Is it possible to get 2 "Live" in synch (I mean in synch) ?

[creepy_lord]

Hello, from France !
Should be an easy one, I know this has been discussed a lot, but I can't find a clear clean solution for it, so may I ask it here, and if this has been answered, please feel free to delete my post, burn it and flush it down the toilets while peeing on it angrily

So is it possible to get 2 instances of "Live", on 2 computers (which each have a remote 37 sl keyboard, which feature timeclock), to play perfectly synchronized ? I mean perfectly, not like 134.56 BPM and the next second 133.45, tempo moving around during the entire set, and making the beat repeat effect (if set to loop) pretty random because of that ?

Or is an electronic music software in 2009 still as inaccurate as a turntable ?


(and yes, my buffer is as low as I can set it, around 200)

[hurlingdervish]

ive heard of people using ethernet cables although i havent tried

[Tone Deft]

I've heard of people using the manual.

there's also tips in the sticky in the tips n tricks section.
http://forum.ableton.com/viewtopic.php?f=4&t=27120

hint - use SYNC in (for slave)/out (for master) in the midi menu and the EXT button (on the slave.)

[creepy_lord]

"ive heard of people using ethernet cables although i havent tried"

I just tried that, configured it and all, and Live still displays jumpy approximative tempos


tone deft thanx for the "hint", but my problem is way beyond understanding what SYNC and EXT are for...

[Tone Deft]

kewl, so let's skip the n00b stuff, how far have you gotten. I've done with with anywhere from 2 to 6 laptops at once, with different versions of Live (not , Macs and PCs working together even with bpm changes.

[creepy_lord]

dammit !
well i have 2 macs synched
ethernet and midi (through remote sl keyboards)
both work
but inaccurately
as I said, BPM isn't steady, moves around to like 119.54 to 120.33 to 119.99 to 121 etc...
so everything sounds approximately synched
but sometimes u hear it moving around
and
this is particularly annoying when using the beat repeat as a looper, like if you're looping just 2 steps, sometimes it ads one, and that only happens when i'm in EXT, otherwise beatrepeat works fine when not synched

dammit
i just want the bpm value when in EXT to be steady and never move and stay in exact synch with the other mac
this is electronic dammit, how comes they haven't made it rocket scientist precision since version 0.1 ?
dammit

[Tone Deft]

ahhh when I read your reference to 'steady bpm' I thought you were speaking hypothetically, as in those general kinds of things shouldn't happen.

the truth is that Live's midi sync sucks. we've ranted on the forum about it, please feel free to do the same. sometimes it's rock steady, sometimes it's a mess, YMMV.

here's a poll I ran a while ago, before Live 8.
http://forum.ableton.com/viewtopic.php? ... +midi+sync
please feel free to rant there, I wish Ableton would seriously address this. they have to know about it and hate it, they're Live users too.

[creepy_lord]

dammit
i was afraid you were gona give me that answer
ok
fine
totally unimaginable
it's version 8
not 0.1

holy hell
i am switching back to my accordeon
thanx anyway !
cheers

[malutki]

dammit
i was afraid you were gona give me that answer
ok
fine
totally unimaginable
it's version 8
not 0.1

bit sad isn't it?
sometimes I feel like Live is getting more powerful but less good...

holy hell
i am switching back to my accordeon

Ha! Perfect!!!

now if I could only decide on an instrument, or stay happy singing...

[NPC]

i've not much experience syncing laptops, but for what i've seen so far much depends on which midi out/ in ports you use to send & receive the signal: for example, now i'm sending the sync from my ibook (master) out to the pcr300, which sends it again to the emx (which is PERFECTLY in sync), which in turn sends it to my friend with a MBP. we've tried it over and over, and after say one hour and a half the metronomes are still phasing out like the first minute.
but if i try to send that same signal through the mpd24 midi out, the metronome drifts in a couple of minutes. (the rest being equal). and if i try through the remote zero, sync is perfect but the unit will always stop responding completely in just about an hour..
so maybe its worth experimenting with different configs..

[joe.cavers]

I had this same problem, I can get the computers to communicate fine but they don't stay perfectly in sync. At least definitely not enough for me to, say, play a minimal track on one laptop and start adding my own percussion/drums on the other.

No workaround for this?

JC

[Jabbon]

MIDI sync does not equal sample sync... thus MIDI sync is (because of its sampling once every 5 ms) by nature "UNPRECISE".
In general i had lots of problems in combination with Novation products too.
They are fantastic for some stuff, but for other...
did you try some settings on your MIDI interface (if possible?)?
For example I discovered that it is not necessary to send MIDI sync to all outputs of the Remote, and that essential has to be the setting of "Pattrn" vs song mode in Ableton.
Pattern results much more stable.
If you use Automap, erase automap from your computer, simply DO NOT use it, its perfect for self contained systems... but who uses only one thing today? And when it comes to sync and stuff the second ReWire protocol which Automap uses, eats lots of stuff, including MIDI external sync messages (at least this is my experience).


Maybe it is indeed redundant, but MIDI messages are much "slower".
Did you ever try to sync Logic ?
Protools doesn´t even have a MIDI slave option.
Timelines are absolute to themselves but relative to the others, and I guess everyone, not only ableton, should start to think of a more general approach to problems which musicians, djs, and producers deal with when working with some kind of music.
Personally I find ridiculous that OS 9 computers manage MIDI timing much better than ANY OS X does and will ever do...

peace and love and Live

[WFTD]

Guys,

DJ parnetr and I have solved it and its pretty easy if you have 2 Midi interfaces. Connect them both via a Midi cable and set one as the slave and one as the master. My friend and I have done it and works everytime. There is slight phase so the SLAVE set the midi clock to 14.00ms out....and then its nailed! Check out my links below.

http://forum.ableton.com/viewtopic.php?f=4&t=114129

http://forum.ableton.com/viewtopic.php?f=4&t=113918

http://forum.ableton.com/viewtopic.php?f=4&t=115525

Big Love and stay off the glue

Welfare for the Digital (WFTD)

[creepy_lord]

hey thanx all for your input

it seems possible to setup a pretty good illusion of perfect synch indeed, and I've managed to do that, both macs play together fine, sure, tempo varies and is unsteady and keeps jumping around, but yeah it manages to get around and it's playable alright (not as half as good as it should be by now, but ok it's a start (v. 8... ) )

... until you use the beat repeat as a looper (like this if you're not sure what I'm talking about

)

this really reveals how bad the synch is working, because instead of hearing a clean proper loop, depending on how live receives the bpm (120.45, or 119.78 etc...), the beat repeat will sometimes think there is an extra beat or something, and will "randomly" change the length of the loop and add 1 step here and there

i hope I manage to explain clearly enough...

that's why I'm thinking unless I have a clean totally perfect synch, it is not possible to use beat repeats that way, which I yet really need

[Jabbon]

but if you have the 8 you get looper, and could easily use looper as an internal loop machine... with reverse functions, and add a brpt at the end to play with the audio file...

or?