Sequencer Tempo Problems

27 Sep 2010, 22:49

Ok, I am not a noob at this...in fact I have been working with hardware sequencers for a long time and I cannot fathom why I this is even a problem..

I have a song I created that runs at 140bpm. I can look at the micro edit and see that in the tempo track, there is a tempo change command that sets the tempo to that in the song. I press play, the song plays. Perfect.

Now I go to patch mode. I look at the tempo and it says 140 on the current patch. I do NOTHING ELSE and then go back to the sequencer, and sequence has changed tempo to 120bpm. Not only that, but the tempo change command at the beginning of the song has ALSO been changed.

I did a search, and verified that override tempo is set to ON. Setting it to off doesnt appear to do anything. I dont have MIDI hooked up, so I know its not getting some mysterious clock signal.

What is the correct way to solve this? And why the hell would Roland design it to work this way by default?

Re: Sequencer Tempo Problems

28 Sep 2010, 05:44

This doesn't answer your question but... why do you go to Patch Mode in the first place? if you're working on a song there should be no reason to switch to Patch Mode and whatever patch is current in Patch Mode has no bearing on what you're doing in Performance Mode.

Regarding your question:

Recommended Tempo
If you want the sequencer tempo to change when you switch
Performances, specify the tempo that will follow this change. This
setting is valid when the Seq Tempo Override parameter is “ON.” In
order to enable this setting, turn on the Tempo Override parameter
(p. 227).
Value:
20–250
* This value is specified independently for each performance. This means
that when you switch performances, the tempo setting of the Fantom-
X will change.
* The sequencer tempo will be overwritten to the new tempo when you
switch performances.

When you are switching back to Performance Mode the Fantom is also re-selecting the Performance. Each Performance has its own tempo associated with it and this overrides the one in the Song. And I think that either the first tempo change command (or possibly the first one before the current measure) is implicitly linked to the tempo that you select with the dial or by selecting a Performance.

If you saved your Song before switching to Patch mode you could re-load the song upon returning to Performance mode. Or perhaps you want to disable the Tempo Override. Or just don't switch to Patch Mode (again why do you want to do that in the first place?).

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TXz0UkVBZPQ
TOYZ in 60 seconds (short live video of my progrock band on YouTube)

Re: Sequencer Tempo Problems

28 Sep 2010, 06:08

To simply put it - I am not always working on a song. Right now, I am working a lot in creating a sound library I need for recreating my live set. Ive been through the presets and I dont find anything close to what I want, and create it from scratch. I then go to song mode to work on a track and find its tempo has been changed by the magical roland fairy.

And it gets stranger, too. If I put in tempo change requests, they all get changed proportional to the song tempo. So if I leave the first one at 120, and then add one a clock tick later at 140, when I come back, the 140 is now 120 and the 120 one has been changed to 103! This is very strange, and it looks like this is *intentional* behavior. I would really like to know the thinking behind why this would ever be useful.