Ableton Forum

Hi,

Is this a common problem?, timing is really bad with live 7.
Just tested external midi with live 6, and everything is working good.
But with 7 timing is far off...

Anyone with this problem?

lola wrote:Anyone with this problem?

Everyone

Do you have jitters in your notes and delays? unstable clock,... Mac or PC? have you try to change the midi clock to directsound? try to reduce the audio buffer,.. midi timing will be tighter then but your cpu is gonna suffer

I don't use midi clock, but yea i do have delays and jitters.... damn i did not test my hardware in a long time since version 6.


Strange thing tho is, midex 8 works flawless in live 6, it does not in 7, but i also have a audio card with midi, which timing is solid in 7....so i don't get it.

more info - system, o/s etc.

live 7
win xp pro
rme hammerfall multiface 1
midex 8
asus p5k intel q6600
remote zero sl
2 uad 1
1 uad 2
latest drivers of all.

Even if you don't use Midi Clock Sync it might be that Live 7 shows the same flaws with ordinary Midi data that is happening with Clock Sync.

With Midi Clock Sync Live 7 shows latency/delay depending on song-tempo, the slower the tempo the higher the latency. You can compensate for that via Midi Preferences, but you need to change it with every tempo-change.

Additionally Live 7 shows Jitter of upto 3.5 ms (150 samples at 44 kHz) with Midi Clock Sync.

I cannot tell you wether this happens with ordinary Midi data, too. It should not happen when Live is sending Midi to external gear, because the flaws mentioned above happens only with Live as a Slave as much as I can tell. But it may happen if you are receiving from external gear like playing a keyboard into Live.

Try disconnecting any other Midi gear (especially the RemoteSL). A bad driver of one Midi interface can drag down the performance of all others. Although that should also happen in Live 6 then.

Does switching between MME and DirectMusic make any difference?

Crash wrote:Even if you don't use Midi Clock Sync it might be that Live 7 shows the same flaws with ordinary Midi data that is happening with Clock Sync.

With Midi Clock Sync Live 7 shows latency/delay depending on song-tempo, the slower the tempo the higher the latency. You can compensate for that via Midi Preferences, but you need to change it with every tempo-change.

Additionally Live 7 shows Jitter of upto 3.5 ms (150 samples at 44 kHz) with Midi Clock Sync.

I cannot tell you wether this happens with ordinary Midi data, too. It should not happen when Live is sending Midi to external gear, because the flaws mentioned above happens only with Live as a Slave as much as I can tell. But it may happen if you are receiving from external gear like playing a keyboard into Live.

Try disconnecting any other Midi gear (especially the RemoteSL). A bad driver of one Midi interface can drag down the performance of all others. Although that should also happen in Live 6 then.

Does switching between MME and DirectMusic make any difference?

Tanks for the reply.
The switching did not make any difference, this is a very odd problem,
I can't see the logic in it, otherwise then live 6 and live 7 have some major differences in handling midi data.

But...why does the rme midi interface respond good on both 7 and 6, and why does the midex perform good on 6 but not on 7, it's so illogical

hope the abes are watching this topic too.

Oh yes. Terrible jitter but much better with the RME Midi. Really too bad as we finally were about to connect a lot of synths to Live! as external instruments, but that function was totally unusable. Haven't had any trouble with the midex in other situations.
http://www.ableton.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=99345

lola wrote:I can't see the logic in it, otherwise then live 6 and live 7 have some major differences in handling midi data.

Live 7 has had some substantial changes to the Midi engine. In theory it should be better now. But in practice some things are problematic.

But...why does the rme midi interface respond good on both 7 and 6, and why does the midex perform good on 6 but not on 7, it's so illogical

Most likely there is a conflict between the Midex drivers and Live 7. Do you send the same amount of Midi data in 6 and 7? On my own system I found that the Kore (USB) drivers offer the highest bandwidth closely followed by the Fireface 400 (Firewire). The Korg Padkontrol and Novation RemoteSL offer only very very little bandwidth before the Midi stream breaks down. The problem is that with MME one failing driver (that reaches its bandwidth limit) makes all other drivers fail as well. That's why I suggested removing all other Midi interfaces.

Additionally Live 7 shows Jitter of upto 3.5 ms (150 samples at 44 kHz) with Midi Clock Sync.

I cannot tell you wether this happens with ordinary Midi data, too. It should not happen when Live is sending Midi to external gear, because the flaws mentioned above happens only with Live as a Slave as much as I can tell. But it may happen if you are receiving from external gear like playing a keyboard into Live.

I got confused by my own huge load of testing. The Midi Jitter does happen with Live as a Master and even independent of using Midi Clock Sync or not. Things like restarting loops, scenes or tempo changes make Live jitter.

For example that means: You are playing an 8 bar Midi loop that's sending Midi Notes to external gear. While the 8 bar loop is playing Jitter is minimal aka only depending on your Midi interface's performance. But with every new start of the 8 bar loop Live introduces a timing-shift of upto 150 samples (maybe even more at higher tempi than I tested). Technically this is Latency happening only at the start of a loop, but because it does not happen at a fixed value and because it happens with every loop-run it practically sounds and behaves like Jitter. The shorter your loops or the more often you start Scenes/Clips the more often it happens.

Because of that I advice you to create one long clip instead of a short loop in one scene and record that with your External Instrument/gear to an audio clip. This makes sure that you don't suffer from Live induced Jitter/Latency.

hope the abes are watching this topic too.

Don't hope too much. Many people have written threads about Midi timing problems with Live and Ableton staff seldomly if ever show up on those threads. Better write an Email to their support or try to call them via phone (<-most prefered method, because they cannot deny you feedback then).

Most likely there is a conflict between the Midex drivers and Live 7. Do you send the same amount of Midi data in 6 and 7?

Well, i tested it with 1 single bar, with 16 notes, and it went nuts. (on live 7 that is)

I hoped that 7.12 would make a difference, but its even worse.