Need help syncing flexor ramp to external waveform

[irrelevance]

I would really like to have modular syncing sample acurate to my external sequencer which is cubase sx. I have tried recording the ramp wave form and then timestreching to fit a 1bar loop. But it seems that both wavelab and cubase distorts the waveform somehow. I have also tried generating a saw up waveform lasting 2secs to give me 1half cycle lasting 1bar at 120bpm. When I hook this up via asio to the external frequency in on the ramp the ramp state indicator jumps around randomly. So I'm a bit stuck!

[fra77x]

I should work ok, i did that all the time. Now i use LIVE for sequencing which works fine and timestretches the Ramp fine. In Cubase why don't you record the Ramp at the correct Bpm? (or even use multiple Ramps if Bpm changes occur?)

[irrelevance]

Hmm. Mabye I'm not recording/editingt the ramp properly? If I set the ramp BPM to 120 and record the output I capture a bipolar sawtooth waveform but not as I would expect.
I would expect one single cycle (positive saw up to negative back to zero) to be a bar in length but it's much shorter than this, it's around 10mS!? So should I make a complete bars worth of this?
I thought I would need one half of the bipolar waveform (just the saw up) and stretch that over however many bars.
I think what I'm going to try now is to sync cubase to scope somehow and record the ramp in via asio this should at least give me something I can work with.

[fra77x]

Record the Ramp and then cut it in cubase or wavelab. Just zoom enough so to cut it right. You can use the Ramp divider (or set the bpm in the ramp generator with division (ex. 144-72-36-18) to make really long ramps.

It's a liitle difficult to cut it right as in the sample level you can't really find the exact "start" position but with a liitle trial and error you can sync them fine.

Really like to proccess filters, envelopes etc. with ramps so to be perfect in sync. If you add and some envelope followers, and shape the signals...and...

[irrelevance]

Stranger still. I've recorded the ramp out direct into cubase via asio and it's exactly as I expected slow ramp up and down over a few bars. But when I recored the same output into wavelab via wavedest its a a higher frequency waveform!?
Ok now I have my smart waveform all nicely edited and I feed it back to the ramp module but I still get the ramp indicator jumping around randomly!!?
grrr
Any ideas?

[irrelevance]

Im getting some nice results using the ramp waves to control filter cutoffs.
Still no ramp sync though

[irrelevance]

Ok. Ive got my sequencers going now. Phew I had to bypass the ramp module totally and feed my asio ramp direct to the note and gate sequencers.
Now it's all syncing fine to cubase

[kensuguro]

I still have no idea why the normal cw sequencers don't sync right in the first place..

[irrelevance]

Think I read somewhere that you have to keep retriggering the cw sequencer mods or they will drift. I've been running through various loops in mod with sequenced ramps and getting some crazy results. And it's as tight as anything now!

[eliam]

Hi, can you give step by step instructions on how you did that? That would be useful for me. Thanks!

[irrelevance]

Well you can either capture the ramp output in your wave editor of choice or generate a single cycle sawtooth waveform.
If you are recording into your sample editor via wave dest make sure your sample rate is matching and that you are only recording the left channel if you are using the left. This is becase I found if recording in stereo that I would get digital mess on the right which somehow effected the left.

-------------------------------------------------------*
-------------------------------------------------*-----*
---------------------------------------------*---------*
-----------------------------------------*-------------*
-------------------------------------*-----------------*
---------------------------------*---------------------*
---*-------------------------*-------------------------*-----
---*---------------------*
---*-----------------*
---*-------------*
---*---------*
---*-----*
---*

All the sequencers start from the negative going part of the cycle and end in the positive.
Actually what I like to do is have this waveform as two seperate parts. I will explain why.

In cubase you can click on the object selection tool and choose "sizing applies timestretch" so now you waveform can run over four bars which is one complete cycle of any flexor sequencer.
Just output this mono audio via asio into the modular then into the sequencers ramp input and voila.

Now with your seperate negative and positive halves you can make things even more interesting by for example having a negative run to a negative thereby retriggering the sequencer to start position after say two bars
Or how about phase reversing the negative waveform thereby making the sequencer run in reverse. Add to that a few ramp dividers and you've got some powerful sample acurate modular sequencing!

Bless Flexor

[eliam]

thanks for the explanation! So, basically, any saw wave form can be used as ramp if stretched enough? If I take a 100 hz saw wave and stretch it over 4 bars will it work? After that you loop it in cubase and output the channel to mod and that's it? That will help very much in the future, thanks! again!

[irrelevance]

It's a symetrical waveform so yes, as long as it's stretched to fit.

[alfonso]

Sound Forge can draw waveforms of any length, probably many editors can do it.

[johnbowen]

Small point to make here - if someone is trying this without being able to 'see' the waveform, and you are having problems, make sure you are using an upward or ascending saw (which is now more typically called 'ramp'). If you use a typical saw waveshape, you will have a 'descending' ramp, which might be affecting your results.
john b.

[katano]

Good input John.

BTW. and OT. How far away is the solaris hw release?

[at0m]

Hoi,

A couple related posts:
Clock2click,
on sync'ing 2 pc's,
Tempo synced LFO to sequencer,
...

Have fun

at0m.