Sync solutions

t · 2014-03-22T17:32:31.000Z

I mostly use hardware only this days, but I just grabbed my laptop to do a quick test with the following setup (using an ESI MIDIMATE II as the MIDI interface):

MacBook Pro running Live 9 OUT -> IN Machinedrum THRU -> IN Analog Four

When everything is properly configured (MIDI Sync set to On in the Live preferences for the appropriate port, TEMPO IN set to EXTERNAL and CTRL IN set to ON on the Machinedrum, CLOCK RECEIVE and TRANSPORT RECEIVE checked on the A4), both machines start playback immediately when I click “Play” in Live, are in sync immediately, and stay in sync even during tempo changes or when I stop/start Live.

Please note that Ableton Live does not at all sync well to external clock sources. If you want to use Live in your setup, you should really only ever consider using it as the clock master in your setup.

t · 2014-03-22T17:39:42.000Z

Latency or timing issues with MIDI on modern computer are mostly related to USB driver issues (again, Windows isn’t the best at this) and with having multiple devices attached to the same MIDI bus.

I’d recommend experimenting with a different MIDI interface, removing all other devices from your USB bus, or even borrowing a friend’s Mac if you’re on Windows before investing in an expensive hardware solution.

tsv · 2014-03-22T19:05:50.000Z

I’ve had solid results syncing the OT which in turn is running the A4 and MNM to Pro Tools via an RME Fireface midi port on Mac.

I will usually do the framework of the song stand alone in hardware and then sync it up to dump each track into PT in multiple passes.

nirun · 2014-03-22T19:46:07.000Z

Instead of watching the numbers change, why don’t you post what the audio sounds like. Would be interested to hear what is out of sync and how it is out of sync before thinking buying something is going to solve your problems.

I use my OP-1 as masterclock with no timing issues with a kenton host hooked up to the midi in of the OT -> midi out to the A4 and have tried with my buddy’s MD connected via midi thru with no sync issues.

Pattern sequencer on the OP-1 stays in sync with everything- despite the bpm jumping around on the OT and A4.

Use your ears, if things start going out of sync you should be able to hear it within a few bars looping.

Also being more direct and clear with what your intended use is for syncing everything together, what version of Live you’re running, the exact hardware you’re using, operating system, processor/ram etc would be useful in narrowing down your problem which is very hard to solve being so vague.

danlukas · 2014-03-22T23:45:13.000Z

@nirun
_well i was a little taken a back by your post, then i realized i was being vague.

and that i hadn’t tested things in about 2 weeks, and i had gathered more familiarity with the machines since then.

_so we try again.

and to be honest, ableton as the master and sending clock out is tight enough for me.

ableton 9.1 master but the octatrack is destination for all audio.
sending midi remote & sync to octatrack & analog 4
via the emagic mt-4

hit play on ableton,

the first 8 you hear are flex machine on the octatrack.

the next 8 is hats sequence from the analog 4 that is unmated

the third 8 is a snare track from ableton which is a clip triggered

the last 8 is another synth sequence unmated from the analog 4

oops… used a sample from something copyrighted… retry…

hit play on ableton,
first 4 flex machine on octatrack
next 4 are hats unmated on octatrack from analog 4
next 4ish are snares triggered from a scene in ableton
…from there synth and more rhythm tracks are triggered scenes or unmated parts from the analog four.

a definite success.

nirun · 2014-03-23T00:06:53.000Z

The track doesn’t seem to be playing- but I am glad everything is syncing up

Happy in sync beat/sound making good sir! Will peep your creations as you post them

danlukas · 2014-03-23T00:12:44.000Z

""nirun"":

The track doesn’t seem to be playing- but I am glad everything is syncing up

Happy in sync beat/sound making good sir! Will peep your creations as you post them

copyrighted or something other… updated above post. thanks for the nudge to _just_do_it. nike!

invisible_acropolis · 2014-03-23T03:04:04.000Z

this thing may be worth a look: http://www.midiclock.de/

but youd probably need a 4x4 midi patchbay to go with it

still a fair amount cheaper than an innerclock setup

if you are syncing multiple devices AND a pc, you pretty much need a dedicated clock generator of some sort

wintermute · 2014-03-23T14:18:29.000Z

[quote=““invisible acropolis””]
this thing may be worth a look: http://www.midiclock.de/

but youd probably need a 4x4 midi patchbay to go with it

still a fair amount cheaper than an innerclock setup

if you are syncing multiple devices AND a pc, you pretty much need a dedicated clock generator of some sort
[/quote]

That would be perfect for me if it had a clock divider option to I normally make music in the 140-170bpm region and really like half time bass lines (which at the moment is quite laborious)

What I’d really really like is to have the A4 DIN output be set like the internal track multipliers!

Interesting article on how Using PC/Mac midi clocks fall down: http://www.midiclock.de/data/ERM_Jitter_Report_02_14_EN.pdf

t · 2014-03-23T14:43:24.000Z

""wintermute"":

Interesting article on how Using PC/Mac midi clocks fall down: http://www.midiclock.de/data/ERM_Jitter_Report_02_14_EN.pdf

Please note that this report specifically deals with DAWs, and Ableton Live specifically, having trouble slaving to an external MIDI clock., and not with the inability of a DAW to provide a stable master clock as discussed in this thread.

dimi3 · 2014-03-23T16:50:46.000Z

iconectivity if it ever releases the iconnect +4 might be a good device. I have the old original and it is good. The new one can also do audio pass thru.

invisible_acropolis · 2014-03-23T17:06:20.000Z

""t"":

[quote=“wintermute”]Interesting article on how Using PC/Mac midi clocks fall down: http://www.midiclock.de/data/ERM_Jitter_Report_02_14_EN.pdf

Please note that this report specifically deals with DAWs, and Ableton Live specifically, having trouble slaving to an external MIDI clock., and not with the inability of a DAW to provide a stable master clock as discussed in this thread.[/quote]
No, thats exactly what that report is about. You may want to try re-reading it.

t · 2014-03-23T17:35:55.000Z

[quote=““invisible acropolis””]

[quote=“t”][quote=“wintermute”]Interesting article on how Using PC/Mac midi clocks fall down: http://www.midiclock.de/data/ERM_Jitter_Report_02_14_EN.pdf
[/quote]

Please note that this report specifically deals with DAWs, and Ableton Live specifically, having trouble slaving to an external MIDI clock., and not with the inability of a DAW to provide a stable master clock as discussed in this thread.[/quote]
No, thats exactly what that report is about. You may want to try re-reading it.[/quote]
The PDF is titled “The Impact of Clock Jitter on MIDI syncable DAWs” and true to it’s title, it’s all about syncing two instances of Ableton Live on running on two different computers.

The question asked and resolved in this thread is about a single instance of Ableton Live acting as the MIDI sync master for a number of hardware MIDI devices.

In my—entirely unscientific—experience, Live has a hard time slaving to an external sync source, so if you only intend to run a single instance of Live, it’s probably best to use it as the master clock source to sync external MIDI devices to.

As an aside, the PDF claims to be “scientific”, but fails to point us to raw data, steps and materials to replicate the tests, and does not provide any details about the kind of hardware on which the tests were run. Also, the tests were performed by the same people selling a device to solve the issue…

poonti · 2014-03-23T19:04:19.000Z

""t"":

[quote=“invisible acropolis”][quote=“t”][quote=“wintermute”]Interesting article on how Using PC/Mac midi clocks fall down: http://www.midiclock.de/data/ERM_Jitter_Report_02_14_EN.pdf

Please note that this report specifically deals with DAWs, and Ableton Live specifically, having trouble slaving to an external MIDI clock., and not with the inability of a DAW to provide a stable master clock as discussed in this thread.[/quote]
No, thats exactly what that report is about. You may want to try re-reading it.[/quote]
The PDF is titled “The Impact of Clock Jitter on MIDI syncable DAWs” and true to it’s title, it’s all about syncing two instances of Ableton Live on running on two different computers.

The question asked and resolved in this thread is about a single instance of Ableton Live acting as the MIDI sync master for a number of hardware MIDI devices.

In my—entirely unscientific—experience, Live has a hard time slaving to an external sync source, so if you only intend to run a single instance of Live, it’s probably best to use it as the master clock source to sync external MIDI devices to.

As an aside, the PDF claims to be “scientific”, but fails to point us to raw data, steps and materials to replicate the tests, and does not provide any details about the kind of hardware on which the tests were run. Also, the tests were performed by the same people selling a device to solve the issue…[/quote]
Does it really matter if two Live computers are being synced, versus a Live computer and some external hardware? I’d think jitter is jitter, and it will affect the downstream devices no matter what they are.

By the way, does anyone here have this device? How well does it work?

invisible_acropolis · 2014-03-23T19:33:32.000Z

""t"":

[quote=“invisible acropolis”][quote=“t”][quote=“wintermute”]Interesting article on how Using PC/Mac midi clocks fall down: http://www.midiclock.de/data/ERM_Jitter_Report_02_14_EN.pdf

Please note that this report specifically deals with DAWs, and Ableton Live specifically, having trouble slaving to an external MIDI clock., and not with the inability of a DAW to provide a stable master clock as discussed in this thread.[/quote]
No, thats exactly what that report is about. You may want to try re-reading it.[/quote]
The PDF is titled “The Impact of Clock Jitter on MIDI syncable DAWs” and true to it’s title, it’s all about syncing two instances of Ableton Live on running on two different computers.

The question asked and resolved in this thread is about a single instance of Ableton Live acting as the MIDI sync master for a number of hardware MIDI devices.

In my—entirely unscientific—experience, Live has a hard time slaving to an external sync source, so if you only intend to run a single instance of Live, it’s probably best to use it as the master clock source to sync external MIDI devices to.

As an aside, the PDF claims to be “scientific”, but fails to point us to raw data, steps and materials to replicate the tests, and does not provide any details about the kind of hardware on which the tests were run. Also, the tests were performed by the same people selling a device to solve the issue…[/quote]
It seems that you are overlooking a great deal of the actual data listed in that report for some reason. Also, I dont think your insistence on being so specific about “the question” in this thread is valid. Its far too narrow and myopic. Perhaps that article isnt what you in particular, are looking for - but I would say it contains quite a bit of useful information. To wit:

poonti
By the way, does anyone here have this device? How well does it work?

thats exactly what the report is about… using the ERM clock vs using Live’s internal clock.

I dont have the device but Im seriously considering it as an alternative to an innerclock

wintermute · 2014-03-23T19:36:13.000Z

""undefined"":

As an aside, the PDF claims to be “scientific”, but fails to point us to raw data, steps and materials to replicate the tests, and does not provide any details about the kind of hardware on which the tests were run. Also, the tests were performed by the same people selling a device to solve the issue…

Read the paper all the way through, the materials and techniques are in there

Geneoart · 2014-03-23T19:52:08.000Z

either way the daw is not the problem with timing and jitter its the delivery system. using usb ports to provide proper midi is a fail. All these usb sound cards with midi and audio running through em just doesn’t work. theres always latency and midi problems.

t · 2014-03-23T20:32:30.000Z

FWIW I don’t think it’s very useful to discuss something like MIDI sync issues outside the scope of a specific problem with a specific setup.

My goal was to help the person who asked the original question resolve his problem since using Ableton Live as a master has worked well for me.

t · 2014-03-23T20:35:15.000Z

""wintermute"":

[quote=“undefined”]As an aside, the PDF claims to be “scientific”, but fails to point us to raw data, steps and materials to replicate the tests, and does not provide any details about the kind of hardware on which the tests were run. Also, the tests were performed by the same people selling a device to solve the issue…

Read the paper all the way through, the materials and techniques are in there[/quote]
I indeed missed some of the details at the end of the PDF; I still don’t think it’s a very comprehensive test and it’s a shame they didn’t try with two Macs, or at least swapping the computers the had at hand for this.

wintermute · 2014-03-23T20:53:38.000Z

I’d disagree, All MIDI clocks have to go through the CPU, which depending on the load will introduce latency and jitter. Though as you say USB and drivers will play a part, but not the whole

Older computers like Amgias etc had dedicated MIDI chips, it’s also down to the resolution of MIDI clock itself, when you have trackers that can output 1024 PPQN it really won’t stand up.

Here’s another interesting thread: http://www.gearslutz.com/board/so-much-gear-so-little-time/165343-how-do-i-get-rock-solid-sample-accurate-midi-timing.html