Max For Live's ARP out of sync

[Dansk Jävlar]

Hi there,

I have some problems with Max For Live's ARP

1: When I export a song, ARP is TOTALLY out of sync with the rest of the tracks in the song. All is good inside the the live set, but when exported...chaos reigns!

2: Sometimes when I open up a live set, which contains ARP, it seems that my settings in ARP has been set to zero / default or some other random thing. If I then close the live set and re-open it, ARP is back to normal.

These are my two problems. Do I have to update something? I have a deadline on a project and have used ARP a great deal (for the first time) on this project. Now I'm sorta stuck...

I use more than one instance of ARP in a Instrument Rack. I use Ableton 9.7.1 on a MacBook Pro with El Capitan version 10.11.6.

Please help a fellow Ableton user out, who is completely lost in this regard

Thanks

[concept_control]

To get around the issue, record the audio from the messed up midi track (when you get it working) in real time. Create a new audio track, set its input as the dodgy track and record the entirety. Mute the midi track and bounce using the new audio track. If you need to tweak, adjust the midi track and re-record it.

M4L is a real pigs ear. It is an amazing addition but so unreliable. The LFO suffers from the same issue. if I recall, you can "fix" it by changing the incorrect parameter then saving a new user preset and use that going forward. Do a little searching on the forum as that's how I came about the fix.

edit: found the thread referencing the LFO:
viewtopic.php?f=1&t=190624

[Stromkraft]

1: When I export a song, ARP is TOTALLY out of sync with the rest of the tracks in the song. All is good inside the the live set, but when exported...chaos reigns!

I did a quick test and this is not something that happens on default at least. It could be something you set up inadvertently. Have you checked you're not doing something with automation in this track?

What are you exporting, Session or Arrangement?

2: Sometimes when I open up a live set, which contains ARP, it seems that my settings in ARP has been set to zero / default or some other random thing. If I then close the live set and re-open it, ARP is back to normal.

You could duplicate the Arped track, remove Arp and all clips from the duplicate (you'll be making new ones) and then set its source to the track with Arp on as source input PostFX. Deactivate the duplicate track so audio isn't going out at first and then record everything in Arrangement (assuming this is what you use) from the Arped track.

Then deactivate the instrument and Arp and other devices on the source track. Activate the duplicate track that now contains the MIDI you just recorded and use this instead of the original.

Recording stuff is often overlooked for some reason.

You can choose to record as audio as well, but MIDI allows for more detailed adjustments if needed. Both approaches are valid.

[Dansk Jävlar]

Thanks a lot for the replies!!!

I have not set anything up mistakenly or made automations. It is all good when playback inside the session. Only when exporting a STEREO mix the sync goes bananas.

I thought about different ways of getting around the problem - like whats been mentioned, recording down an either audio file or recording midi to another track. This is not optimal at all, since I've got mostly three ARPs inside an Instrument Rack and I'm working on 9 songs. Back and forth in this manner would KILL ALL CREATIVITY...

Is there another arpeggiator alternative? I will have to ditch ARP now unfortunately since this is music on a deadline, for other musicians and professional work (not wanting to sound "important" here , just saying it is not for toying around and learning/trying out stuff...well, I'm learning something, just not in the "good way").

I tried the Blue Arp, but it's routing inside Ableton became "complex" if many instances was needed inside one Instrument rack...

Damn, this is a bit of a bummer. The idea, sound AND workflow was PERFECT for me...until I exported the music...

[Stromkraft]

Back and forth in this manner would KILL ALL CREATIVITY...

Actually, this is not a fact but your own choice. One can choose your own reactions. Just be single-minded, but in a different way.

I think you can find some great arpeggiator plug-ins if you look around and there are other MFL alternatives too. If your issue is with Max itself the latter might not help you.

[Dansk Jävlar]

Back and forth in this manner would KILL ALL CREATIVITY...

Actually, this is not a fact but your own choice. One can choose your own reactions. Just be single-minded, but in a different way.

I think you can find some great arpeggiator plug-ins if you look around and there are other MFL alternatives too. If your issue is with Max itself the latter might not help you.

Yes, you are certainly right that it is not a fact I'm only writing on behalf of myself of cause...not telling others what to do, think or feel AND how I view the problem/"challenge" is up to me.
I've spent much time trying to find a way where I could make easy, fast, flowing arrangements of songs and not having to move stuff around manually and program too much. It feels better for me to actually play the music on a keyboard, since Im singing also at the same time (in the early "one-man-band-versions" of the songs). This is where a "clever" instrument rack with arpeggiators, that has bass in the left hand and chords stabs and other arp stuff in the right hand, comes in handy.
There is another time for editing...
Hope it makes sense

I will look into other MFL arpeggiators now, and cross my fingers and hope that it is not a general problem with MFL and my setup

Thanks for the reply!

[Soarer]

I can definitely confirm this. Having exactly this problem at the moment and I had to record the track first in real time. Also Arp is not starting correctly so that the very fist part of the recorded part is often missing.

Can't help feeling that Ableton is sleeping. The competing company just released a new version with a very elegant solution to modulation that seems to be able to do most of the modulation that MFL does without latency and these issues.

Hopefully Live 10 will work much more smoothly with MFL.

[Myopic]

I can also confirm this. I was hoping that it might be fixed with live 10 + the latest Max (which is what I'm now using). I've tried with the most minimal setup without lots of plugins etc. Anytime I freeze or do an offline render the results of the arp are out of time by a fair bit. I've tried some other sequence based max plugins which seem to work correctly, so it seems like it's a problem specific the the Max arp, rather than Max in general. Would love this to be fixed, as I'm enjoying using Max more now that it's more integrated.

-Tim Meighen