Empty Loop Switch Record Doesn't Follow Sync Source

alexs1

When I have the Empty Loop Action set to Record, and after doing a quantized (loop) switch with NextLoop, it begins to Record, but on a track with Host Sync, it does not count beats or bars and instead appears to exclude itself from the track's quantization settings, making it so I can't end the recording in sync. Setting the Empty Switch Quantize parameter to Sync Source in "Quantization Control" doesn't change anything.

alexs1

@jeff

Would you be able to take a look at this? I can take a video if it helps explain what’s happening.

jeff

Intereseting, there's a conflict between host sync and quantization going on here. EmptyLoopAction=Record bypasses host sync, depending on how you have quantization set up for NextLoop it may happen to be on a bar boundary but it doesn't have to be. Example, track uses host sync with Bar. Record the first loop of 1 bar, SwitchQuantize is set to subcycle and there are 4 subcycles. Do NextLoop just before subcycle 2 (which would correspond to host beat 2). The recording starts immediately at beat 2 without waiting for a host bar. At this point you're not really doing host sync any more. It could use host sync on the record ending to a bar but since it didn't start on a bar, it would be an odd size, say 6 beats or 2 beats instead of 4.

Alternately, if the NextLoop/Record always starts immediately after quantization, the ending could be rounded off so the loop is actually a multiple of the host bar length, but since it didn't start on a bar, it could become out of phase with the other tracks if you restarted it.

Third option, if host sync is enabled, NextLoop/Record would not start immediately but rather behave as if you had manually pressed Record immediately after the switch, which would then enter Synchronize mode waiting till the next bar. The SwitchQuant is less relevant there, you would wait till subcycle 2 to do the switch, but then still wait 2 more subcycles/beats before recording.

Definitely some work to be done here.

jeff

Actually, I'm remembering more about this, I've been away too long....

The way it's supposed to work is this. In a normal synced recording, only the beginning of the Record is truly synced to a host pulse. The ending of the recording is not technically synced to a pulse, instead the ending is rounded off so that the loop is exactly one multiple of the sync "unit", typically a bar. This helps correct for jitter in the sync pulses, For MIDI especially, the ending clock may not actually be exactly where it should be because clocks tend to wobble around a bit. It is less of an issue for host sync, but it can happen.

Most of the time the difference isn't noticeable, recording starts on a bar and it then ends after an exact number of bars, if the host pulses aren't jittering then it will still happen to coincide with the ending pulse, but if there is an error the difference is so slight you won't notice.

Where it gets weird is NextLoop+Record which for EDP users is expected to begin recording immediately even if you are not at that moment on a sync pulse. The ending of the loop is however rounded to be an exact multiple of the sync unit so you should get a loop that is the right size even though recording didn't start exactly on a bar. This is the second of the three approaches outlined in my previous post.

Going back to your example, once the recording is in progress you should see cycles added whenever recording fills a snc unit, a beat or bar if you're using host sync. If your track quantization settings were such that the quantized switch happened exactly on a host bar, then the effect should be the same as if you were doing true host sync without NextLoop. But if Switch Quantize is less than a bar, then it may start early but round off to a bar.

I'll run some tests to make sure that's working.

alexs1

jeff you should see cycles added whenever recording fills a snc unit, a beat or bar if you're using host sync.

I figured it should work this way, and I don't see much of a need for there to be a dedicated Host Sync option for Loop Switching specifically—however, when I go to try Empty Loop Action=Record, there seems to be a bug where it only counts seconds and the bars count up very quickly, not factoring in any cycles or division info from the parent loop.

SomeGuyChillin

I encountered this issue recently.
Ending a recording that was initiated by EmptyLoopAction=Record quantizes the start of the record, but does not quantize the end. Instead it ends immediately on the record button press, resulting in a loop whose length is not quantized and so is out of sync.
My expectation is that a recording that is started by switching to an empty loop with EmptyLoopAction=Record should behave the same way as a normal recording.