Live & Serato - trying to find a definite answer

[jamesdewis]

Hi,

I know this has been asked before (I've been searching for ages and found nuggets of information) but could someone tell me if its possible to accurately sync audio coming into Live7 from external turntables (some vinyl but mainly Serato) on one Macbook?

I can get Live to recognize and sync to the MIDI clock coming in from my mixer (Xone4D) but the tunes tend not to stay locked for long. I did have it running pretty solid once - but only once - it's driving me mad now.

Obviously it's easy to mix out of Live into vinyl / Serato but the other way is causing me issues. Appreciate that I could set up some controls on the mixer to pitch chase and nudge forward and back and do it that, but an accurate auto sync would be incredible.

Any suggestions? Should I be using two computers? Maybe someone can link me to an existing thread I've been dense enough to miss so far? It certainly seems as though it SHOULD be possible...

Any and all advice appreciated and apologies if this is considered a repost.

Thanks

[drumrak]

have you properly warped the tracks?

also, why cant you just keep the songs matched using the tech in the outro. I dont see how its any different than beatmatching the intro.

[zalo]

from my quick googling i think it would be cheaper to just buy traktor than a new computer

[jamesdewis]

haha not a huge fan of traktor to be honest with you - it does seem to talk to Live better though

Yes the tracks are warped correctly and the external in light pulses as it should, and Ableton seems to follow the bpm of the source music... yet it keeps going out of time, even with a nudge one way or the other. All very confusing / frustrating as it seems like it should be straightforward.

At the moment on the MIDI sync / remote / track option in preferences everything is set to on (3 lines of options are Xone 4D in & out and Serato in). Should I be looking to change this? Is the Serato MIDI signal getting mixed up with the one from the mixer?

Again, I've tried moving these settings to no avail but maybe someone with a better understanding of these things than me can point me in the right direction?

Thanks again...

[Tone Deft]

really, you should just learn to beatmatch by hand. DJs have been doing it for decades and it's considered a basic skill for anyone that DJs.

[jamesdewis]

Agree 100% yes it is. Some might argue otherwise but I myself have been doing it for at least a decade I regularly used to play 3 and 4 decks, however it would be nice to be able to throw some loops and stuff in from time to time and know instantly that they are going to fit.

[Tone Deft]

very cool, surely you could see where I was coming from with that, how technology can make some of the old arts seemingly obsolete.

this question came up about a month ago, I don't think there were any definitive answers. a search found:

http://forum.ableton.com/viewtopic.php? ... etect+beat

http://forum.ableton.com/viewtopic.php? ... vinyl+sync <-- DJM800 solution


if you search you might find more nuggets, but I don't think there's a single holy grail solution.

[jamesdewis]

no agreed 100% bro I'm glad I learnt the old ways... for me learning to lock the beats happened in parallel to learning to pick tracks and eq them. Lots of folks out there using ableton, traktor, even cdjs to an extent to play to records at the same speed and calling themselves djs. Not that its not a valid way to play tunes, just that imo it takes a period of struggle to learn to bring everything together and be any good.

Thanks for the links. What that guy's doing with the djm800 is pretty much the same as me and my xone 4d. By the way the thread ends so suddenly I suspect he think's he solved it and then realises he hasn't. I'm going to re-read that other thread when my brain isn't so fried

It's my own fault for wanting to play old jungle tunes off badly pressed vinyls i suppose

[mnmlmike]

I know James is a Serato DJ and thus makes him a mortal enemy of Traktor buttt...... for this scenario
Traktor excels hands down. When Ableton/Serato finally birth the product of their affair then it'll
probably be a different scenario.

[jamesdewis]

let's hope so Mike! You may well be right, however I bought Serato a couple of years before I got Live. It's a great DVS system but then I'm bound to defend it after shelling out 500 bucks for it

[trevorc]

By the way the thread ends so suddenly I suspect he think's he solved it and then realises he hasn't.

i think you might be right there, i tried this with my djm800 and although you can get close-ish it's nothing like locking the tempo down as you might want for beatmatching. the biggest part of the problem i think is midi clock sending only whole bpms.. although it might be good enough for some tempo synched fx stuff. i'd guess the 4d might have similar limitations.

the linked article is from pulse (mod over at the pioneer forums). i followed some of the pioneer threads on this a while back but the info just sorta petered out in the end

[brycebsp]

I had the same probelm trying to sync serato to live through the midi out on my DDM4000. Midi signal seems to round to whole #'s so it gets out of sync quickly.

Traktor has the right approach there midi signal never leave the computer it routes via software into live and from what I can tell syncs perfectly.

[jamesdewis]

Serato seems to send some kind of a MIDI message (it shows on the MIDI tab of preferences) but for some reason if I turn the MIDI off my mixer Live won't sync to it.

Life was easier with 3 turntables and a Kaos pad!