Ableton Forum

Hey guys

i'm new to the world of live and only recently been getting into my copy of Live 4. using it for triggering loops and samples on my edirol pcr 50 while i'm djing breaks on my decks. I have two problems at the moment that i hope to get some help on

1) beatmatching live to whatever speed i'm mixing at: tempo tap isn't really working for me. Is there another freeware prog. i could use in the background to work out tempos? or is there a way to "brush the platter"of live like you do with a turntable and beat mix normally??

2) triggering live in sync with what i'm mixing: from pressing controller to hearing the sound, there is a delay??? any tips on getting aorund this?

thanks for any help

don

dmac wrote:1) beatmatching live to whatever speed i'm mixing at: tempo tap isn't really working for me. Is there another freeware prog. i could use in the background to work out tempos? or is there a way to "brush the platter"of live like you do with a turntable and beat mix normally??

I don't find Live's Tap Tempo to be great - though I understand it's better if you use a music keyboard instead of a computer keyboard. However, if your computer has a high latency, that would make things much worse. I'm not aware of any freeware apps that can help, and there's no simple way to "brush the platter" either - though you could connect a knob or even the pitch wheel on your PCR 50 to Live's tempo to give you the ability to tweak it.

2) triggering live in sync with what i'm mixing: from pressing controller to hearing the sound, there is a delay??? any tips on getting aorund this?

There are a number of reason this could be happenning...

a) Your machine has high latency (the delay between when you tell it to do something and when that is reflected in the output audio). You may be able to lower your existing latency settings (in the audio preferences) or you may need a lower latency sound card. If you're on a PC using in-built audio, try ASIO4ALL - a free software driver that can help to reduce your latency.

b) Your samples are set to fire on the beat, but as Live's beats aren't in sync. with your decks, they fire late. You can work around this by turning quantisation off for these clips (if only temporarily to see if this is the cause). If this is the reason, it will be resolved if you can address your first problem.

c) Your samples have some silence at the beginning (unlikely, I guess, but you never know...)


As latency could be the cause of both these problems, it would be useful to know more about your set up - i.e. especially your sound card and latency

Hey thanks for all the info

it sucks not being able to "brush the platter" but i'll find a way

My System is

Toshiba Laptop
2.0Ghz Celeron
256mb ram
40gig
3 usb 1.1 devices on individual channels
- M-Audio Transit (sound card) - set to medium latency...256samples i think, live tells me its getting about 25ms latency
- PCR 50 keyboard - sucking its power from the laptop, a problem???
- Microsoft laser mouse - better to use a ps2 mouse???

All my samples are clean as a whistle thanks to recycle so it won't be them.

thanks for your time.

don

Is that 25ms output latency or 25ms total latency (i.e. input plus output)?

25ms total output

I got one more problem, how do people assign a range for the tempo so that instead of going from 20 - 200 it goes from 130-135 or similar???

thanks. don

dmac wrote: I got one more problem, how do people assign a range for the tempo so that instead of going from 20 - 200 it goes from 130-135 or similar???

thanks. don

go to the arrange window.
expand the master, select "mixer" in the drop down->song tempo.

dmac wrote:25ms total output

If you mean your output latency (as shown immediately underneath buffer size in the audio preferences) is 25ms then this is likely to be your problem.

If you mean your total latency (as shown at the end of the overall latency equation in the audio preferences) is 25ms then this is not likely to be your problem.

But I'm not sure which you mean...

An output latency of more than 20ms is usually considered noticeable. However, an overall latency of 20ms would probably mean an output latency of around 10ms (and it's only output latency that we're concerned with here) so you should be OK.

In regards to your problem with syncing your Live tracks to your Vinyl, you can try to change the tempo in the upper left hand corner of the screen where it shows your session tempo. I have yet to receive my MIDI controller, but using the mouse you have great control over the bpm's. I am sure you can assign a fader or a knob to this function on your MIDI controller and adjust it just like you do on your decks.

dmac wrote:


1) beatmatching live to whatever speed i'm mixing at: tempo tap isn't really working for me. Is there another freeware prog. i could use in the background to work out tempos? or is there a way to "brush the platter"of live like you do with a turntable and beat mix normally??

Hey Don,
I hope this helps... I have sucessfully beatmatched Live to external vinyl.
This method is assuming that you're cueing Live on your headphones.

1) TAP in the tempo so it's as close as can be (by assigning that tap to either a button/key MIDI controller or a key on your qwerty keyboard).

2) Click ONCE in the tempo box (upper left hand of the Live interface), then use the the up/down arrow keys on your computer keyboard to adjust the tempo. If you hold down SHIFT as you press the arrow keys, your 'brusing of the platter' will be even more precise (10ths of the BPM).

Sometimes i've had to go back and adjust Live's BPM by miniscule amounts trhoughout the duration of the mix, but at that point, the tempo differences are small enough that i just adjust the tempo of the vinyl (analog has infinite values)

Hope it helps,
morgan[/i]

Out of interest, has anyone ever got Live syncing to decks via a MIDI clock signal from the mixer or external unit? How accurate was it?

didn't red sound make a audio 2 midi clock converter called micro sync?(analize tempo from audio and send midi clock?)

anyone ever use one of these? I know that cycloops works well with tempo

http://www.redsound.com/djindex.htm

over on www.djforums.com a few people have posted saying the red sound piece was a good unit. they recently did a limited re-run of the units. i had emailed them inquiring about purchasing it from an authorized dealer, and they replied and said the unit was out of production, but they were re-running it.

the redsound boxes work pretty well, if you can find one!
they have there own idiosyncracies but generally speaking they do the job pretty well. i let my voyager detect the beat and then i trigger the samples without using lives quantising and it mostly works pretty well. when i first got it i didn't really trust it, but now i pretty much let it go except for the odd tweak now and then. the trick seems to be to run a hot (ie loud) signal into it. i tried eq'ing and gating etc, but a signal running in the red seems to be the most effective, although you need to be a bit careful, as it'll lock up for a while if you oveload it too much....

I use a MicroSync and it does work very well most of the time. Best to get it as close as possible, trigger Live, then basically turn off the MicroSync (freewheeling in RedSound speak). Otherwise ti will occasionally spit out a weird tempo change that messes things up. But still, 90% of the time it's spot on.

the X series electribe boxes also work well for this as they have an In-to-bpm translator doohickey.