Clock sync to an effect pedal

Hi All, I hope everyone is well and safe. I have a newbie question, so kindly bear with me, thank you.

I have a Tremolo effect pedal which has the ability to synchronize its modulation speed to an external clock pulse on the tip conductor of its TAP/CLK IN jack.

The nominal external clock amplitude is 5V but it can follow clock amplitudes as small as 2V and as large as 9V as well as bi-polar amplitudes ranging from +/- 2V to +/-5V. The maximum external clock
frequency is 150Hz.

Unfortunately, I have no experience with CV, I typically tempo sync my gear with Pyramid via MIDI DIN or USB. I would be very grateful for any tips on how to tempo sync my effect pedal with Pyramid using clock pulse - thank you in advance.

Cheers, Piotr

Hi @saneroute ,

First of all, in the Super Pulsar manual, it says

We recommend powering down Super Pulsar when connecting or disconnecting your external switches to the TAP/CLK IN jack.

Be careful to follow this rule to the letter, as it sounds like the pedal might not have extensive input protection, and you could potentially fry some components if you’re not careful.

Now, to synchronize your pedal to Pyramid, take a look at the manual, for the CV settings: Pyramid Manual | Squarp instruments

What is relevant to you are the following:

  • ASSIGN ENV OUT TO: DIN SYNC
  • DIN SYNC: whatever clock speed seems to work with your pedal
  • SEND DIN SYNC: whatever suits your use case

The DIN SYNC value should probably be between SYNC1 and SYNC4, if this input usually expects a tap tempo, as that’s more in the range of what a human could tap. It seems the pedal has built-in clock division, so you could look into that as well.

1 Like

Hi @Thibault_Squarp, thanks a lot for your help, I really appreciate it.

I have realised that I made two mistakes. Firstly, I used the CV OUT jack of the Pyramid, instead of the ENV OUT. Secondly, Super Pulsar was unfortunately powered on while I inserted the TRS jack into the TAP/CLK IN socket. I wish I had read the manual more carefully, my fault entirely. After reading your reply I have opened the enclosure of the pedal to check for any signs of damage but didn’t notice any, so far.

If I am reading Pyramid’s manual correctly, CV OUT is an ‘always on’ mode, as opposed to CV IN, which can be OFF. In that case, after I connected CV OUT of Pyramid to Super Pulsar, Pyramid was sending a MIDI note / CV voltage of 2V to the Pulsar over the TRS jack, am I correct? I can only hope that my ignorance didn’t fry any components of the Pulsar.

Just to confirm, I suppose the connection between Pyramid and Super Pulsar should be a TRS connection? Kindly verify, thank you.

Cheers, Piotr

It should be fine, it’s just in extreme cases, I would suspect voltages well above 3.3V could possibly cause damage.

Given super pulsar’s manual, I would expect a TS cable to work just as well as a TRS one.

1 Like

This topic was automatically closed 21 days after the last reply. New replies are no longer allowed.