> Hi Dan
>
> basically there is no difference between DIN-Sync or MIDI. The problem
> is, that the internal clock and tempo of the slaved devices can be
> derived in many different ways from the master clock. There are direct
> divide down clocks and there are extrapolated tempo translations (like
> the MFB drum machine). And some of the extrapolations use only the time
> dfference between two clock ticks (which will work with a shuffled
> clock), others use the average out of six clock ticks (which will not
> work with an shuffled clock).
>
> As an example: The TR-808/606/TB303 do extrapolation, but they work like
> charm with the shuffle box. The TR909 does stumble with a shuffled
> clock. The Korg EMX does ignore the shuffle a low shuffle amounts, and
> will stop playing at high shuffle amount. The Xbase09 again works
> perfectly with a shuffled clock....
>
> A flawless shuffle can be achieved only by internally generation in the
> slaved device, or with an slaved device that works with direct divide
> down clock.
>
> Florian

Interesting. I don't have much appropriate gear to experiment with, but I suspect that some of the more primitive synths use the wonderfully elegant approach of merely counting the clock pulses coming in and, say, incrementing their internal sequencer's cursor every six pulses for 24PPQN and a 16 step sequencer. That way, they don't need to extrapolate or time anything at all, they're just counting pulses.

At any rate, when I switched to this approach, I was able to greatly simplify my firmware and it works great.

I just don't know for sure if it's what anyone *else* does in their synths. :)

All the best,
Zoë.