Ableton Forum

From what I've heard, you can use MIDI Sync but it's kind of buggy.

The best solutions I've heard of are "only use one computer (if you can)" and "beatmatch by ear, just like a DJ".

connect the two macs with a network cable (cat5). open applications>utilities>audio/midi set up on both of the macs. Double click on Networks.

create a new session by clicking the "+" and name it, on one of the macs.

you should see the other mac in the "directory" window. select it and click "connect"

you should now see the other computer's name in the "participants" window.

note: turn your airport cards OFF or the two computers will connect via wifi which is shit for midi timing.

open Ableton and set the preferences of the master computer and slave computer to send/receive midi clock respectively. RTFM.

click "EXT" (upper left) of the slave computer. you will be synched. viola.

you can also just use two midi interfaces and connect via midi cable but ableton seems to have a hard time with that. connecting via midi network is much much much tighter. hope this helps.

Superstock's advice is good I think. Wifi does work but the timing will go all over the place. I haven't personally had problems syncing with MIDI, but the network option (wired) works.

superstock73 wrote:connect the two macs with a network cable (cat5). open applications>utilities>audio/midi set up on both of the macs. Double click on Networks.

create a new session by clicking the "+" and name it, on one of the macs.

you should see the other mac in the "directory" window. select it and click "connect"

you should now see the other computer's name in the "participants" window.

note: turn your airport cards OFF or the two computers will connect via wifi which is shit for midi timing.

open Ableton and set the preferences of the master computer and slave computer to send/receive midi clock respectively. RTFM.

click "EXT" (upper left) of the slave computer. you will be synched. viola.

you can also just use two midi interfaces and connect via midi cable but ableton seems to have a hard time with that. connecting via midi network is much much much tighter. hope this helps.

Thank you, it works perfectly

My pleasure. Glad you got it working. cheers.

I have this successfully working, BUT I'm having a major issue. I'm sync-ing 2 machines in Arrangement mode, one computer does all the work, the second is a redundant rig. I use the redundant in the event that the "A" machine kicks the bucket.

When i Cue up any track (with a marker on the arrangement) that is past the 1024.1.1 point on the A machine's timeline, it starts the "B" (slave) machine's timeline over from 1.1.1, so for example... if i cue a song to start @ 1700.1.1 on the A machine, it cues the B @ 672.1.1

hope this makes sense. but it seems that i cant cue any tracks past 1024 measures.

this rig is for a band, whom i am the playback programmer/technician for and we are in rehearsals for our Fall tour RIGHT NOW... any help would be pretty much AMAZING.

with acts in the past I haven't needed to sync both machines via midi, I've split midi from one controller to both computers, but this show is meant to be continuous and we are sending SMPTE to our lighting director so the redundant needs to sync through the whole show, then we stop, and then start again for the encore.

so... anyone???? (:

bump.


sorry, not my style but im in a bind.

unfortunately midi clock and position is limited to 1024 bars, have you tried working in say 16/4 to get 4096 4/4 bars?

wow... just... wow.


thanks for the reply.

I am already automating time signatures for this act, there are songs in 3/4 and in 5/4, that just might work considering I'm not warping any files to preserve the fidelity.

and... WHY would there be a limit on how many measures you can sync?



bummer.

The limit is caused by the MIDI standard, ie. value range of the song position pointer. This pointer counts 16th notes and is represented by 14-bit values. So the max value is 16384 which corresponds to 16384/16 = 1024 bars (at 4/4).

i did some forum searching and came up with the same thing.. thanks.