Ableton Forum

Hey, this is my first post but have found so much useful posts on this forum already. I never felt the need to post until now!

First off my setup, Ableton 7 running on intel centrino 1.7GHz or there abouts (Im not on my pc now), and 1GB RAM, most importantly, my audio is going through my Native Instruments Audio 8 soundcard - midi in and out connected to my microKorg, audio in from microKorg, and audio out to my speakers.

Ok here's my problem and it's been really holding me back and wrecking my head!

When I am using a microKorg with Live, most of the time, I have a midi channel on live playing some notes, sending them to the Korg, and then playing the audio back through an audio channel on live.
By the way i have the microKorg midi synced to live so if I change the BPM on live it changes it on the korg.


Ok so the problem is the audio coming from the korg does not stay in sync with the rest of live. i.e. if I have a nice drumloop going on impulse the audio from microkorg is not in sync. Especially noticeable when using an arpegiator or something quite repetitive.
It is not that far off being in sync but enough to ruin the rhythm of my track.
Now I have my Audio 8 latency set to medium which corresponds to about 10ms overall latency. - Not at pc right now to give exact latencies.
My main problem is when there is a lot going on my latency has to be at this level or even worse or live starts going mental.

I suspect the answer I'm going to get is get a better computer - which is the plan, but I am just wondering is there something i can do with my track delays or driver error compensation or something that will guarantee the Korg to stay in sync?

Hi, I don't have a quick answer, but just to understand the problem, is the synth audio constantly off by a fixed offset, or does it start in synch and then slowly drift off?

the delay seems to be some what random. I just set up a midi clip to play a note on the first and third note of every bar then measured the delay for each note. Didn't matter what BPM I played it at - the delay was ranging from about 25 to 35 ms.
It makes no sense as my input latency is currently 6.54ms and my output latency is at 10.5ms.

I'm presuming getting a synth to sync with live isn't a problem so I'm just wondering what I'm doing wrong.
Thanks for your reply anyway. Anything to steer me in the right direction would be a great help!

I would first try to isolate the problem along the chain. Is there a way that you can hear your hardware synth and Live without patching the synth back into Live? for example plugging both into an external mixer?

The reason I ask, is that step one would be to see whether the problem is with MIDI sync or whether it is with the delay of audio. If they go out of sync by being patched into separate audio channels (not patched into each other) then it is a MIDI sync problem.

If it is a MIDI sync problem, I would see how the synth manages sync. Some have reset settings after x amount of measures - this way the synth may drift out of sync and pop back into sync after x amount of measures. Other synths have more MIDI sync settings.

Also, I had a similar laptop to yours before and I synced it with my Nord Modular. However, when I tried playing more than four or six tracks (depending on the sources) in live at the same time as the Nord, MIDI sync would go out the window. The computer just couldn't send a steady MIDI clock anymore. SO I would advise starting your testing with only one track in Live.

Did you enabled sync on the midi prefs for you soundcard midi out?
Did you tried to play your synth via external instrument rack?
What's your buffer size settings?

ok I now have the synth going into one channel on my mixer (Denon DNX1500) and ableton coming in another channel and the synth is perfectly matched to ableton. (Well as far as I can tell anyway!)
So that narrows it down to an audio delay.

Ok and what's even more annoying is the delay varies from song to song. Originally I tested with nothing else playing then tested with a few other tracks playing and there was no difference. - I am after testing in a different song with a lot more going on and there is now a delay between about 29 and 40 ms, with most of the time its at either extreme.

So I'm wondering do most people have delay problems with external synths? How to get around it.
Is the only solution to implement a delay on the audio track and adjust it depending on how complex my song is.

I was really delighted to hear no delay when I hooked up the synth to my mixer instead of ableton but I really need to have it going through ableton for effects etc. so if there is a solution I'd love some suggestions.

Buffer settings are currently:
288 samples
input latency 6.54ms
output latency 10.5ms

There's this thing in Ableton where some external VST plugins produce some kind of latency.In other words it doesn't treat good some VST plugs...
I was amazed when last week i used in a project only Live's plugs and in my old Powerbook i got the impressive 64 samples latency without any artifacts!!!
Man i was socked...Was working in 24 bit 48Khz and CPU was hitting 50%
with 64 samples buffer size and it was flawless!!!!!!!

Also on midi preferences try to play with your interface's midi out latency
I own a Virus TI and like to use it via old school midi..So i had to adjust midi out latency -35ms..
Just try to find which of your VST's produce the latency
and remember:
"The lower the buffer size the lower the latency"

Cheers!