Syncing Hardware with DAW for overdubs

The Lounge General Discussion
1

Hey,
I mainly use ableton to record my synths. While I get a great sync between my different synths while jamming/recording, problems arise after having recorded some sounds, playing them back and wanting to record more sounds. The sounds I am trying to record are not in sync with the recorded material. I tried playing with delay compensation (somehow just does not work for me/cannot hear any difference) and also tried with activating “no latency when monitoring” option. I could also use the monitoring on my interface but I would preferably control everything inside my daw.

What are your workarounds for this? Would it make sense to get a midi clock device where I can adjust the samples back or forward for each midi device?

Thank you in advance

Gear:

  • rme fireface uc
  • iconnectivity mioxl
2

Are you using Live’s “External Instrument” instrument to control your hardware synths? That’s the tool that you need here.

In the External Instrument there’s a box in which you can adjust the latency for each specific synth to get it bang on the grid when playing and when recording the audio from it.

To set this up, do the following.

Create a MIDI track and load an External Instrument into it. In the External Instrument, set the MIDI port and channel for the synth you want to set up, and the audio input you use to listen to and record from that synth.

Record a series of MIDI notes that are quantised to the beat (8ths or 16ths best for this) and use that MIDI clip to play the synth you want to set up. It should pretty close to being on the grid (although in reality it may well be a few milliseconds off it, this is hard to hear when playing).

Create an audio track and set the Input for the audio track as the output from the MIDI track with the External Instrument in it… i.e. the audio output from your hardware synth MIDI track (via the ‘External Instrument’ instrument) is feeding into the audio track you just created.

Arm the audio track and click in a clip to set it recording, let it run for 8 bars or so then stop.

Open up the audio clip. It will show you how far off the grid the synth is playing each note. If you zoom right into the waveform and drag from the beginning of the waveform for a note to the grid marker for the note in question (8th or 16th), at the bottom of the window in Live you’ll see a readout of the number of samples between the grid marker and the sample start point. That’s the latency adjustment you need to make. If the readout says 5ms, then you dial 5ms into the External Instrument latency adjustment box, if it says 8ms then you dial in 8ms and so on.

Repeat the process above, adjusting the latency number in the External Instrument box each time until the recorded audio waveform and the grid marker are pretty much aligned (around 1ms either way is fine).

Finally, save the External Instrument as an instrument preset in your User Library so the next time you want to record from that particular synth you just load the User Preset you saved and you’re good to go.

If I’ve lost you at some point in the above, have a search through YT for tutorial videos on all of this, there should be some good walkthroughs there.

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3

I covered this in another topic somewhere

If you are using any version before Ableton 12 you need to switch the monitor options on the reciting tracks to “off” when you record otherwise Ableton records the audio with the plugin delay compensation added to it.
If you are using 12 you can right click on the audio monitor in button on the audio track and deselect “record with latency” option

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thank you for the tips. Will try these out!

@Deaf_Eric, I just checked and I think you mean “keep latency” right? On my default live session they are all automatically active, why would they do that?

@MuttBeats I assume that with this method, I would always have to use the same buffer size when recording right?

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If you mean buffer size within your interface settings then yes, just set it to whatever works (ie as low as you can get away with without audio breakups) and leave it be.

If you mean the latency adjustment within the External Instrument box, once you’ve calibrated it using the process I described, you just keep it as-is for both playback and recording.

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@MuttBeats if i remember correctly, my problem with using live’s external instrument was that it can create a feedback loop. So for instance when I played something on the keyboard of my synth it would play it twice, since the first time it came when I touched the keyboard and the second trigger came after it arrived in ableton and was sent back to the synth. Any workarounds?

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Check your synth. There is usually a ‘local off’ setting that disconnects its keyboard from triggering the sound. So the MIDI goes from the keyboard to the DAW and back - and that MIDI then triggers the sound.

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I do know about this function, but whenever I want to play the keyboard I need to toggle local on and off right?

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Yes, you do.

You will need to turn Local Off if you’re using a synth as a MIDI controller to (in effect) play itself via Live.

The synth is sending MIDI data to Live which Live then sends back to the synth you’re playing. If the keyboard on the synth is also sending MIDI data to the synth at the same time, you end up with a MIDI loop and it will sound weird.

Most synths enable “Local on” or “Local off” to be stored in settings so you only have to configure this once if your synth is permanently connected to a DAW.

If you swap between offline playing (ie not connected to a DAW) and using the synth with a DAW then you need to get used to scrolling to the Local on/off setting.

10

Yes that makes sense. Now I remember again why I started using individual midi tracks to send and to receive midi. Like this a midi feedback loop won’t be creates as only either one of the 2 channels is armed

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