it would drive them. Technically it would be driving the Roland and the Roland would be driving the Korg, but yeah they'd work that way.

Now I have to remember how to write a sequence into the Roland....

My god I am such a frickin' nerd....

If RB is the controller, you could write the sequence there, but the Juno probably has some preset arpeggio patterns that may speed up the process.

If it were me, I may create the arpeggio on the Roland, then record it (MIDI) to RB using RB clock via Focusrite MIDI, so I could still have the flexibility of the RB clock later, etc.
Then you can slow down song or speed it up and the pattern would just 'work' in the future ... on any synth you assign it to
But that's just me.

There is so much MIDI in and out there that my head almost exploded. To write it in RB would mean I have to step write MIDI note numbers and events. Then I have to figure out how to send that note and event data back to the Roland to play it with the patches in the Roland. Also keep in mind that the idea here is to NOT lug a computer if I ever play anything out live. Recording it is one thing. Playing it live is another.

The Roland DOES have sequences but out of the 16 of them that come preprogrammed, 14 of them suck.

This is going to take some schoolin' here to sort out who should control what and from where. I have very little experience with MIDI in a DAW. Live, yes. My live rig was a MIDI marvel. This is a whole different animal. I am not doing things like reorganizing the studio room, measuring for cables after the reorganization, getting out the magnifying glass to try and read the small print for stuff that I want to power with AC adapters and buying them....

This is what it looks like now. It looks like something from 13 Ghosts because this is the infra red from the camera.

On the right are the 2 Ensoniqs. Om the 3 tier top shelf is the Roland, the Korg and a mixer. The Nord in the middle, and M-Audio controller on the bottom. It looks really low because when I use it I am sitting in the computer chair.

Nice setup sir. For DAW, keep in mind that the Pro Tools DAW we both know and love is very excellent with MIDI.

P.S. - Is that a Roland keyboard amp under the keyboards? I have a big brother of that in the KC500.