909 and other machine tempos and tuning

[steevio]

just an observation that might be some help to someone.

if you are using an old drum machine like a TR909 as your sequencer when recording live, there's a good chance your recordings will be out of tune when mixed with music made in computers, but may be chromatically in tune with old classic tunes which used the TR909 as a sequencer.

the reason for this is that although the 909 is analogue the tempo control is coarsely digital ( i assume ) and when you dial in say 127 bpm it is actually much slower than that ( on my machine 126.277 ) or example 128 is 127.422 on mine.

this means when mixed with a recent recording with accurate tempo, it will never be in tune chromatically no matter what key its in. it will always sound sharp.

i'd be interested to know if anyone else on here who as a TR909 could check their actual tempos and see if they match up to mine.
this would confirm my suspicion that using a TR909 as a sequencer is likely to make it harder to find tunes to mix with on vinyl, or without using the dreaded warp in say ableton.

i know, a bit obscure

[lem]

I know that mine wasn't an accurate bpm clock. I don't think it was drift as it was too linear.
I never meassured it tho, and i sold it quite recently.

I synced my 909 to midi clock and then there was just drift then, which varied a bit.
There is a midi upgrade for the 909, to improve midi sync. im not sure if it helps with the clock output.

or i might be missing the point completely!

[tone-def]

my korg emx was a little slow compared to the computer and that's only 8 or 9 years old.

i thought most machines were like that. midi is a bit sloppy imo.

[steevio]

i was mostly talking about using the 909 as a sequencer combined with other analogue kit, or as a clock source, i wasnt really referring to midi.

i mentioned it because it is an issue for me right now. i use my 909 as a clock source for my modular, therefore if i record a track at 127 bpm according to the readout, it is actually 126.277 bpm, whereas if you are using a computer it will be pretty much exactly 127.
which means my tracks will all be sharp when mixed with most other material.

this deviation is not sloppyness it is very accurate, ive been recording this way for a long time, and even 127 tunes i recorded 15 years ago are 126.277. this is because the tempo is set digitally. there are no divisions between 126.227 and 127.422, thats a very coarse tempo control.

i'm guessing that it will be the same with other roland machines like the TR707 etc.

i thought it was worth mentioning because Mark Ashken recently talked about working with a TR909 as his clock source to capture the 909 shuffles, so its not that unusual.

[hydrogen]

Makes hella sense to me. Especially with the tracks I used to make... I'm actually in tuning hell right now. I swear most of the music I listen to is tuned differently than what I'm running. Always freaks me out and im wondering how to get on a proper tuning tip.

[Phase Ghost]

The tempo is going to be changed by dj's anyways, so why worry about it? I dj at 120 to 121 bpm, so I'd pitch your track down quite a bit (possibly all the way down) to mix it into a set.

[::BLM::]

The tempo is going to be changed by dj's anyways, so why worry about it? .

Yep.

[sorgenkind]

if i'm not gonna forget about it i will try this weekend when I hit the studio and report.
feel free to remind it to me should I forget about it, pretty much going on now in my life.