Ableton Forum

Hey all, I'm trying to sync my Machinedrum to Live 7.02, and for some the clock delay offset is not working. Using OSX 10.5.2 here, feeding midi clock to the Machinedrum via the Elektron TM-1 interface. Tested it on the MOTU Ultralite as well. Using a simple 4/4 pattern with a short impulse noise to get the sync corrected.

No matter what value I enter for the delay off set (even up to -300ms), the impulse is always recorded delayed by the same amount. Tried turning delay comp on and off, relaunching the set after changing the offset value, even tried clock Live from the MD, still no luck. My recordings are ALWAYS delayed by the same ammount no matter what settings I used for input or output clock offset.

Seriously, WTF?

Did you mean to write that the 'Machinedrum is always recorded delayed by the same amount'?

Where is the clock delay offset setting located in Live?

Yes, the recorded audio is always delayed by the same amount it looks like. If not the exact same amount, than certainly I cannot get it anywhere close to on sync. The offset parameters are in the MIDI pref's, use the arrows to expand the midi port for your interface.

Lame. I'll try messing with this when I get my Repeater back this week.

This works as expected for me in 7.0.2 but I'm seeing the behavior you describe in the 7.0.3 betas.

The clock delay offset is not working for me either live 7,0,2 XP

I tried this again today, and it IS working now. Didn't change anything in my set up, the MD, nothing. Weird...

Tarekith wrote:I tried this again today, and it IS working now. Didn't change anything in my set up, the MD, nothing. Weird...

Does it work for you in the 7.0.3 beta?

I have to pass on testing the 7.03 beta for now, got too much going on in the studio to play with the beta's, sorry.

Tarekith wrote:I have to pass on testing the 7.03 beta for now, got too much going on in the studio to play with the beta's, sorry.

Understood, although it appears to be broken in the upcoming version from what I can tell. It would be a shame to let it through to the final release but my single report doesn't seem to be enough for them to go on.

Ok, hold on and I'll try it real quick.

Yeah, something goofy is going on, though when I looked into it, I saw similar results in both 7.02 and 7.03b5. In both cases the offset appears to be working, but there's still a huge variabiity in timing in both versions. I put my Timur hat on and had a go at trying to look into this.

Restarted my MBP and opened Live 7.03b5. I created a looping pattern on the Machinedrum using an impulse spike, to give a nice clear waveform when recording, making the timing differences easy to see. Live was set at the master midi clock, using a clock offset value of -26.5. This value was NOT changed at all during the test.

Next I recorded 10 passes of audio from the machinedrum, starting at bar 1 and running past bar 5 to give everything time to settle in sync wise. I zoomed in and took a screenshot of the impulse closest to Bar 5 on each pass. As you can see the timing drifts on each pass. At first I thought it was always getting more and more delayed, but then the recording jumped ahead of bar 5 on Pass 6 and start backing up again. The screen shots are below:

Pass 1


Pass 2


Pass 3


Pass 4


Pass 5


Pass 6


Pass 7


Pass 8


Pass 9


Pass 10



Just for kicks I ran the same test in Live 7.02, using the same midi clock offset value. As you can see though, this time the pulses were way off the mark at bar 5:



I saw this phenominom each time I ran this test, in both Live 7.02 and 7.03b5, the timing offset used for external midi clock sync needs to be set each time you launch Live, the value needed for closest sync does not remain constant. A complaint I've seen before on the forums.

Running the 10 tests again, you can see that same cyclic delaying, the pulses move further and further back, until during one pass they jump to a new location and the cycle starts over. I put all the recordings on seperate tracks this time, first is at the bottom, last is at the top:



Clearly there's some timing issues still. MacBook Pro 15", 2.16gHz, MOTU Ultralite, Elektron TM-1 midi interface, Leopard 10.5.2.

Interesting. Thanks for taking the time to do this. I've gotten very good timing with my Mac/Ultralite/MD combo in 7.0.2, with a drift of at most 3ms between successive beats. 7.0.3 has been a mess though and it looks like you're seeing something different again from what I'm seeing. I'll try to get some more precise results again when I get home.

Yeah, normally I never really worried about it, it was close enough for me working on music. But I started noticing this more when I was trying to trim loop exactly for giving to others, and now you've opened up a whole can of worms for me

What's the scale on your first set of runs there? If you're looking at offsets of 1-2ms or so then it's not that far from what I'm getting in 7.0.2.