Overbridge Sync w/ Live - CV and Midi Clock Out Early?

Elektron Software Overbridge
#1

I’m working to integrate Overbridge into my production setup and overall I’m fairly impressed with all of the possibilities.

However, I’m hitting quite a snag when it comes to the “Sync Analog Four to Host” feature.

I use my Analog 4 as a CV and clock source for other outboard gear. When I have the sync feature enabled, it seems to trigger both the unit receiving CV note trigs and the unit receiving MIDI clock early by about 27ms or so. The A4 is well in time, but everything receiving signal downstream is way too early.

Is there a way to fix this? Has anyone else encountered this problem?

I’ve attached two screen shots. Both are simultaneously recorded quarter notes. One is the audio of the A4 and the other is of my device receiving CV note trigs. You’ll see that the second one is recording way early.

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#2

Update - deselecting “Reduced Latency When Monitoring” in Ableton makes the signal about 20ms late instead of 27ms early. More manageable, but not quite the sync I’m after

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#3

You need to manually compensate the other channels in Live by the exact latency of the OB plugin. You can see the latency by hovering with the mouse over the plugin title bar in Live. If it’s 27ms just put those 27ms on the mixer channels that record the non-Elektron outboard gear and it’s all in sync. Or use -27ms on the OB channels.

I don’t think there is a way around that, it’s just the nature of syncing and streaming audio at the same time.

If you’re talking about monitoring, not recording, I would recommend to disable all midi sync in Live and use the midi out on the OB synced Elektron boxes to sync other gear. Then everything is in sync when monitoring and it’s much tighter than Live midi sync anyway.

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#4

Gotcha, I ended up setting the track delays on the non-A4 external gear as you described and it’s working well. Thanks!

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#5

I was just having exactly the same problem, thanks for the solution Marc.

Turned off ‘reduced latency while monitoring’ and then set an audio channel with a loop on it to -42ms to get it in sync with the AR.

#6

@Marc Lorenz: I cannot see the latency being displayed when hovering over the plugin title bar in Live 9.2.1 on Mac OSX Yosemite, OB 1.00 with the Analog Rytm plugin… What you using and how you doing it? Perhaps I misunderstood what you were saying?

#7

When y’all are saying put in 27ms for the mixer channels that aren’t elektron boxes or -27ms for the OB channels, are you guys talking about track delay?
I thought track delay didn’t affect recording, but just whether or not you heard the track earlier or later.

#8

It does affect recording if you have the Reduced Latency while Monitoring option on and your tracks are grouped and your adjust the delay on the group. Otherwise, it only affects what you hear, which is actually pretty annoying IMO.

#9

Ah, so it does affect the recording only if Reduced Latency while Monitoring option is on and when the tracks that you delay are grouped?

I need to try this out, been having issues with OB staying in sync when using an external clock (ERM Midiclock+). I’ve been contemplating just using Live’s clock as master when recording and just use ERM Midiclock+ for long jamming recording takes…ugh, really wish I could just use the ERM clock all the time.

#10

If you want Live to automatically latency compensate your external synths, use Live’s External Audio effect device or External Instrument devices, as those are latency compensated. If you want to record that audio and have it line up on the grid, make sure to NOT monitor the track on which you are recording the audio. What I do, is send my audio to separate tracks to record. Otherwise, Live will shift your audio by the latency compensated amount. I highly recommend leaving the reduced latency while monitoring alone, as I believe that forces Live to ignore latency compensation for the track on which you are monitoring.

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#11

If you want Live to automatically latency compensate your external synths, use Live’s External Audio effect device or External Instrument devices, as those are latency compensated. If you want to record that audio and have it line up on the grid, make sure to NOT monitor the track on which you are recording the audio. What I do, is send my audio to separate tracks to record. Otherwise, Live will shift your audio by the latency compensated amount. I highly recommend leaving the reduced latency while monitoring alone, as I believe that forces Live to ignore latency compensation for the track on which you are monitoring.[/quote]
Ah, okay…so do not monitor my tracks as I record (monitoring off) and keep Reduced Latency When Monitoring OFF, correct?

Now, if I do this, I’ll still need to figure out how to get OB tracks to get in time with everything else. From the tests that I’ve done, I’ve realized that OB is not affected by the track delay amount, so still not sure how to get everything lined up to the grid.

PS It might be helpful to know that I’m running OS X El Capitan and Live 8.

#12

Correct. You can monitor while recording. Just do not monitor on the same track as the one you are recording. So, just bus your audio to another track with the monitoring disabled and recording enabled. Try it both ways and notice the difference in the placement of the audio. It’s a known thing with Live.

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#13

Aye, I used to just trim my shit, but damn, having two kids I’m trying to streamline everything.

I’ll give this a go and hopefully have OB in check.

Just tried with OB and alas, doesn’t work, but it definitely helped all of my other gear be more spot on. As for OB, I think it’s because I’m syncing Live to an external clock and/or because I’m using Live 8. I also tried using the track delay in the group track and that didn’t affected what was recorded from OB at all.

Again, I’ve tried recording using Live as the master and OB is super duper tight. I just wish I could record using OB while connected to an external midi clock. Anyhoo, I just created a new template where I no longer monitor my other gear for recording purposes (which are grouped) and then all my OB tracks (also grouped). I’ll just opt to record using an ext clock for everything but OB.

Thanks for the help!

#14

Hello, thnx for the info but I just don’t get it right.

So I turned ‘reduced latency for montitoring’ OFF, I choose my analog rhythm as audio-in source (bit accurate). I create an audio track and choose as input channel 3 from overbridge (in my case the kick), I turn monitoring on that channel to OFF when I hit record there’s still a small latency visible in the recorded clip. The kicks are not entirely on the grid.

Furthermore: Turning ‘reduced latency for monitoring’ ON or OFF does not seem to have any effect. Nor does compensating with a Track delay value. Should this be on the MIDI track where the analog rhythm plugin is activated? or on the audio track recording the kicks?

EDIT: It does not seem to have effect when choosing a positive value, when negative I effectively shift the audio even further away, but I want to get it closer!

I just simply want to be able to side-chain LIVE with my AR kick as input. Should I buy an external clock to make this happen? the E-RM for example?

Thank you so much for any help/tips

#15

Why not just manually compensate for the latency? This is what everyone normally does… the other methods noted here should work too though.

It’s really easy regardless, look at what the latency is currently at (your settings will tell you), and add it to the track delay. This is how I’m currently doing it for the MK II since OB is not avail yet.

I also double check that it’s all good by playing the metronome to see if it’s all aligned.

Good luck!

#16

Hmm could you elaborate on manually compensating? delaying all other channels but the analog rhythm in ableton?

Thing is that I would like to use signals (e.g. the kick) of my AR as a sidechain signal for live processing, as in, not only playing a sequence, but also for live drumming. Somehow there’s no latency at all when using the sound of the MIDI track with the AR plugin. But that’s allways the total sound. Once you want to single out a signal coming from the AR, you need to work with audio-input, and that’s where I get this latency issue…

Thnx for the tips though!

#17

It’s available on all daws… it’s called “TRACK DELAY”
you can delay the track (in a positive amount) to compensate for whatever your soundcard latency is giving you.

To double test that you’re in sync, turn on the metronome in the daw and in the AR and you’re golden :slight_smile:

#18

Ok I understand what you mean. as in group all tracks but not the AR, and delay that group with the amount of the AR latency. That is indeed a solution to sync everything when sequencing.

I just hoped there was a way to get rid of the AR latency, so I could drum the pads of the AR live and use those signals to sidechain another signal in ableton. LIVE as in INSTANTLY = no delay.

Why is it that the midi track where the AR plugin is on in ableton has no latency, but once you start arming an audio track with AR as audio input, there is latency? I don’t get that.

Thnx!

#19

You only apply the track delay to the AR track that’s causing the issue.
By what you’ve said, it sounds like everything is normally compensated by OB, but you’re also taking a kick out via audio and piping it back in. (correct me if i’m wrong). This audio (and NOT OB) track is what’s out of sync.

This is a common issue and you’ll find countless threads about midi/audio latency/delay issues. If you’re using ableton, I’ve heard that using an EXT INST compensates for this as well but I’ve never tried. I just use track delay.

Anyways, it’s not terribly hard to fix, and many people go through it (including myself), and there are solutions.
Good luck!

#20

I know this is two years later, but wanted to add my experience with the current version of Ableton (seems like it may differ with how “reduced latency when monitoring” affects things - now it seems like it doesn’t matter if your tracks are grouped or not as @dialecticsines suggested above). So, it will affected recorded audio, period, no need to group anything unnecessarily. I’m using the A4 MKI and attempting to line up the cv and a4 tracks using the most recent beta version of OB (def waiting to upgrade to the official 2.0 because seems like so many problems!!!)

I have “reduced latency when monitoring” ON, and actually prefer it this way so I don’t feel lag when testing out ideas and having to switch back and forth between ON and OFF seems like a workflow annoyance. So, I ended up having to set the non overbridge tracks (in my case modular, going into my MOTU 8A) to a negative track delay of -24ms. It should be noted that this is NOT the measured value of the overbridge plugins given by Ableton. So, it seems that if you want perfect (or near perfect) alignment, you need to experiment with your setup to find the correct offset. I’ll also say that, thankfully, the recorded audio from modular didn’t shift after turning off one machine (I also was using the AR, so tried both with, and without that machine turned on. I didn’t however, remove the plugin, perhaps if I did it would have affected things, but for me it’s just to keep my computer a little less hot by turning off a device when not using it).

I am curious about what @zfigz suggested but I can’t imagine having double the number of tracks (I already have MIDI and AUDIO tracks for both the AR and A4) just to be able to monitor, and the method I described above seems to work well.

Definitely would love to hear others experience more recent than 2018, if there is an even better, more streamlined way perhaps to deal with this or if there are many people are finding the same method I’m using to be working well, or any potential problems it might cause.

Thanks everyone! Hope we’re all well and safe :slight_smile:

edit: I should also add I have “sync” on for both AR and A4 in Ableton preferences, not sure if that affects anything one way or the other, all ears if anyone knows

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