MIDI Delay Problem

JamieS · Post by **JamieS** » Sun Aug 08, 2004 11:11 am

I'm using Live as a MIDI sequencer. I import all of my MIDI notes into Live and then have the output route to two external synths. When I'm happy with the arrangement and record the audio input of the two synths into Ableton. The problem is, after I do this there is a slight delay on the recorded audio track.

This is obviously due to the MIDI lag during the recording process: Ableton has to send a MIDI notes, the synths plays then, my audio input device has to process it, and finally Ableton records it the audio input.

As you can imagine, and audio samples I now add to my composition are in the correct time signature of the song, while the audio track has a slight delay. Audio samples aren't in sync with the recorded synths.

I noticed a Sync Delay setting in the MIDI settings, however, I'm not using Sync functionality. My synths just play the notes Ableton sends them, so they require no Midi Clock.

Any ideas on how to fix this problem?

JamieS · Post by **JamieS** » Sun Aug 08, 2004 11:30 am

By the way, running Windows XP on a 2.4GHZ system. Audio interface is a Tascam FW-1884 MIDI/Audio interface & control surface.

bensuthers · Post by **bensuthers** » Sun Aug 08, 2004 10:41 pm

> This is obviously due to the MIDI lag during the recording process:

no, it's obviously due to input latency on your sound card. Ableton tries to send the midi notes in sync with it's output audio, but when you are running this audio back into a channel, you have to deal with your input latency as well.

two options;

upon rerecording, move the start position a few ms to the right.

or/and set your latency very low.

houseoftrash · Post by **houseoftrash** » Sun Aug 22, 2004 9:02 am

To the Ableton people:

Will a future update to Live 4 make it possible to record MIDI into live that will be adjusted to be in sync with the audio, no matter what the soundcard's latency is (as it is currently possible now when recording audio) ?

As it is, I can't even record MIDI using just Live's metronome and (upon playing it back) have that be in sync with the metronome the way I played it when I recorded. This seems like a huge design mistake to me, but it is important to me to know whether Ableton agrees and is planning to change this or if this type of use if MIDI in Live is just not a priority and I'm barking up the wrong tree. thanks

bensuthers · Post by **bensuthers** » Sun Aug 22, 2004 9:46 pm

the only real way to do this is for ableton to provide for a 'negative' delay on each of the midi outputs, like they do with clock sync.

houseoftrash · Post by **houseoftrash** » Tue Aug 24, 2004 5:23 am

But if I draw in notes that occur right on the beat and play that back on some MIDI device, or a softsynth, it's right on time either way. So that part of it, the output part, seems to be handled correctly. It's the incoming MIDI that is recorded out of sync with everything else, so if I play notes right on the beat according to the metronome, when I look at the piano roll those notes are recorded late and will of course play back accurately to where they ended up on the timeline, ie late.

When recording audio, you can avoid this by adjusting the overall latency in Preferences, but this doesn't work for recording MIDI. So rather than negative-delaying the output, I think the solution is to 'backdate' the MIDI input just as it is apparently done for audio input, but according to the audio output latency only (or the output latency + the MIDI input latency which is probably not that significant). Just something that will make it so that when I'm recording a note that happens on the beat, when I look in the piano roll it will be on the beat the way I played it. I don't see why the MIDI output would have to be messed with at all since output seems to sync pretty well when the MIDI notes are actually where they are supposed to be in the piano roll.

There has been a fair amount of speculation about this on the forum; there must be technical people at Ableton who know exactly what is happening here and can easily clear it up for us. Any takers? thanks - P

hoffman2k · Post by **hoffman2k** » Tue Aug 24, 2004 7:59 am

I've noticed that there is a recording delay when you are monitoring the track.
But i do not have this problem when i arm the track and record in it straight away.

houseoftrash · Post by **houseoftrash** » Tue Aug 24, 2004 2:34 pm

OK, I'm just using the 4.01 demo and on MIDI tracks there is no Monitor "Off" button, just "Auto" and "On" and as soon as I arm the track the monitoring is On. Is this function disabled in the demo maybe?

Or are you talking about playing a softsynth with your MIDI keyboard and recording that audio onto an audio track? I imagine there wouldn't be a delay in that case.

peeddrroo · Post by **peeddrroo** » Tue Aug 24, 2004 2:55 pm

there is no monitor 'off' position for midi in the official release either, i don't see why, but there's probably a good reason.
anyway, about your midi-delay prob, there are 2 ways to check if you're right:
record the output of your synth (that has to have 'midi trough' enabled) to a midi track in Live. see if the recorded stuff is delayed. i think it souldn't be.
then do the audio latency test as explained in the manual. roughly, it consists of recording a simple pulse-like signal to a midi track, and seeing if it's delayed.
then correct the audio delay value in the preferences. i think your problem comes from there.

houseoftrash · Post by **houseoftrash** » Mon Aug 30, 2004 12:15 am

yep, midi is always delayed when you record - going thru midi thru on the keyboard, or with overall latency adjusted in prefs, etc. Somebody from Ableton support answered a direct email I sent them and said:

Hello,

If you have a "normal" audio latency, it´s usually not a problem.
However - we´ll address this in a future update.

So I think this means they are acknowledging that the problem exists, I guess it's usually not a problem if people usually don't try to use Live to record MIDI in real time, but for me personally this feature is important - I'll wait and see if they fix it.