Ableton Forum

iain.morland wrote:
My brain hurts again now.

Iain, I think Amaury and, therefore, the Ableton developers know the situation well enough by now.

I fear any further discussion [of PDC and suchlike] may only serve to confuse matters and prevent this problem being solved.

Let's wait and see what, if any, action is taken and hope that your elegant compromise idea is taken onboard.

Hi,

iain.morland wrote:but isn't it the case that the sound of the note (while I'm performing) is delayed by the devices, because PDC operates only on playback?

That is right

iain.morland wrote:Therefore isn't the recording of the note (since it's recorded where it's heard) affected by the devices?

That is right too.

iain.morland wrote:(you said earlier that "you'll have to add the devices delay (the devices on the track you are monitoring, and the master track)").

That remark was an answer to the request "if I put a negative delay, do I get the same as if I would have recorded with monitor set to off?"

Frankly, it is much easier for now, if it is what you are comfortable with recording your finger movements rather than the sound you hear, to set another track with monitor set to OFF and record the data there. You'll get the same result as in Cubase and such.

Regards,
Amaury

popslut wrote:

iain.morland wrote:
My brain hurts again now.

Iain, I think Amaury and, therefore, the Ableton developers know the situation well enough by now.

I fear any further discussion [of PDC and suchlike] may only serve to confuse matters and prevent this problem being solved.

Let's wait and see what, if any, action is taken and hope that your elegant compromise idea is taken onboard.

Hi,

Somehow, I like discussing, as it opens perspective, and may enlighten many of us, me included. Someone said I talk too much earlier, but that is a heavy subject. So, if anyone feels like, feel free to ask anything.

The point you wanted to make is understood by us.

Regards,
Amaury

I think Ableton should rethink the whole "groove thing" with is in fact not in the DAW - problem discussed here with latency, no groove quantization ..

I beg for a big (!) priceless 6.5. Update, like I guess Apple has done in the past with Logic (free Plug-Ins etc.) ..

Amaury wrote: Somehow, I like discussing

I'm not trying to stifle discussion - just fearful that the issue might be buried beneath a pile of other issues.

The point you wanted to make is understood by us.

That is most reassuring and I thank you for your patience and attentiveness.

In the spirit of discussion and opening perspectives, I'd like to draw attention to two of bry2k's points:

Lee Sklar, world renowned bass player, [...] just barely wants to hear himself while he records (as is the case with most other good bassists/guitar players). He just wants to feel the groove of the drums he is listening to and rip apart his bass strings in sync with them. His timing is executed: AT. HIS. FINGERS.

...great piano players respond as much to the feel of the keys & hammers and the vibrations of the instrument at their fingertips as they do to the sounds it produces at their ears.

Succinctly put. I couldn't agree more. My experience bears this out too - both as a musician being recorded and as an engineer recording others.

Wow.

I recently switched over from Cubase to Live. I was blown away by the ease of use, intuitive design and workflow and numerous other things. I was able to forgive lack of a slicer tool, 16th max quantize in arrange mode and no numbers on the mixer channels. I use ableton to record and arrange midi.

I thought I was just getting rusty with my timing... looks I am not the problem after all.

I'll be going back to Cubase until Ableton sorts this out and acts like the rest of the sequencers on the planet.

Still here and still trying to work with/around this MIDI delay issue!

New question: when you set up the audio interface delay information in the options panel (using the appropriate lesson), isn't the point of that to tell Live to not record the audio as its heard, but to record the audio as it was played?

In other words, although the audio you heard was delayed by the interface, Live uses the interface delay information to shift that audio so that it's aligned to where it was played. If I understand correctly, this is the whole point of the setup lesson.

Now, isn't it the case that recording MIDI works in exactly the opposite manner? Wouldn't it be clearer if both MIDI and audio recording worked in the same way? Live could use the same information about the interface delay to shift the MIDI in the same fashion.

I only raise this again because I had not previously realised that the difference between MIDI and audio handling is contributing to the confusion here.

The fact that Live does shift audio to compensate for input delay contradicts all the arguments in favour of not shifting MIDI!

iain.morland wrote:Still here and still trying to work with/around this MIDI delay issue!

New question: when you set up the audio interface delay information in the options panel (using the appropriate lesson), isn't the point of that to tell Live to not record the audio as its heard, but to record the audio as it was played?

In other words, although the audio you heard was delayed by the interface, Live uses the interface delay information to shift that audio so that it's aligned to where it was played. If I understand correctly, this is the whole point of the setup lesson.

Now, isn't it the case that recording MIDI works in exactly the opposite manner? Wouldn't it be clearer if both MIDI and audio recording worked in the same way? Live could use the same information about the interface delay to shift the MIDI in the same fashion.

I only raise this again because I had not previously realised that the difference between MIDI and audio handling is contributing to the confusion here.

The fact that Live does shift audio to compensate for input delay contradicts all the arguments in favour of not shifting MIDI!

Hi,

The Driver error field in the Preferences is used to correct the latency reported by the sound card. This value and the latency value is used to compensate the audio, i.e. shift it so that it is recorded where it was played, in case monitor is set to OFF, which is exactly what happens to MIDI as well.

Is that answering your new question?

Regards,
Amaury

Hello Amaury,

Oh I see - there's no compensatory shifting of audio when monitoring is 'ON' then? Sorry, if that's the case then I'd overlooked that point.

Hi,

OK so let me ask a question:

The previous posts imply that if I record with monitor on , I get MIDI notes which are not exactly on the beat , but will get played back exactly on the beat.

So , MIDI notes which are on the beat will be played back late , correct?

So , in order to author MIDI in in the piano roll , I need to know some amount to push them around to get them in time.

Does that seem correct? If so , it seems really hard to use.

Thanks,

Dave

docjah wrote:The previous posts imply that if I record with monitor on , I get MIDI notes which are not exactly on the beat , but will get played back exactly on the beat.

So , MIDI notes which are on the beat will be played back late , correct?

So , in order to author MIDI in in the piano roll , I need to know some amount to push them around to get them in time.

Does that seem correct? If so , it seems really hard to use.

No -- this part at least is simple. From the piano roll latency compensation (if setup correctly, and if the plugin reports its latency correctly) is completely invisible. Once in the piano roll, you have to do no manual adjustment for latency (unless you want to, in which case you should probably use the track delay field, not adjust individual notes). That is, live will (as I understand it) automatically send midi notes to plugins enough in advance that the audio (or onset of the envelope or whatever) will be exactly where the note on point is shown in the piano roll.

The problems in this thread are all about recording, basically, and only about playback insofar as people do or don't want the playback to match what they heard or what they played when recording (personally, I prefer what I heard). (Also, the situation seems to be complicated even more in the case of external synths -- I don't fully understand the problem there, but there seems to be one.)

oh my god. I'm new to the forum but have been having latency issues as described here. i've spend hours and many $$ trying to figure out what was wrong and narrowed it down to Ableton itself. It's shocking and dissapointing to find.

Question. My latency is as described in this post, also, it gets progressively worse as the instruments and effects are added (when monitoring via auto).

Is this the same for you guys too ?

Amuary has suggested monitoring directly from the sound card. I'm not sure what this means. i only have one stereo pair of outs.

Peace

firewire wrote:Question. My latency is as described in this post, also, it gets progressively worse as the instruments and effects are added (when monitoring via auto). Is this the same for you guys too ?

That's been my finding too - however I don't think it's directly related to the issue raised in this particular thread. See:

http://www.ableton.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=59800

Even after going through every combination of settings I could find my v5 latency is still nowhere near as snappy as v4

firewire wrote:Amuary has suggested monitoring directly from the sound card. I'm not sure what this means. i only have one stereo pair of outs.

I think that only applies if you're dealing with external sources FW...

So its back to Cubase then ? dang.

firewire wrote:oh my god. I'm new to the forum but have been having latency issues as described here. i've spend hours and many $$ trying to figure out what was wrong and narrowed it down to Ableton itself. It's shocking and dissapointing to find.

Question. My latency is as described in this post, also, it gets progressively worse as the instruments and effects are added (when monitoring via auto).

Is this the same for you guys too ?

Amuary has suggested monitoring directly from the sound card. I'm not sure what this means. i only have one stereo pair of outs.

Peace

Hello,

It is not clear for me if you are trying to record audio or MIDI data? Can you tell me more?

Regards,
Amaury