Yeah, I was going to say why - wouldn’t it share the OB clock? Doesn’t make sense to me.
@Autopoiesis can you explain how you came to this conclusion?
For me, the USAMO doesnt work well with my fireface device. I’d have to go with the ERM if I went that route.
Yeah… I wonder if they might need to implement two modes of OB MIDI clock perhaps?? One where the midi clock is delay compensated and one where it’s not. Because otherwise the OB midi clock, however solid and jitter free it is, will be either early or late depending how the slave deice audio is being handled. And then… yeah, then they are in the realm of the DAW and how the compensation is made… Hmm… I wonder if a plug-in can know if it’s being compensated or not… I’m thinking that’s perhaps not that likely…
I feel that once I set up my hardware synths/drum machines I’ll run into lag problems. These Multi Clocks are expensive, Iv’e seen the cheaper midi clocks are these ok?
Currently using the Akai MPC X as master. Would one of these be better?
frankly, I don’t remember. I think I might have misremembered my beef with this approach, which might have been more that the latencies of my clocks didn’t align when I made an Overbridge device the clock distributor, or might have been that the high latency of the Overbridge device’s clock was a pain for me to distribute throughout my setup. In any case, I can’t really fuck with Overbridge anymore because I despise having so much latency added to my project.
Thats cool. I do have latency between my rytm (synced to OB) and machinedrum (slaved to it). I suspect its just hardware latency due to midi DIN. I still am sorting it out. Doesnt seem to jitter though, so i just select all and drag fwd a ms or so.
Sometimes OB actually records the audio early into the DAW for me. Im not exactly sure why that occurs since i never turn on the reduced latency while monitoring option.
There’s lots of little mysteries to hardware sync but i love the hybrid workflow so i deal with it.
Nah you need the erm sync box. Its a painful expense, no doubt. But it works. I believe it can solve latency as well due to its plus and minus settings. Someone may be able to comment there.
its not hardware latency dont think there is such a thing, its audio latency.
if you plug the audio outputs of the machinedrum into the rytm audio inputs
it should be perfectly in time because the elektron overbridge clock is calibrated to match the audio latency of the inputs
I think hardware has some latency. Maybe im wrong but are you saying if i sent clock from the rytm to the md and sent the audio outs of both machines into my interface, that they should both be dead on?
Im not sure I understand why id want to send audio into the rytm from the md unless you just meant for testing.
if you use overbridge, the rytm has an extra stereo input to record things into your daw…
exactly like a sound card, and that input is matched to the Overbridge clock
there might be some minor unnoticeable latency with modern hardware,
but nearly all the problem is the audio entering the computer…
Wow i had no idea. Ill give this a try. Very cool!
Well I have so much hardware that I finally cracked and got an ERM with USB. I feel like it may be the best way to run a true hybrid setup. I also will be able to give my CPU a break and not run multiple instances of overbridge in it, which seems to get pretty taxing.
That said, I still love OB because anytime I want, I can simply power up and plug in a USB to get multiple outs for my elektron boxes. Just an awesome bit of software.
You’ll love the ERM. It’s a powerful piece of kit. Using your DAW as the master clock and sending the audio pulse to the ERM is bomber tight. Being able to shift all 4 channels forward or backward is nice too (assuming you keep it on the default POS/NEG mode).
I just learned about Freewheel mode in it as well. It immediately flips to its internal clock should the audio stream crash. Great for when your computer shit’s the bed.
Also, if you have any modular, you can make or buy the modular whips from ERM that let you use any of the 5-pin outputs as clock sources with a reset.
You can also stop and start channels on bar and in time which is also really nice.
Seriously awesome piece of kit and I’d never sell it.
Yes, god thats awesome. I saw where it says you can send MIDI sequences from the DAW to hardware synths too, using ERM’s USB in. I am understanding that it will send clean clock to the synths but wont change the midi notes timing. So I am guessing that I can use an external instrument plugin to adjust for the latency, but the synths may still jitter a little unless I sequence them on their own sequencer?
If they dont jitter because they get a clean clock from the ERM, that would be something else.
Was thinking to get each piece of hardware dialed in, I could just sequence them to play 16 notes and adjust latency on each box until they all line up and then save the template in ableton. Is that how you did it?
There’s 0 jitter when I use the audio sync in. I mean like, if you look at your tempo on the gear that displays it, it doesn’t even jump by 0.1. It’s bomber tight.
As for sync’ing, yes. Use an external device and send the audio to an output of your audio interface then into the ERM. Using an external device means that you can solo tracks in Ableton and it won’t impact the audio sync.
As for setting up the sync, I personally disable Delay Compensation in Ableton. I can never get things to sync up perfectly otherwise. It doesn’t drift or jitter but I can never get the compensation right, even with proper Driver Error Compensation settings in Ableton => Preferences => Audio. I’m also just getting back to a hybrid setup but I don’t run audio into Ableton. I trigger audio and MIDI clips then output the audio to an external mixer channel. Other setup/delay compensation may be need for routing audio into or roundtrip with Ableton.
If you are routing all synths into Ableton, you could record them then measure the delay by looking at the delta between the waveform start and the first downbeat. That would get it sample accurate.
Then yes, save it as a template. You can also save settings per channel on the Multiclock. Push and hold the ‘select menu’ button then the channel. You can edit and save settings per channel there.
Yeah it gets a little quirky with the delay compensation. Sometimes my OB is a little early and other times it is perfect. I find that it depends on how you record in, like you said. I dont think I’d use PDC in your case, so that makes sense.
Really awesome about setting and forgetting it with the synths too. I love that. Settings per channel is amazing. Thats a ton of synths!
Debating on giving my Digitone its own DIN out from the ERM. I sequence my modular with it, so I probably will. I have a DIN to 3.55m jack and it goes into a uMIDI module.
Got my E-RM up and running. And yeah. Ableton is super finicky with latency. For example. I am sending my drum machines into ableton with monitoring off and I am using my RME mixer software to monitor everything. I dialed in the offset into the E-RM for each drum machine and they are super locked in now. Which honestly, is amazing on it’s own.
Added in a synth that I sequence with ableton and so I use an external instrument. If I set the latency too high in the plugin, it pulls the kicks ahead of the grid. So I found that around 2.5ms has the synths dialed in pretty well. Ive tested them all out (sequenced from ableton out via E-RM USB and they are fine.)
Struggling a little with the Digitone though. It doesnt seem to want to receive sync. Triple checked the Sync settings in its menu, swapped out cables…it’s not taking sync. I had it running fine in OB so its got to be user error by me. Not sure on that one. It just wont play. Of course if I hit play on it, its fine and everything sounds great.
Do you have the DN connected to one of the ERM DIN Channels? Then into the MIDI IN of the DN? I know that’s super obvious but just curious how the DN and ERM are connected.
Yeah. DIN out from erm into Midi in on DN.
