Ableton Live clock SYNC and delay compensation - 2021

[maky355]

I'm able to use this plugin v2.04 on Windows with Live 10 and 11. The plugin works like a charm as soon as I untick the Live track box for the MIDI port in the preferences. I'm unable to make it work if the box is already ticked. If I try to tick the box while the plugin is working, I got the port highlighted in orange, which as far as I understand is a problem of port availability. Strange since I know my MIDI interface has multiclient drivers, and yes... I'm able to use different DAW on the same port.

So this plugin can be a damn good solution to this big lack of Live (the swing feature is awesome ) as soon as I find the solution to being able to track and sync to the same MIDI port at the same time.

On windows in order to use one MIDI port with two applications at the same time your MIDI interface needs to support multi-client MIDI at the driver level.

This unit supports it entirely.

https://www.thomann.de/gb/iconnectivity_mioxl.htm

Old Roland (Edirol) interfaces also work fine.

And yes, the Ableton MIDI clock is fully compensated with an M4L "Clock" device. If you don't have dedicated hardware MIDI clock unit such as this one

https://www.thomann.de/gb/e_rm_multiclock_usb.htm

Then "Clock" device is your only option. It really works like a charm.

The fact that a person needed to create it instead of Ableton - boggles my mind but whatever as long as it is working.

I just want to say thank you to you for fighting the good fight here. i too have been frustrated for months with this exact same problem and the clock plugin seems to be working for me. just want to say thank you

You are welcome. You should also send a thank you to a developer (Nukemodular) who seems to be far more inclined than the Ableton developers.

https://nukemodular.gumroad.com/

Also one more thing. Recently I tried Squarp Hapax and the Nukemodular clock works like a charm. I see that people purchase hardware midi clock up to 500EUR just to be able to have an outboard sequencer in sync with Live. While Nukemodular does the job in the SAME way for less money.

It boggles my mind that Ableton didn't want to build this device and include it in Live but ok we have Nukemodular.

[jbone1313]

From what I can tell, this is a complete non-issue in Live 12, and Ableton finally properly addressed the issue.

Live 12 introduces the "Keep Latency" feature on each track. If you disable that for tracks on which you are monitoring and recording synced hardware, then the recorded audio will line up properly. The only thing you need to set is a little NEGATIVE MIDI Clock Sync Delay in Live's preferences, and that is not an issue, because that latency is FIXED given your current buffer size.

The big reason why this was an issue previously is it was very difficult to deal with the VARIABLE latency induced by plugins, which again is not an issue anymore in Live 12.

In short, in Live 12, turn off "Keep Latency" on the tracks on which you are monitoring and recording your synced gear. Then, measure the FIXED latency amount and set a NEGATIVE MIDI Clock Sync Delay to compensate.

[jbone1313]

One more thing:

I recently learned of a nifty workaround for Live 11 and probably earlier versions. That is, if, AFTER STARTING THE TRANSPORT, you switch OFF the input monitoring of the track on which you are recording your synced gear, then Live will do the same thing as Live 12 does when Keep Latency is DISABLED. You can even map a key command to do this very quickly and very smoothly. Lastly, someone made a MFL device to handle this automatically.

[elt.net]

Yep very annoying issue when dealing with several external sequencers on different projects.

How does the clock m4l plugin work?
Is it [transport] driving midi clock or [phasor] ?

[berwin9]

im on live 12 and this issue still exists. the keep latency option in 12 is for audio latency. The problem here is midi latency (notes dont seem to have latency, only start/stop/sync signal)

[jbone1313]

Did you set a negative clock sync delay as I described earlier?

[gillesdj]

How does the clock m4l plugin work?
Is it [transport] driving midi clock or [phasor] ?

From what I understood, CLOCK allows you to send the clock without taking into account the latency that would be induced by third-party VSTs that you would use in Live. This is useful in case you route your external gears audio in Live.

[magge73]

I've just bought CLOCK 2 and tested it. It DOES compensate any extra latency, that is introduced by 3rd party plugins in Ableton 11. That means, if you add plugins with latency, you don't have to make any adjustments- that's the advantage

This allows you to avoid manual adjustment of clock delay in the sync for each MIDI output in Ableton's preferences, even if you change settings like buffer size. Instead, you just disable sync for each output in the preferences and use the CLOCK m4l device on any track, set the MIDI output you want to sync and you're done (as explained in the video for v2.5 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eqv2bhafn30).

However, I thought that CLOCK might help me with a sync issue I'm still struggling with. I didn't find any easy way to solve this:
I want to use the external sequencer of my Alesis Andromeda synth in conjunction with MIDI notes sent from Ableton. I've set up the external instrument by adjusting the hardware latency, so that the internal sequencer of the Andromeda or its clock-synced LFOs are in perfect sync. But sending a MIDI note from Ableton to the Andromeda takes some more time. If I adjust the hardware latency from 5 to 14ms to get the MIDI note synced up properly, the sequencer or LFOs will be 9 ms early. I've tried to add a negative track delay to the track containing the external instrument – no effect I've then tried to send the MIDI notes from a pure MIDI track with a negative sync delay to the track with the external instrument and also, to send the notes directly to the MIDI port of the Andromeda with negative track delay – both ways didn't work to get clock and MIDI notes in sync. My only workaround is to manually adjust the starting point of the MIDI sequence by moving it to the right, so that the 2nd note starts earlier (kills the first note).

Any idea on how to get MIDI notes from Ableton and sequencer clock in sync which might work better?

Thanks for any help

[Krimewave]

@maky355

Try turning down your attitude a smidge, its rather unbecoming. Secondly all hardware handles and processes Clock in its own way, adding their own latency, which is different for every piece of hardware, Ableton cannot know that, therefore cannot allow for that.

I think maky355 was completely justified in being angry at jur's condescending and completely useless response, especially considering jur is a forum moderator.

for one, jur's response was not relevant to the issue in question, and two, advises on using Ableton's native (inferior) effects as a solution, which in itself is ridiculous.

I think jur is the one who needs to be "turning down your attitude a smidge".

[jbone1313]

As I wrote above, this is a complete non-issue in Live 12, and Ableton finally properly addressed the issue.

Live 12 introduces the "Keep Latency" feature on each track. If you disable that for tracks on which you are monitoring and recording synced hardware, then the recorded audio will line up properly. The only thing you need to set is a little NEGATIVE MIDI Clock Sync Delay in Live's preferences, and that is not an issue, because that latency is FIXED given your current buffer size.

The big reason why this was an issue previously is it was very difficult to deal with the VARIABLE latency induced by plugins, which again is not an issue anymore in Live 12.

In short, in Live 12, turn off "Keep Latency" on the tracks on which you are monitoring and recording your synced gear. Then, measure the FIXED latency amount and set a NEGATIVE MIDI Clock Sync Delay to compensate.