someone out there has synced Live stable to a midi-clock?

mr.ergonomics · Post by **mr.ergonomics** » Tue Oct 07, 2008 5:00 pm

I now this is common, but I'm close to say it doesn't work. I spend the last two days in the forum and tested almost everything.

* reaktor for example is absolute stable when I use it as a slave via midi-clock.

* every time I try that with live I have a timedrift or better jitter. can't get the tempo stable (midi-clock runs with 120 bpm - lives tempo drifts between 119-121).

*what's really bad about this, it also effect sound quality because of the constant warping due to the drifting tempo.

*latency compensation doesn't work too, which is a problem when you want to monitor (CUE) audio in a livesetup and both audio streams are not sample accurate you get audio phase problems in your headphone because of this.

hmmm.....

ollyb303 · Post by **ollyb303** » Wed Oct 08, 2008 7:55 am

This is not good news! I've been trying for a while to get 2 instances of Live to sync on different laptops with pretyy much no success - same problems as you have - Master says it's outputting 160bpm, slave drifts between 157-162bpm and it sounds terrible. See my thread here:

http://www.ableton.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=97001

I was hoping to use an external hardware box to achieve stable sync - have you tried using hardware to clock it, or are you only talking about another software application?

(please say software, please say software, please say software....)

Patch · Post by **Patch** » Wed Oct 08, 2008 11:06 am

I've been trying to slave Ableton Live to DJ Decks (which sends midi clock relative to the timecode vinyl...)

No luck here either...

3dot... · Post by **3dot...** » Wed Oct 08, 2008 11:07 am

ollyb303 · Post by **ollyb303** » Wed Oct 08, 2008 11:24 am

Fuckfuckfuck!

Are we saying here that it is not possible to slave Live successfully from another instance of Live, another software application or a hardware instrument???

Pitch Black has told me that they slave 2 instances of Live off a hardware keyboard controller with relative success - but their style of music (dub) is perhaps a bit "looser" than what I'm trying to do (tight as fuck techno!)

/goes home to re-evaluate life

mr.ergonomics · Post by **mr.ergonomics** » Wed Oct 08, 2008 3:28 pm

ollyb303:(please say software, please say software, please say software....)

jap software. and same problem, need a tight as hell sync.

in the meantime I think live has a real basic problem with midi clock slave because it always will affect the audio and timing due to nature of it (midi clock can't be tight as hell).

therefore we need a 100% stable tempo in live with no drift.
maybe a adjustable filter would help which ignores changes from the midi clock in the sub bpm region (so 125.3, 124,7... is 125) or something like this.

ollyb303 · Post by **ollyb303** » Wed Oct 08, 2008 3:49 pm

mr.ergonomics wrote:(midi clock can't be tight as hell).

Why not? I used to sync my MPC2000 off MPC2000XL using midi clock and it was as tight as *insert your favourite euphemism/simile for "something extremely tight" here*...

Are you saying midi clock in general can't be tight as hell?? My experience with MPCs says otherwise...

Or do you mean midi clock in Ableton Live can't be tight as hell? My experience so far with Live says that this (very, very sadly) may well be the case...

I just need one person to tell me they've actually managed to do this to give me hope.... Anyone....

chrisedmo · Post by **chrisedmo** » Wed Oct 08, 2008 4:37 pm

In our band we use 2 copies of live synced together, but our fastest song is like 172BPM?

And one is purely a click for the drummer to have and his mac is hooked (by firebox to midi to my saffire pro 10) my ableton is slaved to his.. and i trigger off loops, so there might be slight variations but for us it works fine, perhaps we could notice it if his laptop actually outputted audio.. then you have to fight with two clocks and two different latencies ??!!

dphouse84 · Post by **dphouse84** » Wed Oct 08, 2008 5:09 pm

I've done this before using TT's and a Red Sound Soundbite Micro.
I sent the sound from my dj mixer to the Soundbite which then generated a midi clock and slaved live to it. Always stayed in sync for me since the Soundbite is constantly tracking the signal.

now that Live has the global nudge buttons, mine's been catching dust after I upgraded my version of Live two weeks after I bought the Soundbite.
My TT's are doing the same along with my Serato Box lately.
Recently I had the lightbulb go off in my head and I'm forcing myself to make the switch to ableton.
you in the market for a midi clock?

ollyb303 · Post by **ollyb303** » Wed Oct 08, 2008 9:17 pm

dphouse84 wrote: you in the market for a midi clock?

I'm in the market for anything which can guarantee me a stable midi clock which I can sync 2 instances of live to (on separate windows laptops - 1 xp and 1 vista

), ensuring that both stay in sync with the master and therefore each other...

Do you think it would do that and how much are we talking?

mr.ergonomics · Post by **mr.ergonomics** » Wed Oct 08, 2008 10:03 pm

ollyb303 wrote:
mr.ergonomics wrote:(midi clock can't be tight as hell).
Why not? I used to sync my MPC2000 off MPC2000XL using midi clock and it was as tight as *insert your favourite euphemism/simile for "something extremely tight" here*...

Are you saying midi clock in general can't be tight as hell?? My experience with MPCs says otherwise...

Or do you mean midi clock in Ableton Live can't be tight as hell? My experience so far with Live says that this (very, very sadly) may well be the case...

I just need one person to tell me they've actually managed to do this to give me hope.... Anyone....

As far as I understands, midi always has a small amount of jitter therefore it can't be sample accurate ( of cause this isn't needed in every situation...)

adventurepants_ · Post by **adventurepants_** » Wed Oct 08, 2008 11:05 pm

mr.ergonomics wrote:
ollyb303 wrote:
mr.ergonomics wrote:(midi clock can't be tight as hell).
Why not? I used to sync my MPC2000 off MPC2000XL using midi clock and it was as tight as *insert your favourite euphemism/simile for "something extremely tight" here*...

Are you saying midi clock in general can't be tight as hell?? My experience with MPCs says otherwise...

Or do you mean midi clock in Ableton Live can't be tight as hell? My experience so far with Live says that this (very, very sadly) may well be the case...

I just need one person to tell me they've actually managed to do this to give me hope.... Anyone....

As far as I understands, midi always has a small amount of jitter therefore it can't be sample accurate ( of cause this isn't needed in every situation...)

Midi is fine, its just Live. Many people have reported these issues, with a vast array of hardware. For me the fact is that my hardware is rock solid on its own, or synced to another DAW. As soon as it is slaved to Live, it drifts like a drifty thing. There is no sign that Ableton will address this in any update, we seem to be just stuck with it. The drift also changes with CPU load so its not a case of setting compensation settings.

Some hardware seems to be better than others, MOTU interfaces seem to provide the most stable clock with Live, but thats just going on what Ive read in the forum.

mr.ergonomics · Post by **mr.ergonomics** » Thu Oct 09, 2008 1:24 am

adventurepants_:

the timing via midi clock may be ok for triggering events, but it always will drift a bit. (in reaktor for example you have a more precise display for you bpms... you'll see it).

As in Live (due to warp ) audio is connected to the master tempo, every slight drift in your sync will have impact on your audio files.

j2j · Post by **j2j** » Thu Oct 09, 2008 1:42 am

Why do you all think ableton doesn't look into this?

I haven't been able to test this, so I have no opinion on it.

Has anybody tried a top of the line digi clock? Like an apogee or something?

I highly doubt, you would have trouble syncing to that....

adventurepants_ · Post by **adventurepants_** » Thu Oct 09, 2008 1:53 am

mr.ergonomics wrote:adventurepants_:

the timing via midi clock may be ok for triggering events, but it always will drift a bit. (in reaktor for example you have a more precise display for you bpms... you'll see it).

As in Live (due to warp ) audio is connected to the master tempo, every slight drift in your sync will have impact on your audio files.

im sure there is slight drift with my hardware, but I cant ever actually hear it or sense it. Im very picky about drift. As soon as any gear is connected to Live, i can hear the drift very prominently.