Midronome clock and Expert Sleepers FH-2

Any questions about the Midronome, technical or not
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arctor023
Posts: 3
Joined: 13 Jul 2023, 15:17

Midronome clock and Expert Sleepers FH-2

Post by arctor023 »

Short description of the issue:
When connected to the FH-2 via USB A port, the Midronome's analogue clock output is always double the speed of the FH-2's clock. The FH-2 also shows double the BPM on the FH-2, and changing the clock multiplication on the FH-2 weirdly also changes the Midronome's clock multiplication.
Setup (devices connected to the Midronome and how):
Midronome connected to FH-2 directly via USB A and analogue clock set to 1
Steps to Reproduce:
Midronome connected to FH-2 directly via USB A and analogue clock set to 1
Expected Behavior:
Same clock speed and no affecting of the clock speed when changing the FH-2 clock multiplier
Actual Behavior:
FH-2 shows double the BPM whilst only ouputting half the Midronome's clock speed and also changes the Midronome's clock multiplication when changed internally on the FH-2

Has the Midronome firmware been recently upgraded, from which version to which version?
It is updated on v1.1
arctor023
Posts: 3
Joined: 13 Jul 2023, 15:17

Re: Midronome clock and Expert Sleepers FH-2

Post by arctor023 »

I could resolve most of the issues between the FH-2 and the Midronome by resetting the FH-2 to its factory defaults, but still the FH-2 is receiving double the BPM and clock rate as the Midronome's output. I have already contacted the Expert Sleepers dev about this issue.
Simon
Posts: 819
Joined: 09 Jan 2022, 22:08

Re: Midronome clock and Expert Sleepers FH-2

Post by Simon »

arctor023 wrote: 13 Jul 2023, 16:35 I could resolve most of the issues between the FH-2 and the Midronome by resetting the FH-2 to its factory defaults, but still the FH-2 is receiving double the BPM and clock rate as the Midronome's output. I have already contacted the Expert Sleepers dev about this issue.
Hi! Thank you for reporting.

I am pretty sure I know where the issue is: the Midronome creates 2 USB-MIDI output interfaces, one called "Clock only" and one called "Clock & Start" which sends a MIDI Start/stop message as well as the clock. So my guess is that the FH-2 does not check which MIDI device is available and just takes all the data, this means it gets every MIDI Clock message twice, which results in a tempo exactly twice the speed.

Looking at the FH-2 I fully understand why a device like this would not check for complex USB setups (like multiple USB-MIDI interfaces), so I highly doubt they would do anything about it.

USB MIDI is generally not very precise, and I would not recommend to use it to connect the Midronome to analog gear ;) You can use the DIN ports or even the ANLG clock on the Midronome which will be more precise anyways, on top of giving you more control and solving this issue ;)

Simon


PS: fun fact, I can see the Experts Sleepers just bought a Midronome :))

PPS: topic moved to the Questions forum.
arctor023
Posts: 3
Joined: 13 Jul 2023, 15:17

Re: Midronome clock and Expert Sleepers FH-2

Post by arctor023 »

Well, I might be very much responsible fot OS from Expert Sleepers to buy a Midronome, since he is very much dedicated to his community and wants to investigate the issue from his side :D

Thanks for the reply though, I copied it and shared it on the MW FH-2 thread :)
Simon
Posts: 819
Joined: 09 Jan 2022, 22:08

Re: Midronome clock and Expert Sleepers FH-2

Post by Simon »

Ha, amazing, thank you for that! I'll get in touch with them ;)
Foksadure
Posts: 7
Joined: 15 Jul 2023, 21:21

Re: Midronome clock and Expert Sleepers FH-2

Post by Foksadure »

Simon wrote: 14 Jul 2023, 07:16PS: fun fact, I can see the Experts Sleepers just bought a Midronome :))
They might want to reverse engineer it, to check on the ultra sharp MIDI clock squeezed out from the GD32F350CBT6 MCU. :lol:

Image

Image

Not bad, eh. :D
Simon
Posts: 819
Joined: 09 Jan 2022, 22:08

Re: Midronome clock and Expert Sleepers FH-2

Post by Simon »

Ha ha - nicely spotted ;)

But actually the hardware is nothing fancy, just an MCU with a crystal - I did use the most precise crystal I could find (+/-5ppm) but apart from that the magic is all in the code ;)
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