Ableton Forum

Hi,I want to know what is the best method to connect both laptops which are running Live 9 on Windows 7 to sync midi. My question, would a Cat6 Crossover cable be best for midi sync.I have read many posts but nothing specific with crossover cables.
Thanks

I am old so I would use midi interfaces on each computer connected to each other. Less stuff to tweak. Less stuff to break

However, that is not what you asked.

The crossover cable will do just fine. It might not sound as good as using an Ethernet switch though... Just kidding there will be no difference.

You will not have a DHCP server here so you will need to set up static addresses on both machines that are in the same subnet.

Since every home router likes to use 192.168.1.X, I tend to use 192.168.2.X to avoid any confusion with a wireless NIC on the same system.

So machine 1 should be something like 192.168.2.2, machine 2 192.168.2.3 both with a subnet mask of 255.255.255.0. You do not need a default gateway. You can use any number scheme you desire as long as they are in the same subnet.

I'd also like to add that i have found crossover cables to work much better than standard midi cables when trying to sync 2 computers. Even over wifi, sync has been more stable vs 2 midi interfaces.

Are crossover cables still needed? The last few times I synced with someone I could have sworn we just used regular Ethernet cables without the crossover. I thought there was a new auto detecting standard of sorts these days.

Beyond that, I definitely prefer Ethernet when syncing two laptops. We always had weird random issues when syncing via MIDI cable, not so much with Ethernet. A solid hardware device functioning as a MIDI master, with the laptops as slaves, would probably be even better though.

blakjesus wrote:I'd also like to add that i have found crossover cables to work much better than standard midi cables when trying to sync 2 computers. Even over wifi, sync has been more stable vs 2 midi interfaces.

My experience is the opposite. Quality MIDI hardware interface rock solid, Ethernet OK and Wifi pointlessly unreliable and triggering bugs in Live. The latter was mostly in Live 9.0.x though.

savyurrecords I will try it. Thank you.

You don't need a crossover cable, a regular cable will work fine. Modern network interfaces are smart enough to know when a signal needs to be crossed over.