LiveAPI and beating the midi sync wobble

[triss]

any one thought about using LiveAPI to stop to copies of ableton that are supposed to midi sync'd wobbling?

i'm thinking the only way to beat it is dispose of the midi sync alltogether and us ethe liveAPI.

i'm thinking about hacking up two little apps.
one that you can press play and set bpm in that sends a message to ableton telling it the same and also sends a message across the network to another a little app telling that to set bpm and start another copy of ableton.

has any one tried this?

was the latency undealable with? was it tiny or big? i'm guessing maybe i could ping between the two boxes to get some idea of latency and compensate with that when you press play or something.

the liveAPI sounds like a bit of a faff and i don't want to waste my time if someelse knows it won't work. i'm already finding way too many excuses not to write any music as it is.

[zalo]

i think the major problem of midi sync over IP is the protocol itself, since its packet based and not clock based there is kind of a coin flip when the next packet gets sent and that is what causes the clock wobble

i know this is a problem glitch mob was having and they switched over to a MOTU MTP

[Tone Detf]

Have you ever read the manual? Or are you another douche that takes short cuts?

[triss]

Gents, ae you saying that you've had midi sync locked solid when you aren't using midi over IP?

I've had two laptops joineed together with a midi cable via there sound cards, tweaked latencies and tried both the song and pattern sync mode and simply can not get the bpm to lock tight. it constantly bobs up and down on the slave.

I'm 90% certain I've read everything the manual has to say on this and can not get it sorted.

am i really being a douche ? from what I've read on the forum nobodies sorted this yet?

Zalo, I'm planning not to send any midi over IP. Just the bpm and telling the copies of ableton when to start.

[oddstep]

You're not doucheoid - its the person pretending to be tone deft who is on a credibility nosedive.
Clock sync between laptops running Live is difficult - with some rigs working better together than others. My limited experience suggests that dedicated midi cards get better results than budget audio/midi cards.
Midiox has a clock send than could be used as a master for two machines.I think that must be easier than using the liveapi. maybe?

[triss]

thanks oddstep.

T1mur's implying that the issue seems to be with using ableton as slave in this thread: http://forum.ableton.com/viewtopic.php? ... 5&start=15

i think using midiOx I'd have to set up both versions of ableton as slaves? i'll give it a go any way. thanks for your suggestion.

what i'm thinking is just sending a play message to ableton and rellying on the fact that the bpms are the smae to stay in sync. Almost like pressing space bar at excatly the same time.

[zalo]

i misunderstood the question,

i know that this is a pretty low end solution but i heard that taping the slave computers space bar will nudge ableton back into sync

[triss]

No worries on misunderstanding the question, I’m not feeling particularly articulate today. (I rarely do)

I’ll give both of your suggestions a try although I’m not to hopeful for either.

I WANT TIGHT MIDI SYNC BETWEEN TWO COPIES OF ABLETON!

[fake_account]

what i'm thinking is just sending a play message to ableton and rellying on the fact that the bpms are the smae to stay in sync. Almost like pressing space bar at excatly the same time.

In that case you might want to use MTC instead of Midi Clock Sync. This enabled you to have everything in sync as far as start/stop concerned, but tempo will be independent (and you cannot ff/rew via Midi clock).

Click on the small arrow left of the Midi Port preferences in Live and change the "Sync Type" to "Midi Timecode". You can then use an MTC Master like MidiOx to sync the Live Slaves.

I reproducibly manage to get two Live Slaves into sample-accurate sync over virtual (aka jitter-free) Midi connections (MidiYoke). So it seems like a good and working alternative if you don't need tempo synchronisation.

[triss]

fake_account i can't thank you enough. that works almost perfectly. after a little twiddling on the second laptop with he midi sync delay everything's working marvelously.

just tried it for the first time about 20mins ago and you've made me a very happy chappy indeed.

unfortunately i can't work out how to change bpm when i'm working like this. i seem to be stuck at 120bpm. am i being a complete numpty? do i need to set something i midi ox?

[triss]

wierdness. you have to start ableton after midi ox's timer's been started on both laptops in order to chnage the bpm. and i stop and start the clock to get both copies to fully sync.

don't know if we'll be performing any bpm changes live (not that were any where near perfoming) but we're closer than we've ever been to doing so.

thanks very very much.