Recorded audio out of time

[DJ Tequila]

I've had Live for a while and upgraded to 8 recently. At around the same time, I changed my production technique. These days, rather than build up layers and layers of soft synths and drum machines, I'll get a sound I like and bounce it down.

The new folders combined with groups and make this a more rational process now. After bouncing I can group all the synths and effects in a channel, turn off the group, then drop the original into a 'bounced' folder, in case I need it later. At the same time I can drop the group into a folder under the 'Instrument Rack' plug-in for later use...

This is all wonderful and my production values have increased a notch as a result.

The problem is that when I bounce a track down, it comes in out of time.

I'm setting up a 'bounce' track (normally with something to give analogue warmth, like a characterful compressor set slightly hot and a limiter just in case) and wiring up the outputs of the tracks I want to bounce down to it. I arm the track, set the sequencer to record and play. (Sometimes I wait for at least one pass so it gets any reverb or delay tails.)

The audio always gets recorded severely out of time. It's shunted forward by about a quarter of a beat... I can usually sort it out with warp markers, but I don't want to be warping stuff after a bounce. Firstly, it's bad for work-flow - it means I'm less likely to want to bounce. Secondly, each time I screw with markers I'm subtly adding artefacts to the sound. Third, although it's good for rhythmical parts, it's really irritating for sounds with long attacks, or textures.

SO:

Does anyone know why my recorded audio is shunted forward? Does anyone know how to fix it?

Thanks!

[3phase]

how do you do the bouncing?

[DJ Tequila]

1: I'll set the output of track A to be track B, then arm track B and set it to receive.

2: I'll then set loop markers around the audio I want to capture.

3: I'll set the play cursor to the beginning of the loop, click record, then click play.

[gibson_ewok]

Hey I usually don't get latency when recording from one track to another. Although it can be as late as half a beat when bouncing the master into a channel. Although the way I route it is Track B takes input from Track A. Not Output track A into B.

Cheers,
Bill.
www.mrbillstunes.com

[DJ Tequila]

Thanks gibson_ewok. I'll give that a go... It would mean that I'd have to create a new 'mixer' track if I was bouncing multiple tracks, but it would be far preferable to the current situation.

Ableton support said they 'couldn't recreate' the problem. Seems not to be a common bug/feature. I was hoping I'd just some something stupid.

[arafel]

Maybe post an example set that this occurs in so others could test it / examine the routing.

I've had this type of thing occur in Logic 7 & 8 too. Solved it with simpler routing and PDC.

[DJ Tequila]

I have a project I sent to support, but it is really, really simple.

gibson_ewok, thanks for your suggestion. It went 99.9% of the way to solving the problem. Unfortunately I've found a new, subtle and cumulative timing problem with loop recording. In fact, it's a set of problems. Seems to be an Ableton Live 8 thing as I couldn't recreate all of them Live 7.

I'm going to take this to the support forum, so follow me there if you want to help me find out how far this problem goes.