Syncing two mac computers running Live IS IT EVEN POSSIBLE???

Discuss music production with Ableton Live.
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Fantomaz
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Joined: Fri Sep 21, 2018 5:13 pm

Syncing two mac computers running Live IS IT EVEN POSSIBLE???

Post by Fantomaz » Sun Mar 28, 2021 5:52 pm

Hi guys,

HELP PLEASE!!!

We have been using live for a few years to compose music as a band, we are two musicians each running Live on his own (so 2) macbook pro.

We are each recording some midi vst instruments and audio in our own live sessions on our own laptops thru our own interfaces.

We are both tech savvy guys in our 50's with extensive studio experience, one of us has been a pro music composer fro the last 25 years.

We have been using the ext option, one computer is the master the other is slave, one computer generates midi clock and remote, and the other follows. We have been trying this over wifi, but now have opted for cabled ethernet network.

We have tried pretty much every option to get this setup to work properly and after now YEARS of experimentation we get to the conclusion that cannot find a way to make this work reliably.

There seems to be inevitable drifts in sync between both machines... mostly way beneath the 40ms mark, which is three time what is acceptable as a musician...

We have found no way to use link as we need both computers to start reliably on the same beat.

PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE, If any of you has found a way to make a setup like ours to work reliably, we would be interested in your experiences...

THANKS IN ADVANCE!

F&C

yur2die4
Posts: 7154
Joined: Sat Oct 03, 2009 3:02 am
Location: Menasha, Wisconsin
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Re: Syncing two mac computers running Live IS IT EVEN POSSIBLE???

Post by yur2die4 » Sun Mar 28, 2021 8:03 pm

If it’s just time sync, Ableton Link is phenomenal in my opinion. It won’t sync the timeline, but it does sync Playback per Bar on each beat, though I do believe that Link currently also does support start/stop, so maybe the timeline does sync.

Link was introduced as a way to make Syncing less complicated, more robust, and without dealing with the weird quirks of the midi methods.

Edit: additionally, if you cannot get the ‘start/stop’ function of Link to workout, another method with Link would be to introduce a THIRD device which is always ‘playing’. And if you need the two laptops to start simultaneously, just hit Play within a bar of that third device’s that is playback and they should both start at the same time. The third device can be as simple as a phone or iPad.

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