MIDI Clock / Hardware Delay Compensation

dbone · Post by **dbone** » Thu Dec 14, 2006 1:41 am

Hey all! My studio has recently been blessed with the addition of a *mint* condition TR-808 ...with the Kenton MIDI kit. w00t!!

Bummer is that the MIDI clock between the 808 and Live is a little ways off.

What is the best way to sort this out? I have a few ideas but not sure any of them are the most accurate.

Thanks a million!!

Spiralgroove · Post by **Spiralgroove** » Thu Dec 14, 2006 1:42 am

you cant slave the tr-808 to Live?

live midi out > tr 808 midi in

??

dbone · Post by **dbone** » Thu Dec 14, 2006 1:46 am

It does detect the MIDI clock signal - manually changing the tempo causes the 808 to speed up/slow down. It seems to be a MIDI delay compensation thing. I'm using a Steinberg MIDEX 8.

I just want to be sure the most accurate way to correct the timing.

Tone Deft · Post by **Tone Deft** » Thu Dec 14, 2006 1:48 am

on the port you send the midi clock out of, hit the triangle by the port, it expands the menu. my mpc1k requires that I set the clock to MIDI CLOCK with a delay of -50mS, works brilliantly. Try a similar setting.

dbone · Post by **dbone** » Thu Dec 14, 2006 1:54 am

Sorry if I was a little vague there at first and thanks a million for the quick replies!

I'd found the MIDI Clock Sync Delay setting and have it roughed out fairly close. I'm just wondering if there is a way to measure the exact timing it is off in ms.

For the record, I am also in the 50 ms range.

Thanks again!

Tone Deft · Post by **Tone Deft** » Thu Dec 14, 2006 1:58 am

record audio from both, 808 in the left, Live in the right, record and zoom in. bonus points for using the same wave file, ie record a hit from the 808 into Live.

dbone · Post by **dbone** » Thu Dec 14, 2006 2:00 am

Thanks Tone - I'll give it a rip!

dbone · Post by **dbone** » Wed Jan 10, 2007 5:36 am

All in all, sync still not working - way too much latency, drift, start/stop is flaky etc. Ableton?? Confirm or deny this is a known issue, plz!

mux · Post by **mux** » Wed Jan 10, 2007 8:35 am

try using the 808 as the master clock.

I see and hear crazy drift syncing my MPC1000 with Live as the master, but if I make the MPC the master clock it locks tight as a drum (pardon the pun). seriously, there's a very, very noticible difference - I can set the delay perfectly one minute, then hit stop and start again, and it's off. I can get it on perfectly, and it'll drift in and out of sync, regardless which sync mode I use.

downside is if you use an external master clock, and Live decides the incoming clock isn't stable somehow (wtf), it sometimes likes to throw warp markers all over the recorded audio! super headache.

dbone · Post by **dbone** » Wed Jan 10, 2007 11:39 am

I will give it a try, but I would *really* like to hear Ableton say "we acknowledge the problem and we are working on it".

Blows my mind how some some smaller developers have the time to do this sort of thing. I know the scale of the Ableton forums makes this far more difficult, but this HAS to be a known issue. A rather serious one as well. I love Ableton, but blowing the punters off on this sort of thing is a bit of a WTF?

Tone Deft · Post by **Tone Deft** » Wed Jan 10, 2007 5:58 pm

dbone wrote:I will give it a try, but I would *really* like to hear Ableton say "we acknowledge the problem and we are working on it".

Blows my mind how some some smaller developers have the time to do this sort of thing. I know the scale of the Ableton forums makes this far more difficult, but this HAS to be a known issue. A rather serious one as well. I love Ableton, but blowing the punters off on this sort of thing is a bit of a WTF?

The abes are more proactive than most companies, try Akai's support, you might as well pray to the Easter Bunny. They are not going to give anyone a direct reply to their complaint, that would open a pandora's box of user complaints.

Use the Bug reporting forum.

Yes, they are aware of it, if you search back it's been talked about by Henke as one of the things they want to/need to address.

I hear ya though, I love Live and when I see stuff like this I really slap my forehead. I see it as another opportunity to twist Live into doing what I want from it, the program is so damn flexible. Archaic shit like MIDI should be taken care of by now.

evilxsystems · Post by **evilxsystems** » Thu Jan 11, 2007 7:54 am

I've had the same problems, unfortunately it's also been a problem with every other computer based sequencer I've ever used...except one, my atari 1040 ste....which is why I still use the atari as my master clock in the studio...when playing out I settle for a drum machine clock....it's ridiculous though, the faster computers get, the sloppier the MIDI timing gets...

in my studio the quality of computer midi clocks breaks down like this:

Atari Logic 1.3 >> 386 windows 3.1 laptop running cakewalk pro > g4 400 tibook > athalon 2ghz win2k > macbook 2ghz

You'd think after 20 odd years they'd have figured out how to make sequencer software with decent timing....

-jason

MIDI Clock / Hardware Delay Compensation

MIDI Clock / Hardware Delay Compensation

Sync still sucking