Song Clock

Song Clock puts the automation timeline's transport and clock into your patch as a module. Its play, stop, and reset buttons are the same controls as the Automation dock's, and its CLK output sends clock pulses derived from the timeline's own beat counter. A sequencer clocked from Song Clock is locked to your automation curves exactly, because the pulses and the curves come from the same counter.

This is also how you stop and start a whole patch. The studio has no transport of its own beyond these controls, and the power button turns the whole engine off rather than acting as one. Press stop on Song Clock and the timeline halts, so every sequencer it clocks freezes with it.

How to patch it

Patch Song Clock's CLK output into your sequencers' CLK inputs, in place of a BPM Clock. Set the tempo in the Automation dock at the bottom of the screen; Song Clock follows the timeline's BPM. Patch RST out into your sequencers' RST inputs so they return to step 1 whenever the song resets or loops.

Use BPM Clock instead when a patch has no automation, when you want a second free-running tempo, or when you want to bend the tempo with CV, which the timeline clock cannot do.

Controls

  • ⏮ (reset) rewinds the song to the start and sends one pulse out the RST jack. It works while stopped, so you can reset first and then play from the top.
  • ⏹ (stop) and ▶ (play) stop and start the song. These are the same buttons as the dock's transport; the lamps on both always agree. Play state is never saved with a patch, and a loaded patch always opens stopped.
  • Div sets how often CLK pulses, from 1/1 (one pulse per bar) down to 1/32. The default is 1/16, the studio's standard sequencer step.

Inputs & outputs

  • START / STOP (inputs) start and stop the song from the patch. A rising edge past 1 V acts once. If both arrive at the same instant, STOP wins.
  • RST (input) rewinds the song to the start, the same as pressing ⏮.
  • CLK (output) is a 10 ms, 10 V pulse at each Div boundary while the song plays. Nothing pulses while stopped.
  • RST (output) is a 1 ms, 10 V pulse on every reset: it fires for every rewind and for every loop wrap. This is the jack to patch into your sequencers' RST inputs, so they snap back to step 1 whenever the song returns to the start, for any reason.
  • RWND (output) fires only when the song is rewound: this module's ⏮ or RST input, the dock's ⏮, or a backward drag of the playhead. A loop wrap does not fire it. Use it when something should respond to you rewinding but not to the loop cycling.
  • LOOP (output) fires only when the timeline wraps at the loop end. Count it with After to advance an arrangement one section per pass, or use it to re-trigger an envelope at the top of every loop.
  • RUN (output) is a 10 V gate that stays high while the song plays. Use it to silence voices on stop; see the first tip.

RST always equals RWND plus LOOP: it is the catch-all reset, and the other two split it by cause.

Tips

  • Stopping freezes sequencers mid-step, so a note that was sounding can keep sounding. To silence it, patch RUN into an Amp gain CV placed before your Output. On stop, the gate closes the amp.
  • Draw your filter sweeps and level fades in the Automation dock, clock your sequencers from Song Clock, and set a loop in the dock. The curves and the sequences repeat together, exactly in phase, with no drift.
  • Patch Patch Start into START and the song plays from the top the moment the patch loads.
  • To stop the patch after a set time, patch CLK into After and After's GATE into STOP. With Div at 1/16 and COUNT at 65, the song stops itself right as bar four ends. The count is 65 rather than 64 because the downbeat pulse at the very start is counted too.