Overbridge vs ERM Multiclock

Elektron Software Overbridge
#1

So I got an ERM Multiclock because I was sick to death of Midi jitter and needed some stability in my set up… Now I have a super tight set up EXCEPT for Overbridge… I’ve had to abandon OB for my A4 and can’t see myself using it again unless its stability can be drastically improved and the latency can be rectified.

There is no way to manage midi offset when using OB (please enlighten me if you know of a way) and as a result, my A4 triggers a whole step out of time when synced to OB through Ableton… ironically, Ableton is clocking my ERM via audio and its tight, super tight… but the internal clock in Ableton has OB drifting all over the place… and I mean stupid drifts that are unusable!

So goodbye OB, goodbye multi-track recording, goodbye audio over USB… It’s been challenging, slightly amusing, very frustrating and mildly fun… ERM has shown me just how unstable you are and its time we parted ways…

Now I’m back to recording A4 tracks individually but it sure is great having no drifting on my long delays, Arps that stay in time and microtiming that doesn’t sound messy…

OB, you’ve got LOTS work to do… I can see why you’re afraid to show your face…

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#2

I love my ERM! Haven’t used it with OB yet, but I noticed that enabling OB in Ableton resulted in a noticeable lag when my brother is playing my AK through OB and I’m on my electronic drum kit. It’s almost unplayable.

The fix for us was to turn the plug in off and then back on again in Ableton after we set everything up. Went back to pretty solid monitoring for the e-kit. Maybe that will help? Fingers crossed…

#3

yep - this is exactly why bought my ERM too, though it was for use with the Analog Rytm.

to have 100% locked-in, super-tight sync to Ableton Live is just incredible when you’ve acheived it. The swing / offsets are amazing too.
I can just keep overdubbing & overdubbing to my hearts content, knowing I can then just make loops & edits in Live that are totally tempo-correct.

I’ll never part with the ERM : ironically the Rytm is long gone, but the Multiclock is doing the same thing
for my Moog & Roland stuff now.

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#4

way back with overbridge v1 you could disable the “sync” feature and feed the Analog Rytm a midi clock while at the same time stream audio into the DAW.

The offset was pretty large (far from my 3ms record latency with my soundcard) but that could easily be adjusted by sending the clock early.

I don’t have an E-RM Multiclock but a Sync-Gen 2 Pro from Innerclock Systems.

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#5

That’s pretty great… I wonder if there is a way to do that with the current version… would solve ALL my sync issues!

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#6

Same experience here. I’ve dropped OB in my E-RM clocked setup because of drift, crackling, and loss of sync at the buffer sizes I want to work with. I actually never had a problem latency a correcting OB: I just used a positive track offset in Ableton. But the above issues plus the addition of overall huge set latency that made it annoying to sample Ableton to my OT, made me bail on OB.

I would love to find out about the “sync off, but audio on” aspect brought up earlier. I tried this, thinking it would solve all my problems, but it didn’t work…

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#7

So in the old version of Overbridge there’s was a sync-on/off toggle in the overbridge control panel. Is that not there in the current version? (They might have removed it, I don’t have any overbridge version1 devices any more so I have no clue.)

#8

Not really used OB but can you not put a track offset on the ableton channel OB is on?

#9

What about slaving Live or your audio interface’s MIDI to Multiclock?

#10

Are you guys talking about sync issues while while recording? I’m able to get super tight timing when recording into Ableton using the “Song Pos” machine sequencer sync option (see screenshots below), but I’ve never been able to get latency sorted in my rig to the extent that I can monitor the audio from the box and the computer at the same time (not an over bridge issue). I may try the ERM multiclock.

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#11

My guess is having machine sequencer sync set to off and letting the E-RM Multiclock (or in my case Innerclock Sync-Gen 2) handle the clock and sequencer sync.

Like one offset value for recording and one for monitoring through the DAW to adjust for plug-in latency and audio card (and overbridge) buffer settings.

#12

Interested in any updated user cases with this, as I’ve just ordered an ERM Multiclock.

I am planning to clock all drum machines and hardware, and also clock OB A4/AK/AR with the ERM but stream and monitor the OB audio via the USB streams…

This will allow me to monitor live from Live also, rather than direct monitoring from my soundcard software, and in theory add UAD plugins to audio being live monitored…

Does anyone do this?

ERM seem to think I’ll be able to compensate everything and get it right, but the main problem I can predict is that the audio from the AK when playing the keyboard will have unplayable latency?

Any thoughts or inputs much appreciated, I’ve read mosts posts online which mention Overbridge and Multiclock but would love to hear more user experiences.

#13

Anyone compare ERM Multiclock with SND ACME4?

#14

I use erm as master and clock 5 hardware boxes as well as sending clock to traktor via a midi in port on pc. Works well.

The rest of your request I dont know how itll play out .

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#15

AFAIK Overbridge always adds about 40ms itself. So once you add your sound card latency and any other plugins on the same path as overbridge you going to find live keyboard playing pretty dreadful.
If you really want to play live keyboard, you’d be best to use soundcard analog-ins and prune your project of any high latency plugins or have a separate keyboard synth that bypasses the computer altogether and use a small mixer and fx to combine the live playing with the computer output.

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#16

Hi How do you record your hardware? External instrument or do you direct monitor for sync then record

#17

The multiclock is more versatile, in my opinion . It acts as a powerful midi mapping device also, you can split and multiply incoming midi to different outs and channels. You can also use the channels to send out own midi cc’s via the 2 knobs and the button.

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#18

yeah - I’m using a UA Apollo interface via TB, so I’ve got basically latency free monitoring : my hardware synths go via a mixer into the Apollo & I monitor via the interface. The ERM enables Live to be a properly stable clock to run external sequencers etc.

#19

I have been using Overbridge-enabled Elektron instruments for 6 years and I have never been satisfied with OB. Have only used it when traveling with only a Rytm or whatever. Never at the studio.

I use a cheaper alternative to the Multiclock - the Expert Sleepers USAMO. Same principle: delivering sample-accurate MIDI clock from a DAW to hardware by encoding the MIDI data as audio. This is also how Overbridge achieves its sync, but at a price of 60+ milliseconds of latency added to your DAW project. And, in my experience, the OB-enabled devices still can’t share their sample-accurate MIDI clocks over their DIN outputs and thereby sync the rest of your setup to the DAW.

For me, it has to be a proper many-channeled audio interface for multitracking (plus instruments that actually have individual outputs: hence I will never gel with the Digitakt, and I slightly resent the design of the Digitone I own) plus USAMO/Multiclock/Expert Sleepers ES series. It is more expensive and space-consuming, but it actually works well and in a scalable manner that is compatible with non-Elektron products. That’s a hell of a lot more than I can say about Overbridge.

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#20

It does share the overbridge clock, that is how I sync my other gear

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