Ableton Forum

I am not sure this is possible or not. I am in an live EDM band - vocals, keys, guitar, and tons of programming on Live on two Macs. I am running the master Live set, playing all the percussion and bass parts. I am sending a sync to my keyboard player, who is also using Live on his Mac. We are syncing mainly so that his effects are in sync with my BPM, and so that he can loop in time, etc. However, he also plays these canned sound clips in between songs, when my set is not playing. However, his system won't let him play them when taking the sync from me. His system only play them when my Live is playing. Is there a way he can take my external sync yet still have some independence in starting his sound clips?

So our only work around right now is that he has to turn off receive external sync in order to play his sound clips when my master Live system is not playing or hasn't started, which gets old in between songs.

Since he's playing live, doesn't sound like you need to MIDI sync the two machines at all. Just have to make sure the sets at the same tempo. He doesn't need to hit play for the effects to be synced unless they are dependent on clip automation.

For the one-shot clips, export them at the right tempo and fire them from a drum rack at the right time.

the_planet wrote:Since he's playing live, doesn't sound like you need to MIDI sync the two machines at all. Just have to make sure the sets at the same tempo. He doesn't need to hit play for the effects to be synced unless they are dependent on clip automation.

For the one-shot clips, export them at the right tempo and fire them from a drum rack at the right time.

Hi. Thanks. The main reason why he needs the MIDI sync from me is that he is looping in sync with my beats. So if he just sets his BPM to match mine, it will not track properly. Plus we are using a lot of delays, syncopation, etc, that are sub-BPM, meaning playing off of 8th notes, etc.

How do you have different 'songs' set up? One big set, or are you loading a new Live set each time?

Szuumm wrote:How do you have different 'songs' set up? One big set, or are you loading a new Live set each time?

I have separate sets..no way around it, because each song has its own unique arrangement, with sections that we loop and improvise over. So, I am loading a new set each time.

Ah, my suggestion goes out of the window then (blank scenes in your Live set while he plays the samples).

Could you get a cheap old drum machine/hardware sequencer & slave both laptops to that... just keep it running all the time.

Szuumm wrote:Ah, my suggestion goes out of the window then (blank scenes in your Live set while he plays the samples).

Could you get a cheap old drum machine/hardware sequencer & slave both laptops to that... just keep it running all the time.

Yeah, it sucks. Well, for our show he is playing these sound clips from iTunes, out of this headphone jack and into the board. That seems to circumvent the problem for now.

The only suggestion I can think of is to have him toggle the "EXT" button between syncs?