Published on Apr 15, 2015 The Tuesday Night Machines
"The creative folks at E-RM Erfindungsbüro in Berlin came out with a new box, promising to fix jittery clocks from a DAW or other standalone devices once and for all."
"The one-stop sync shop!
4 ultra precise output channels, derived from DAW audio clock, MIDI or DIN sync. Ultra low jitter design.
All separately shiftable and swingable in realtime to compensate start lag and adjust groove.
Hot-plug support for MIDI, DIN, Modular Clock & analog LFO. Built-in MIDI Router, MIDI Controller and optionally USB MIDI."
The Multiclock made it's first appearance here and here.
The official press release:
Hence we are very proud to announce you today in the context of Musikmesse 2015 our latest product, the multiclock, a universal time machine that packs a punch!The E-RM multiclock is a Multi-Format Audio-Sychronizer. It takes care of a high-precision sync between Digital Audio Workstations (DAWs), sequencers, drumcomputers, synthesizers, arpeggiators and modular systems of all kind.
As opposed to other products on the market which use MIDI or USB-MIDI to sync external gear to a DAW, multiclock uses a dedicated audio channel of the computer’s sound card to hook up with. This avoids unintended clock jitter which is inherently available with MIDI Clock and ensures tight sync on a sample-to-sample basis. A specially tailored plugin is used to generate the nescessary signals. The emitted audio clock is received by the multiclock’s audio processor and provided for external gear on four separate output channels in the formats of MIDI, DIN sync, modular clock und analog LFO. This keeps total control over the playback of all outbound gear within the master DAW.
Nevertheless, multiclock may of course also sync to incoming MIDI, DIN sync, modular clock signals or optionally USB-MIDI if nescessary - or even simply be the masterclock itself!
To cope with the delays and start latencies of connected slaves, a calibration by positive or negative time shift is possible separately for each channel. Moreover, every channel has two knobs to shift it further around in realtime and set the amount of shuffle. This ensures the right groove for every pattern.
In order not to constrain the musical capabilities of the connected slaves by simply offering syncronization, multiclock features additionally a MIDI Map&Merge Matrix. This enables the user to route and merge MIDI notes and other controll messages that are received on the MIDI input or the four optionally available USB-MIDI ports to specific outputs. Furthermore, unused clock channels may be used as a MIDI controller.
multiclock will be available from May 2015.
The MRSP is 449 e for the standard version, 519 e with USB.
A matching power supply is naturally included. Colorful caps for all knobs are available on request.
Technical Information:
tempo range: 30-300 BPM max. shift range: ± 250ms
Connectors:
1 x Audio-Sync input
1 x MIDI/DIN Sync/Modular Clock input 4 x MIDI/DIN Sync/Modular Clock output 1 x LFO output (0-5 V)
1 x power jack (9 V-15 V)
4 x USB MIDI input (optional) 1 x USB MIDI output (optional)"
