Slaving Live to Machinedrum via MIDI

filarion · Post by **filarion** » Mon Oct 17, 2005 5:45 pm

I'm having some major problems keeping my Machinedrum UW (OS 1.30) and Live 5.0.2 in sync. the MD is new so I have no idea if the behaviour is new to Live 5. Since I was planning to use them together as a rocksolid (or so I thought) live setup it'd be nice to get this sorted out, so any help appreciated!

using a Powerbook G4 800 (osx 10.4.2), Alesis Photon X25, Machinedrum UW
when I try to slave Live to the Machinedrum via Midi Sync the two will sync together fine on playback. but.... whenever I try to move around in my song on the Machinedrum Live pauses for the remainder of the old pattern and drops back in when the MD starts the newly selected one, but with a completely wrecked timing. - I'm at a total loss here, simple syncing on a full bar, that couldn't possibly be a problem, right?

on the other side of the synchrosination fence, using Live as MIDI Master, stuff works fine but it'd still like to be able to use the Machinedrum as master since I don't want to loose the sound if the laptop craps out.

husker · Post by **husker** » Tue Oct 18, 2005 12:18 am

Try setting the midi port the Machinedrum is on to "Song" mode instead of "Pattern" (or visa-versa)...this will change the behaviour (though still not necessarily what you want)

filarion · Post by **filarion** » Tue Oct 18, 2005 6:46 am

thanks mate! the difference between those modes only applies when Live is MIDI Master it seems. - when in song mode Live will jump forward in the MD's song structure when I jump to cuepoints in the Live timeline. it doesn't factor in the nested loops in the MD though, so it usually jumps to the end of the MD song even though the MD song has more bars (and when I restart the MD while Live is running it'll be out of sync). so "pattern" mode is the only really useful mode when using Live as master.

hacktheplanet · Post by **hacktheplanet** » Thu Oct 20, 2005 7:39 am

Just a quick question for you MD folks...
Does the MD respond to note data from an external source, or can you just play loops that you've programmed into the MD?

filarion · Post by **filarion** » Thu Oct 20, 2005 8:12 am

either will work! recording the note output to midi, triggering individual notes via midi, triggering patterns, etc. is all possible..

on the elektron forums someone confirmed my issue with the MD running as midi sync master, now the question is whether it's the Machinedrum's or Live's fault.. I'll probably write a bug report to Elektron first since it looks like Live is receiving some kind of pause command when the MD triggers a new pattern in the song.

dpel · Post by **dpel** » Thu Oct 20, 2005 6:01 pm

good luck trying to get a some kind of response or at least
acknowledgment on this issue.

search posts for "sync issues" author : dpel

i've been having midi sync issues since version 2. and they still haven't
done anything about it.

totally unacceptable.

dp

filarion · Post by **filarion** » Fri Oct 21, 2005 9:02 am

just read your posts dp, that's a big bummer. midi syncing is one of the basics that an app geared toward live use should get right - live needs to be capable to be slaved to anything following standard midi implementation. i shouldn't be bitching before I mail in a complete bug report but I fear the worst.

dpel · Post by **dpel** » Fri Oct 21, 2005 4:41 pm

filarion wrote:just read your posts dp, that's a big bummer. midi syncing is one of the basics that an app geared toward live use should get right - live needs to be capable to be slaved to anything following standard midi implementation. i shouldn't be bitching before I mail in a complete bug report but I fear the worst.

for sure.

my world depends on reliable quicktime playback. if i were to use Protools or Digital Performer this would not be an issue (just a fact) but i choose to use live because it's such a great program. it's just very frustrating that i have jump through hoops of fire to get Live to work properly. i can't even get an appropriate response or acknowledgement from support.
i use Revision for now. the problem is that it only runs as a master (no VSTi's)
very limiting.
it's just very very disappointing that they have chosen to ignore/neglect what seems to be a very basic feature in a program such as this.

very trivial.
dp