Can Digitakt be master and Ableton Slave?

Yeah, just change the settings in abletons prefs, and in the DT.

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Great, thanks! Now making the effort upgrading DT OS and installing Overbridge seems worth it

Not really tried it myself, but people report that ableton shouldn’t be run as slave

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Hi! I’m trying to do so but Ableton doesn’t respond well. I want my set up to be just like before OB (dawless setup). I have switched to OB and everything is working fine except for this. I want to press PLAY on my Digitakt not on a spacebar. I have tried several things but nothing’s working. I have no problem slavering Ableton Live when I’m not in Overbridge Mode but as soon as I am in OB Mode, when I press Play on the Digitakt, the tempo fluctuates to 300 bpm. Weird stuff.

I am currently fighting with the exact same issue …
Plus difficulties on my Ananlog Rythm, which controlled by midi directly by my Digitakt.
Since both are plugged to my PC, i only can run things properly with Ableton as master. Ableton as slave makes everything fucks (weird bpm changes just as you said !)

Maybe it’s useful. Helped me. I have DT as master of everything including Ableton

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Are you running on Overbridge?

No just recording into Ableton through soundcard

The problem is when running Overbridge.

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Gotcha. Maybe the Ableton settings won’t help here. Maybe worth a try though

I already tried it, no success. I have submitted a ticket to Elektron. I’m waiting for the answer.

And people should know that when they are using the individual (mono) audio tracks (not the MIDI track) of their devices (Digitakt, Digitone, etc.) with Overbridge, no panning (or anything related to it, like lfo on pan) is possible. I kind of find this a little bit of a stop to creativity. Off course there is a work around like using only the MIDI tracks of each device when composing but still, I would prefer that Overbridge already had that feature.

Question… at risk of sounding idiotic, but why would you want your DAW to run as a slave??
Timing should be taken from the recording medium and sync everything to it so then everything runs in time. This is irregardless of DAW or hardware. This is why Ableton doesn’t respond well to being a slave and why you have to really get into midi delay, and a lot of the time on each channel also… If you are running a pure hardware setup, you always sync to your rhythm machine as that will invariably have the strongest timing… I am truly baffled by the idea of running a DAW as a slave. Although, theoretically it can be done with a bit of fettling.

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Well Tchu, while using OB all your pan and FX control is done on your channel, it is what you relinquish from the H/W in order to work in the soft environment…However…

if you look at the screenshot I have posted, you will see my default Ableton set. Now, I have full duplex console, which makes life more hands on for me, but the important stuff is done on the channel. What you need to do is add another Digitakt audio channel, in the pic it’s chn 19. I have it set to Audio from Digitakt In, POST MIXER. This is where your onboard FX etc are… BUT, they are a full mix of what you are producing from the hardware, so beware if summing…

I understand your question. The reason I am interested in running Ableton as a slave is because I feel the timing of the Digitakt to be better. Just as you point out, rythm devices such as drum machines appear to have a better sounding clock than DAWs. So I was hoping to let my Digitakt be the clock of my setup, also when including Ableton.

Before OB, I was running a pure hardware setup (Digitakt as Master) and it worked perfectly (timing included). I want to use OB only to have full control over each Track (add plugins, etc.) and record them individually. So my thoughts of OB is that everything I do on my machines is reflected in OB (panning included). And as you said “If you are running a pure hardware setup, you always sync to your rhythm machine as that will invariably have the strongest timing”. That’s why I want Ableton as a slave (avoid MIDI delays). I want to press play on the Digitakt, not on a space bar. I want to use a DAW for recording each track individually and in time and use OB to have each track individually so that I can add plugins etc.

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If you slave Ableton Live to the DT, you probaply have to adjust track delays, watch out for delay compensation issues (afaik, no delay compensation while monitoring a track in Live).

I’d just dial in the correct tempo in Live, no midi clock from or to the computer, slave my gear to the DT and record into Live.
All recordings have the same start point, just trim correctly to fit with plugins.
When overdubbing or recording new stuff, all you need to do is move and trim the recordings again.
Use 1 bar count in and just hit the play button on the DT at the right moment.

The timing of the DT wouldn’t change if slaved or not anyway.

How good the clock is (midi clocks always jitter, some more, some less) and how well a DAW on your setup slaves to midi clock don’t effect the timing of your drum machine.
When implemented well (=DAW works well when slaved to midi clock) and your computer also performs well then fine, but keep in mind you probaply have usb involved and usb midi can be troublesome.
For example, many laptops have multiple usb ports on one usb controller, so those ports are shared.
Put an usb audio interface and midi interface or whatever on the same controller and you might encounter problems.
Then there’s usb hubs, you’d want an M-TT hub for best performance.

Loads of stuff on the internet about usb and audio/midi…

Maybe I understood what you mean with “timing” wrong, but in any case wouldn’t you want to choose the best (=most stable clock solution)?

Not necessarily the case.
Also depends of the computer, the midi interface and possible other stuff as well.

Many people say Live performs very bad when slaved to midi clock, I’d say it’s ok on my machine.
It would make sense though if a DAW would perform better as clock master, that’s probaply how the majority use a DAW, as the center of their productions, so more developing efforts directed towards outputting midi clock.
Dunno…anyway, you just can’t say without running some tests on your machine anyway.
What works on your computer and setup might not work well for somebody elses setup.
Run some test and choose the most stable solution?

Thing is tho Tchu, the spanner in your works is that Ableton hates receiving clock. It always wants to be the master, so it will fight you. It follows convention by wanting to be the master clock.

I don’t think so cause without OB, Ableton is responding very well at being slave.

I’m surprised. Anytime I have experimented with Ableton as a Slave, it didn’t like it. Unless they have addressed the issues with it. :+1:t2:

HI I just wanted to see if anyone found a solution?

Right now everything looks beautiful and I use overbride to record all my DT racks to ableton.

However, I try and adjust the BPM on my DT and it will does not move. I have to adjust the BPM in Ableton, which is very very annoying.

my end goal is to build my tracks/sequences on the DT, then later record them into Ableton to arrange and mix