Stop adding silence at the beginning of imported audio

[kaiweb]

When I import audio, there is a small amount of silence added to the beginning of the clip. When the audio is at a specific BPM, this completely messes up the timing so that the clip is a little behind the beat. I test the import into other software and there is no extra silence at the beginning--so I know this is something that Ableton Live is doing. It would be great if the software would stop doing that, so that my imported stems are perfectly in sync as my client intended.

[Tarekith]

Are these MP3s?

[kaiweb]

Yes. And I've also discovered it's adding silence at the end of exported wav's. I haven't had the time to test every format. It's embarrassing in front of my clients that none of my audio lines up with the BPM grid they specified.

So this issue exists with imported and exported audio. This breaks a very common and high priority scenario.

1. Producer/Engineer sends reference audio track, and BPM
2. Performer follows the instructions for changing all the default settings so that Ableton won't change the BPM of imported audio (no default warp).
3. Performer sets the BPM, and imports the audio, which snaps perfectly into place in the grid.
4. Performer records tracks
5. Performer exports individual stems
6. Producer/Engineer imports the stems into their grid and the audio snaps perfectly into place.

Step 3 and 6 are broken. It's extremely embarrassing in front of my client and I may lose a gig because of this. They are telling me to stop using Ableton all together.

[wolfglass]

I have the same feeling. Yeah they really need to fix this, I don't see the point of it.

[Richie Witch]

This has already been asked and answered in this thread:

viewtopic.php?f=1&t=102691&sid=aef7b5ae ... 1d329129ee

The silence is caused by the way mp3s are encoded. It has nothing to do with Live.

[Tarekith]

And decoded too, different algorithms can give you different amounts of silence before and after the track.

[kaiweb]

As I stated, other DAWs behave differently. Ableton needs to play well with others. Especially now when artists are largely forced to work remotely and exchange tracks back and forth over the internet.