PLEASE HELP w/midi latency to/from roland vdrums

[roembach]

ive been working on a LPA setup for my new improv electronica project. i use ableton for synths/drum machines and also a roland vdrum set for playing live drum parts (I use the sounds from the TD-3 module and run the audio into the same mixer as our laptops to avoid any latency). i am trying to use a midi track to record and loop parts, recording notes from the drums and sending them back to the module for sound. ive been dealing with a 2 part problem, first the midi latency for the input notes makes them come in to the clip late. The second problem is the midi latency back out to the module makes them even farther from accurate. I've been trying to deal with this problem by using the track latency setting, but that seems to make latency for all other tracks much worse. Ive tried using the external instrument patch to deal with this, and it seems to do a better job lining up the incoming notes, but for some reason makes the notes go back out too early (Im assuming that is because its made for audio to come back into the external instrument) If anyone has any other ideas on dealing with this problem PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE help, if i can get this working i will be a very happy camper

this is an improv on my basic setup that i will be using, but in this clip i was using a drum rack for the drum sounds, playing notes early and using record quantize to line the notes up right
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gm4Zy8jqTNs





www.soundcloud.com/roembach

[Ableton_David]

Hi - what kind of interface are you using to send MIDI from Live? One other thing to think about:

Consider creating a "dummy" track for getting the MIDI notes to return to the module as soon as you play them. Create an extra MIDI track, make sure it's getting MIDI from the track that is receiving MIDI from the V-Drum. Set it to Monitor In. Then set it so that it's sending MIDI back out to the V-Drum.

[roembach]

thanks for the reply, tried that method also, the latency makes the system unusable, as far as midi interface, ive used the one on my soundcard (eiderol ua101) the one on the roland juno G and the one on a korg padkontroll, all having the same latency issues, if it runs through ableton it has just enough delay so i cant play accurately (it also triggers twice), so im trying to just use the drums in parallel to ableton and record the notes and be able to play them back through the module using a standard midi track once i stop playing the part live and need to loop it.


any more ideas???

[carlosjhzapien]

I've ran into the same latency issues with MIDI on Ableton for about 2 years now, mentioned it on the forum and even created a bug report and the problem still exists.

The problem occurs not only with Drums but other inputs. I've tested with keyboard inputs as well as Roland's TD-3 with triggers and a TD-9 kit. For midi I've used Motu's 8Pre,828MK3, Express 128 midi inputs and outputs, as well as Profire 2626, Midi Sport 2x2, the midi inputs of VSynthXT, Novation RemoteSL (connected using USB), using different latency settings, buffer sizes, on a MacBook Pro and on a Mac Pro. I've changed cables, closed browsers, turned every other program off, and still the problem persists.

This is definitely a problem with Live's MIDI (which is ironic as it's supposed to be the main purpose of the app lol). And it gets worse if you want to record. I did a test where I had the output from the TD-9 into the Motu's 128 MIDI, then into Ableton in a MIDI track. The sound output from the TD-9 goes into a separate PA and not into the system at all, just for reference. I have added Session Drums to this track. Then the audio output from this track goes into the main stereo output as well as an audio track. Then I do a recording of 8 bars of my drummer performing. When recording as you mentioned the sound from the session drums is off from what the TD-9 is actually playing via its own sound module. So off that is very noticeable and if it was to be used by my drummer for performance then it would be distracting).

WHen the recording completes if you want to just replay what was recorded, the drums will replay on the session drums instrument and the audio of the session drums which was just recorded are going to play at the same time. It would be reasonable to think that the sound from both the session drums playing with the recorded midi and the recorded audio sound almost in sync, but they don't. The MIDI still plays even LATER than the recorded audio. So there's MIDI latency in recording and then additional latency when replaying. So the drums I just recorded sound like they have a delay effect on them.

When opening the MIDI piano roll and then taking a screenshot and then compared that with a screenshot of the audio (with markers enabled) it's very evident that there's a delay in there, a delay which makes it really impossible to deal with when performing live. Yes this can be fixed in the studio for preparing recording, but forget about playing live.

When recording ProTools using Reason KONG and ReDrum and also Superior Drums, the delay is almost unnoticeable so that it's practical to play and record using the sound output as a monitor reference.

I've seen videos of the drum guy from Depeche Mode (I think) using Ableton with drum triggers in concerts, I wish I knew how he does it! (Perhaps he doesn't use midi instruments or he's just applying sound effects on audio tracks?)

My next test will be splitting the midi signal and recording on ProTools at the same time that I'm recording in Ableton, one slaved to the other or using an external time piece. This is going to be interesting.

[roembach]

thanks for confirming my issues, if kong and redrum work as well as you say they do, it will be worth it to me to invest in reason5, i will have to find a demo and try that out, thanks for the suggestion. ive heard of people using NI battery to trigger sounds live, i might try that as well. anywho, thanks for the feedback. i hope DISableton seriously takes a look at some of these persisting problems that plague an otherwise wonderfull application.


please please please fix live 8, iknow you do what you can, but the bugfix logs with each update seem like problems that are unique to certain machines/setups, lets get on the debilitating ones that keep ableton from being the only product necessary

[carlosjhzapien]

I found the answer to these problems, which Ableton pretty much tells us to "live with it".
In the User's Guide, starting on page 524, they have their MIDI Fact Sheet. Quite informative and at least ends with the frustration of dealing with what seemed to be an unknown. The tests they ran are similar to the tests I've ran myself (I don't know how I missed this part of the documentation before).

So all in all they say they add Latency to prevent jitter. A bit strange as I still encounter jitter, but ok let's say this is the case. What I found very troublesome is this recommendation:

"Do not enable track monitoring if you are recording MIDI while listening directly to
a hardware device such as an external synthesizer (as opposed to listening to the
device’s audio through Live via the External Instrument device). Likewise, disable track
monitoring when recording MIDI data that is generated by another MIDI device (such
as a drum machine). When monitoring is enabled, Live adds latency to compensate for
playthrough jitter. Therefore, it is important to only enable monitoring when actually
playing through"


This is disheartening. Disabling Monitoring while recording pretty much eliminates the possibility of recording while playing midi instruments and then loop them live. Like in your case I also need to play the a series of instruments in a live setup, then loop them and go on to another instrument, loop them, go back, on an on.

Oh well, while Ableton's solution might render some stability for recording in a studio setting it's not optimal for live performance.

Anybody has any ideas?

[roembach]

i have an idea..

have the sound output from the vdrums parallel to abletons. map the record button to the monitor button as well as well so that notes wont be duplicated, theoretically it will record the notes while not playing them, and play them as soon as you hit play with latency taken into consideration. as it is 530 am here in north dakota, my neighbors wont like me testing this out on the vdrums right now. i will have time to try this out on sunday, but if you get the chance to, let me know how it works.

btw... can reason be setup to output to a set of unused outs on the same soundcard that ableton is using? or even the same outs? do you have the same latency issues if you rewire reason to ableton (you mentioned protools)? can i use the sequencer from reason to deal with the drums rewired to the clock from ableton?

[roembach]

so, i messed around with the monitor settings and it didnt really help, it seems to help if i run the audio back into ableton, but not when i bypass it altogether, sigh

[The III Man]

This is really interesting. I'm pretty experienced with live - however latency is always my sticking point. My aim is slightly different and for those Roland owners this might be of interest.

I just invested in this kit never having had electronic drums before - http://www.2box.se/

you get a brain that can take on multi-layered samples you make up yourself so latency whilst playing any of your own sounds is no longer an issue and you can assign all the volumes tuning and set up the kit on a usb bit of software - very nifty.

However I would like to loop through ableton - using the audio looper. And then mess up the loop live. I can set that up fine (although as yet I think I have to get the click from ableton and not my kit until they run a tempo sync thing for it which I have asked about), However I will inherently get some latency - from what I can tell I think this is a much more basic prpoblme of basically needing a fast computer and solid sound card to reduce the latency time right down. Should be solvable if a little expensive.

I would like to know though - how would you best go about live looping drum audio through ableton, what setup would you use? and would monitoring be set on auto? I guess I would then compensate for any latency with the same negative setting in the preferences for latency compensation. Any suggestions would be great as I want the setup as tight as possible.

For live ideally, i think I would split the audio output to a desk so the looper takes the input for looping but the main audio goes out to the desk? However this would give the audio through the laptop a delay which means I would get a chorusing effect through the laptop.

One thing I can use is a kaoss pad 3 as that works nice and easily - although its midi sync issues are a little tricky. All I would say to the first poster is I have an edirol f466 and its midi out is terrible.

[roembach]

ive tried using the kp3 for looping, as long as you dont change tempo while your loop is playing it seems to work, but its a hassle to use your hand to do the sampling. one of the reasons i was bypassing ableton with the audio is so i could run the drums through the kp3, i guess using it to loop the actual audio might be my best bet, i will try and set up some kind of dummy track to deal with the midi to/from the kp3 so i can use a foot pedal to controll the looping, i kinda forgot about using that thing when i started using M4L to try and deal with my issues. will definately experiment with that.

this is a horrible problem that shouldnt exist, please fix this latency issue