sync-ing 80's din midi drum machine with Eurorack
Posted: 30 Apr 2026, 00:16
Hey all-
A lovely person at Perfect Circuit suggested a Nome II so that I could sync my eurorack to an Alesis HR-16 drum machine (with more interesting sounding EPROMS). I've got everything hooked up and I'm really stoked to get things up and running but I have a few questions.
My main clock in my rack is a 4ms QCD. I used a 3.5mm TRS splitter to L&R TRS, I only have the left(white) TR in use.
I had to bring the ppq down to '1 on An.1 to send to the QCD so I didn't have to divide on the QCD right out of the gate. The instructions in most YT videos are to set An.2 to run for Pam's. The Right (red) isn't hooked up to anything right now so An.2 is set to run. Maybe not the right setting?
The HR-16 is a whole other environment. I'm using MIDI out 1 on the Nome to MIDI in on the HR-16. There is a setting on the HR-16 for clock source to be MIDI and internal or just internal. I have it set to MIDI and internal, but according to an old SOS article "Wait a minute... MIDI and INTERNAL??? That's what it says on the display. In fact, what happens is that if the HR-16 sees a MIDI clock signal at its MIDI In socket, then it will take its tempo from that after receiving a Start or Continue message."
Right now it seems like the HR-16 is not receiving the start or continue message so the tempo still says 117 on the Hr-16 screen while Nome is set to 92bpm.
1. Is the configuration for An.1, An.2 correct (should the TS cable for An.2 go somewhere?
2.AnL is set to con. Is that correct?
3. In general, if an old drum machine needs a start message, how do I configure that on Nome?
4. Will this configuration allow me to start the drum machine with some sort of count in or will it always start when I hit play on Nome?
Sorry for all of the questions. Just trying to understand how the din outputs share settings from An.1 and An.2
Merci!
A lovely person at Perfect Circuit suggested a Nome II so that I could sync my eurorack to an Alesis HR-16 drum machine (with more interesting sounding EPROMS). I've got everything hooked up and I'm really stoked to get things up and running but I have a few questions.
My main clock in my rack is a 4ms QCD. I used a 3.5mm TRS splitter to L&R TRS, I only have the left(white) TR in use.
I had to bring the ppq down to '1 on An.1 to send to the QCD so I didn't have to divide on the QCD right out of the gate. The instructions in most YT videos are to set An.2 to run for Pam's. The Right (red) isn't hooked up to anything right now so An.2 is set to run. Maybe not the right setting?
The HR-16 is a whole other environment. I'm using MIDI out 1 on the Nome to MIDI in on the HR-16. There is a setting on the HR-16 for clock source to be MIDI and internal or just internal. I have it set to MIDI and internal, but according to an old SOS article "Wait a minute... MIDI and INTERNAL??? That's what it says on the display. In fact, what happens is that if the HR-16 sees a MIDI clock signal at its MIDI In socket, then it will take its tempo from that after receiving a Start or Continue message."
Right now it seems like the HR-16 is not receiving the start or continue message so the tempo still says 117 on the Hr-16 screen while Nome is set to 92bpm.
1. Is the configuration for An.1, An.2 correct (should the TS cable for An.2 go somewhere?
2.AnL is set to con. Is that correct?
3. In general, if an old drum machine needs a start message, how do I configure that on Nome?
4. Will this configuration allow me to start the drum machine with some sort of count in or will it always start when I hit play on Nome?
Sorry for all of the questions. Just trying to understand how the din outputs share settings from An.1 and An.2
Merci!