[6377] External Sync - Wobbly Tempo. . . ?!?!

[discopimp]

i can confirm this, have tried everything slaving Live 8.01 - 8.04 to external sync .... i'm also getting this wobbly tempo ... have tried several midi interfaces, airport, ethernet ... nothing works properly

[robocop]

It always as been like that! It is not Live only, it is the same with ,logic pro tools....try a separate USB interface for clock sync, the midi interface for sync must not play notes...

[R.A.W.]

I see you mentioning the MME driver... should try ASIO4All instead
its much faster and handles low latency better than the MME/directX

we are talking about the midi tab and midi port settings here, that has nothing to do with asio.


me and my bandmate sync our notebooks over ethernet using ipMIDI. ableton ext sync is far from perfect, it works for us, but it could be tighter.
what i really don't get at all is why latency compensation is automatically turned off when live runs as clock slave...

[arctic ranger]

It always as been like that! It is not Live only, it is the same with ,logic pro tools....try a separate USB interface for clock sync, the midi interface for sync must not play notes...

thats bullshit. rarely do you see other progs with this problem. this has been a huge problem with live for a long time.

[robopop13]

It always as been like that! It is not Live only, it is the same with ,logic pro tools....try a separate USB interface for clock sync, the midi interface for sync must not play notes...

thats bullshit. rarely do you see other progs with this problem. this has been a huge problem with live for a long time.

I see you use a lot of soft synth, I don't.I use only external midi gear.I am on Pro Tools 8 at the time and I do have clock jitters,so...

With Live you can open a blank project, create a midi track with a dummy clip(no notes), set your buffer to 64 or 128 (that tights the clock) and see if you have a stable midi clock....then if you add a lot of notes in the clip, you should start to have jitters, kind of MIDI overload.If you have this, try two separate midi interfaces one for notes and one dedicated to sync.

There is no such problems with soft synth, I am talking about external hardware midi gear only.

[AbletonJunkie]

I get this as well on my gear, at 120 BPM, the wobble is around + or - ".2" of a BPM.
The BPM in Ableton is displayed as 119.80 or 120.22, when the clock on the hardware is exactly 120 BPM.

I don't use the Sync much, the only time I use it is when I'm recording the MIDI into Ableton from one of my synths preset drum patterns (It helps line up the drum patterns). It does it on my CASIO LK-50 and on my KAWAI MS710.

I hadn't noticed it before version 8 (as usual, lol). As I recall it used to stay bang on 120 BPM in previous versions.
The Sync Type I use is "MIDI Clock". It may work better if I switch to port type MME (I use DirectX, because according to the blurb it's supposed to be better?).
I notice Ableton defaults to MME though? Don't really know. Worth a try. It's not that important to me really, like I say, just an annoyance more than anything.
I can simply get around it by Ctrl-U'ing to quantize. But I should imagine if you rely on Sync it would be a REAL pain in the ass.

By the way. Any one who says it's supposed to be that way is wrong. It is a VERY audible and noticeable difference. It's the difference between something sounding "tight" and something sounding almost humanized. MIDI Clocks are not there to be nearly right, if that were the case there would be no need for the County of Greenwich.

I've noticed that Ableton developers seem to be more interested in the EIC and their library development than a decent DAW these days. Funny, my free Cakewalk LE doesn't crash at all. Doesn't suffer any of these problems in fact. The only reason I use Ableton is for the workflow. I don't care for the EIC at all. I'd much rather have a stable Sequencer. (See: http://forum.ableton.com/viewtopic.php?f=2&t=119057 - Sorry for the thread hijack, but just expressing a view!). I think the developers / testers should clearly change focus back to the basics.

I use Creative X-Fi ASIO at 44,100 and 7ms latency.

[benjamingordon]

im still getting this problem. . . ive been doing some more tests. . . im going to come back to you with some tests and results!!!

this didnt happen in Live7. . .

[discopimp]

... the midi interface for sync must not play notes...

yes, i tried that as well ... in fact i tried every possible combination with the 4 computers and 5 midi interfaces i have, it's the same with all of them.

sending tempo from Logic, Cubase or Live is the same ... Sync-host is at 120 BP ... tempo on the live-slave is drifting ± 1 bpm, which is unacceptable for what i want to do. call me old-fashioned but i really like tight timing, approximative timing just doesn't cut it ...

[Rob Bec]

I have the same problem. Ableton, what do you have to say about this? It's a REALLy big problem for myself and apparently others. Like the person before ,me said, i need my timing to be EXACT not APPROXAMATE! Is there a solution to this problem?

[benjamingordon]

still getting this problem...

- korg kaoss to ableton
&
- ableton to korg kaoss

- MPC1000 to ableton
&
- ableton to MPC1000

&

- ABLETON TO ABLETON?!!!

[T1mur]

Hey everyone,

unfortunately it seems that Live is still not able to calculate a stable tempo/bpm out of a stable Midi Clock Sync signal when run as Slave (as a Master Live can be perfectly stable).

While your overal system setup and Audio/Midi interfaces have an impact on Midi Clock stability this is not the source of these issues. That is because a) it even happens with jitter-free virtual midi connection (IAC, MidiYoke) and b) other software on the very same setup can perfectly well sync/calculate proper bpm.

So for the time being I advice against using Live as a Midi Clock Slave when stable tempo is mandatory, but you can perfectly well use it as a timing-stable Master (if your Slave hardware/software allows for more stable slave timings).

The following animated screenshots demonstrate how NI Kore 2 and Ableton Live 7 + Kontakt plugin sync to the very same Midi Sync Clock source as Slaves over a virtual (aka jitter-free) MidiYoke connection. As you can see the tempo drift of Live as a Clock Slave is quite pronounced.

111 bpm



333 bpm

[triss]

i'm hoping that i can fix the ableton slave issue using liveAPI.

started this thread last night: http://forum.ableton.com/viewtopic.php?f=4&t=123021

bit of hack but it may work. fingers crossed.

[T1mur]

You can try to run Live as Rewire Slave while making the Rewire Master the Midi Clock Slave to your external Clock. But Live doesn't allow using external plugins when run as Rewire Slave.

[triss]

t1mur, thats genius. if that works for me i'll give you a virtual bj. i'll only need one copy of ableton with VSTs in i think.

I've finally found a use for that unused copy of renoise!

[l-rs]

Hey triss, any luck with that last suggestion?

I wrote Ableton support on August 26th with my latest findings (amongst other things that Live 6 that is still on my system is rock solid on the bpm, same setup, same drivers).

They don't reply at all so that's either a) they're working on it or b) they don't care or c) don't consider the wobbling bpm a problem.

Long synths especially crackle like mad (I'm guessing from all the recalculations) and the pops and cracks drive me nuts. Funny thing: when I turn off EXT it all goes away. But my external 707 also drives the 303 so I can't run on internal clock.

It's killing off my joy for Ableton, must admit...