MIDI latency from computer as master

Structive · 2014-01-29T07:00:05.000Z

hi. I did a quick search on this but wasn’t able to find any relevant discussion Perhaps this has already been addressed?
anyway. .
I have a bit of an archaic set up and in the studio and I am finding this strange latency issue. … time slows then speeds up to regular time. Here is my set-up:::

Ableton Live as Master (Mac OS)
Octatrack as slave
‘MIDI out’ from Octatrack into “MIDI Solutions - Pedal Controller” ‘MIDI in’
“MIDI Solutions” out into Juno 106
‘MIDI thru’ into prophet 08
-also, while recording into Ableton I use the ‘MIDI out’ from either the prophet or the Juno into an MOTU 828 which then records into Ableton

I am finding that this latency issue comes up only when I have the MIDI out connected to the 828. When I do that Ableton and the Octatrack become really out of sync. If I’m not trying to record the MIDI into the computer (and have the appropriate cable dis-connected) then everything works perfect. . Ableton acts as a master and the octatrack follows along perfectly in time.

any ideas>>?

thank you

miketheman · 2014-01-29T17:24:11.000Z

[quote="“Structive” date=“2014-01-29 07:00:05"”]
hi. I did a quick search on this but wasn’t able to find any relevant discussion Perhaps this has already been addressed?
anyway. .
I have a bit of an archaic set up and in the studio and I am finding this strange latency issue. … time slows then speeds up to regular time. Here is my set-up:::

Ableton Live as Master (Mac OS)
Octatrack as slave
‘MIDI out’ from Octatrack into “MIDI Solutions - Pedal Controller” ‘MIDI in’
“MIDI Solutions” out into Juno 106
‘MIDI thru’ into prophet 08
-also, while recording into Ableton I use the ‘MIDI out’ from either the prophet or the Juno into an MOTU 828 which then records into Ableton

I am finding that this latency issue comes up only when I have the MIDI out connected to the 828. When I do that Ableton and the Octatrack become really out of sync. If I’m not trying to record the MIDI into the computer (and have the appropriate cable dis-connected) then everything works perfect. . Ableton acts as a master and the octatrack follows along perfectly in time.

any ideas>>?

thank you
[/quote]

No experience myself, but I’ve heard that Ableton aren’t the most stable clock master around. Which may explain your problems in your setup.

invisible_acropolis · 2014-01-29T17:47:27.000Z

every time midi passes through a device you are adding latency to the signal… also the protocol is over 30 years old, so in terms of modern amounts of raw data, the transmission is incredibly slow and has practically no bandwidth (it can only send about 3kb per second)

anyways, having your midi input into the computer at the very end of the chain of a bunch of other devices is a problem for sure…

also sending midi clock AND notes through the same cable can be problematic as well, depending on the amount of keys pressed and/or CC messages like knobs and mod wheels and so forth

also as it has been said, ableton sucks as midi clock master, also computers in general give out horribly sloppy midi clock

zeropoint · 2014-01-29T17:58:48.000Z

innerclock syncgen II pro would be your studio’s friend and your wallet’s foe…

invisible_acropolis · 2014-01-29T18:01:48.000Z

""zeropoint"":

innerclock syngen II pro would be your studio’s friend and your wallet’s foe…

yeh considering your situation you need something like innerclock or similar device… a stable clock generator is pretty essential for setups with multiple devices - and anytime you have a computer involved, the situation is compounded

Structive · 2014-01-29T19:15:49.000Z

thanks all for the words so far.

one thing I did just discover is that if I have the octatrack/MIDI/sync/transp set to receive but leave the clock unselected there is no drift whereas if I have the Clock selected to receive then the drift slowly creeps in. . .

as invisible says the computers clock info is a bit wack for sure. I’ve noticed it never keeps a constant time and is constantly adjusting the bpm values

invisible_acropolis · 2014-01-29T20:17:30.000Z

""Structive"":

thanks all for the words so far.

one thing I did just discover is that if I have the octatrack/MIDI/sync/transp set to receive but leave the clock unselected there is no drift whereas if I have the Clock selected to receive then the drift slowly creeps in. . .

yeh well there will definitely be no drifting if it is not receiving midi clock, because that means the clock would be generated internally by the device itself

also depending on your setup you may not need it - but if you want to hit “play” on your computer and then have the sequencer of another device start running at the same time, you have to do it (there are other more complicated ways of getting that done without sending clock but you may not be up to it)

if you dont need this to happen, just have each device use their own midi clock (dont sync them) and just set them all to the same tempo

I think the suggested solution given by elektron is to use the Octatrack as a midi clock master, and then have Ableton sync to that… but its still gonna drift, its just the nature of the beast

for some reason, no one ever implements a setting like “clock drift tolerance”… so it will drift by like a few 0.1s of a BPM all over the place, but usually not more than that… so if you are syncing to 120 bpms, you will see the slave drifting from 120.1 to 120.4 or down to 119.8 or something like this… and i dont know why there is not a setting for “tolerance” so that if the clock drifts less than a full 1.0 BPM, it would be ignored - seems like that would solve a lot of problems but apparently nobody has thought of that

nakedbob · 2014-01-30T18:42:09.000Z

Drift tolerance!
That’s a pretty good idea!

danlukas · 2014-02-19T05:49:15.000Z

any luck switching the orientation and having the OT as master and ABLETON as the slave? does that remedy the drift issues?

fachperson · 2014-03-25T09:20:23.000Z

danlukas, this is what I am doing. the drift persists.

I will probably try to find a way to just send play/stop signals to ableton and set tempo individually.

MichalHo · 2014-03-25T09:49:15.000Z

Slave everything to the OT and you should be fine.
that’s how i do it and it works ok.

Use Ableton for recording only and remove it from the MIDI clock chain if you can, you could still send a start transport message to ableton from OT.

t · 2014-03-25T10:20:29.000Z

If I understand correctly, the issue only happens with the MIDI OUT from either the prophet or the Juno connected to the MIDI IN of the MOTU 828 (i.e. Ableton). Is that indeed the case?

fachperson · 2014-03-25T11:24:19.000Z

the issue happens when I use the OT as a master for ableton via my mpk25.

It’s a nuisance because I use tempo based delay fx which get distorted due to the marginal tempo shifts.

t · 2014-03-25T11:58:25.000Z

Fachperson, I was actually referring to Structive’s original question at the top of the thread which describes a different issue.

In your case I’d recommend trying Live as the master. Live doesn’t sync well to external MIDI clock sources.

MichalHo · 2014-03-25T13:16:59.000Z

""fachperson"":

the issue happens when I use the OT as a master for ableton via my mpk25.

It’s a nuisance because I use tempo based delay fx which get distorted due to the marginal tempo shifts.

if i understand correctly, you have two possible “fehlerquellen”:

-try to route clock messages directly and on a reserved midi port whenever possible - no mpk in between would be good, hook that up to another midi in port reserved for controlling ableton.

ableton itself… it will correct audio recording problems most of the time if it is midi master (which might be the way to go for you), but ableton’s master clock, even on well-configured pc/macs, is way more jittery than the OT master clock.

Ableton clock jitter: up to 38ms, depending on system.
OT clock jitter: 0.4ms

Got the numbers from here:

http://www.innerclocksystems.com/New%20ICS%20Litmus.html

e-rm.de

E-RM_report_Jitter_02_14_EN.pdf

t · 2014-03-25T13:41:08.000Z

I like how on this forum threads quickly aren’t about the original question at all anymore.

FWIW I think Structive’s original problem is caused by a “MIDI loop” where the MIDI clock generated by Live ends up being fed back into Live. He might be able to resolve this by filtering these out somehow, or by telling Live not to listen to incoming MIDI clock.

cbg · 2014-11-26T23:11:09.000Z

Hey everybody! I have been struggling to find a solution for this threads topic…aside from spending a nice bit of $ on the innerclock sync gen box. Has anyone come across a decent video tutorial for OT setup with Ableton? Or should I give up and start saving for the innerclock?

cube48 · 2014-11-27T07:37:22.000Z

There have been some attempts with setting MIDI clock delay/offset of your MIDI interface in Live’s MIDI settings. I can’t post direct links now but one should be able to find it on Ableton’s forum.

mezz303 · 2014-11-27T09:41:17.000Z

Have you checked that the MOTU isn’t sending clock via USB/FW?

mickeyziggyk · 2014-11-27T10:57:47.000Z

Hi

@Structive: Try and get hold of another midi interface and see what happens (I switched from a MOTU 128 express to a Midisport 2x2 and all my problems disappeared)