anybody using Live with midi timecode succesfully?

Discuss music production with Ableton Live.
HouseContainer
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Re: anybody using Live with midi timecode succesfully?

Post by HouseContainer » Thu Jan 14, 2010 10:58 pm

Well I'm not sure about that last part. I don't have a Mac, but OverSoft does, and we will be testing this new setup soon. So we will find out quickly.

broc
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Re: anybody using Live with midi timecode succesfully?

Post by broc » Thu Jan 14, 2010 11:15 pm

In my experience MTC in Live does work on Mac, but not perfectly as in other DAWs.

I have a MTC generator written in Max. When using Logic as slave I get perfect synchronization, ie. notes sent from Max are recorded in Logic with accurate timing (jitter/delay less than 1ms). This works straightaway without any special adjustments in Logic.

Live as slave is much more problematic. I need to set MTC start time to -2 frames, and also set the MIDI clock delay to something around -20ms (despite the name it seems to affect MTC also). But I'm not sure if these settings are reliable and valid for each run.

3phase
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Re: anybody using Live with midi timecode succesfully?

Post by 3phase » Thu Jan 14, 2010 11:37 pm

on my machine its starts where it wants.. so nothing you could fix with an offset.. except it needs the offset to reallize that its timecode synchronized.. i also think that the actual behavior is much worse than in previous live versions.. becaue in the past it wasnt really tight but working... in the moment its pretty useless for me...


you have tried it with L8.1 allready?
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broc
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Re: anybody using Live with midi timecode succesfully?

Post by broc » Thu Jan 14, 2010 11:44 pm

Yes, my test was done with Live 8.1.1. What are you using as MTC master?

PS. Just did a quick test with Logic as MTC master, and Live's transport seems to follow correctly.

3phase
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Re: anybody using Live with midi timecode succesfully?

Post by 3phase » Fri Jan 15, 2010 10:24 am

Logic aswell... but i use 8.1...I try again with 8.11..

are you on snow leo ?
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broc
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Re: anybody using Live with midi timecode succesfully?

Post by broc » Fri Jan 15, 2010 12:34 pm

I'm on OS 10.5.8.

Note that Logic's MTC start time is set by default to 1 hour (1:0:0:0).
Make sure that it matches Live's start time (0:0:0:0).

3phase
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Re: anybody using Live with midi timecode succesfully?

Post by 3phase » Fri Jan 15, 2010 12:47 pm

broc wrote:I'm on OS 10.5.8.

Note that Logic's MTC start time is set by default to 1 hour (1:0:0:0).
Make sure that it matches Live's start time (0:0:0:0).

sure.. i changed that in logic permannently ..even when its practical thinking it dont comunictes so well with the rest of the world to have the 1 hour offset...
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broc
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Re: anybody using Live with midi timecode succesfully?

Post by broc » Fri Jan 15, 2010 2:03 pm

So it should definitely work.

Just one more thing: when using IAC you may create a feedback loop as Logic listens by default to all ports. So the IAC input in Logic must be disabled. This can be done for example by cabling the IAC port from the physical input object into a monitor object as "dead end". Or you can simply disable all inputs by removing the cable from 'SUM' outlet.

3dot...
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Re: anybody using Live with midi timecode succesfully?

Post by 3dot... » Fri Jan 15, 2010 7:29 pm

hehe... painful issue

I remember the Live6 midiSync being waaaay more stable..
then at v7 it went crazy along with other weirdness es..
but Ableton support has told me I must be dreaming...
because "nothing has changed in the midi engine from v6 to v7 as far as we know"..

so...as you might imagine... I was re leaved...
apparently ...I was only dreaming that L6 had a stabler sync...
Image

3phase
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Re: anybody using Live with midi timecode succesfully?

Post by 3phase » Sat Jan 16, 2010 3:33 am

broc wrote:So it should definitely work.

Just one more thing: when using IAC you may create a feedback loop as Logic listens by default to all ports. So the IAC input in Logic must be disabled. This can be done for example by cabling the IAC port from the physical input object into a monitor object as "dead end". Or you can simply disable all inputs by removing the cable from 'SUM' outlet.

ok !!.. that might lead to something.. iac was active on my machine.. the first try was actually to mtc sync ableton from logic on the same computer via IAC..

i liked the idea to use logic as multitrack recorder with full 16 I/O connection to a analog mixing desk while having live in free sync able to operate at any speed along a much longer time line in logic.. not a bad idea at all..but.. like often lately things didint worked.. so i tried to do it via external midi interfaces.. what didnt worked.. but i cant recall if i ve switched IAC allready off at theese tests.. in the moment i could run logic on another computer..

but in session situations the other audio interface is posessed with somebody that is on cubase.. not so bad the actual version of cubase btw... however syncing between logic and cubase worked good .. with the same timecode output that worked fine on cubase.
feeding one interface into the other actually should work without any feedback... ??

i will check again.. thnx sofar
mac book 2,16 ghz 4(3)gb ram, Os 10.62, fireface 400,

broc
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Re: anybody using Live with midi timecode succesfully?

Post by broc » Sat Jan 16, 2010 1:18 pm

With Logic and Live on different computers there shouldn't be a feedback problem.

Btw, I forgot to mention when using Logic as master with IAC, the following settings are also important:
Logic's synchronization parameter must be set to 'Internal Sync', and 'Auto Sync In' must *not* be checked.


broc
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Re: anybody using Live with midi timecode succesfully?

Post by broc » Thu Jan 21, 2010 11:21 am

Just wanted to add that a similar configuration can also be made with Macs, but you need to replace MIDI-OX with some other MTC generator.
For instance, Logic could be used for this.

Live1 <---MTC--- Logic ---MTC---> Network ---> Live2

designx
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Re: anybody using Live with midi timecode succesfully?

Post by designx » Thu Jan 21, 2010 12:05 pm

Thats interesting broc. I will give that a go.

3phase though was right on the money and in this day and age one should not be looking for a workaround since atari got it bang on tight as a ...ducks.... pity they used floppy discs but that was all that was going then and if I remember 1 meg of memory or less.

Ableton please take a look at the atari st's. Quality

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