Syncronize Ableton with Logic 9

[hitfactoryromania]

Hello guys,

in our studio we are working on two plattforms - MAC and PC.
(Powermac G5 + Intel Quad Core PC).

Both systems (Win7 or XP / OSX 10.5) have a multiface 1 firewire card with PCI adapter installed.
The PC is used mainly for Ableton suite 8 and the mac runs Logic 7. Since we are a small team of 2 producers/programmers and working in parallel most of the time, we came up with the idea to create a sync between the two systems. This would allow us to put our work together in the end, without exporting / importing the data from PC to Mac and losing precious time. The drums are mainly coming from ableton - logic is used more for the voice recordings + real instruments.

The idea: We wanna create a stable connection via wordclock or Midi.
Logic should be the master and and when we are hitting the play button, ableton (slave) should react and follow the playback realtime. The audio outputs of both multiface cards are anyway going in an analog mixer and being mixed together this way. From there we are mixing down to the audio input of the Mac creating the final mixdown.

So we basically look for a syncronization methode for this two systems.
We even wanna be able to jump around in the arrangement window (like in rewire modus on a single system) and having ableton following our MAC.

Does anyone know what setup would be best to get this situation handled?
Do you have any links or tricks how to setup the preferences in logic and ableton?

Would it be possible synchronizing even more machines like 2 PC or 3 MACS at a time?

Is there any professional solution or device needed or are the multiface cards equiped with this technology already ?

We really tried our best using MMS and Midi but unfortunately not with the desired results.

Thanx a lot.

[tribalogical]

Here's something I ran across on Apple's discussion forums…

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You should get decent enough settings using just MIDI. First, I'll assume that you use your Mac to provide the clock info. Go to:

File > Song Settings > MIDI

This allows you to transmit MIDI clock info. If there's any latency in your system, you can also send a negative delay, (Logic's way of sending the clock out early) using the slider just below the destination pull down menu. You may have to experiment with this to get the sync tight.

Checking the MIDI Time Code box will allow you to restart the piece somewhere other than the beginning. However, make sure that you only send MTC out to the port you want since it can flood the system and cause delays. It's solid enough if used correctly.

If the PC is to provide the master clock then click hold on the tiny clock in the transport bar and select Midi Clock Sync. You should be able to control Logic from Live then.
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Note someone else said it takes a second or so for both sequencers to start running after hitting 'play' in Logic, but that they are in perfect sync once started…

Anyway, hope this helps!


peace.

[mholloway]

I've been able to sync the two without much problem using the mac IAC bus driver. You have to open Live first or else it will open in rewire mode (if logic is already open), and ableton in rewire mode is horribly crippled. Have you tried this? It's not -perfect- but it works, and requires no other hardware, routing, etc..

-M

[EdRyan]

ableton in rewire mode is horribly crippled.

In all fairness, this is not strictly Ableton's fault. They are using Rewire...one of the catches of Rewire is that any slave app cannot host 3rd party plugins. It's not just Ableton that suffers this way..