Ableton Forum

Hi guys!
Thank you for you great job on Ableton Live. I consider ableton Live as the industry standard software for live music performance.

I've been an on stage Ableton Live user now for some years, and recently my drummer wantet to use a laptop with ableton live running loops. So we need to be in sync. We tried midi time clock this weekend. The sync wasn't tight enough. His loops drifted a little in and out of time with mine. Next step is to try MTC from an external software or device. MTC doesn't support tempochange which means that we would have to make an intricat system of dummyclips triggering eachothers scene selector preprogrammed to change tempo. This sounds a bit too complicated and is a megasource for errors and unreliabilaties.

Two ideas have emerged from my sync issue:
1. implement the posibility of ableton to be MTC master.
2. Make a network protocol spesific for ableton live, where two computers can connect and share transport. As with midi time code, only there are not two separate transports synced by a beat, but one master laptop with transport, and one slave laptop that runs on the same transport as the first computer.

This may seam lika a crazy idea, but as ableton live is the industri standard software for live performance, and I encourage the developers be pionears and making ground breaking technology. After all midi time code and MTC are old technologies. And I cant be the first person in 2015 to need multiple computers on stage.

Thank you so much for listening to me! I meen weel:)

Hi, "MIDI Time Clock" a.k.a. MIDI Timecode a.k.a MTC is indeed not the ideal sync method to use on stage.

You should try using plain old MIDI Clock instead. Either with one instance of Live as the master and one as the slave, or both laptops chasing a common MIDI Clock source. I've used both methods on stage for years with complete success.

Selecting MIDI Clock as the sync format (see below) allows for tempo changes, too.



hope this helps

Hi,
Thanks for your thoughts on MTC. Maybe thats a deadend...

Tryed the god old midi time vode. The loops drifted in and out of time. It was just too low resolution on the sync. Will try to work on the sync clock delay settings...

Do you use a midi cable, or do you sync through a network cable?

MIDI cables.

You could see if your audio buffer sizes have any effect on the tightness of your sync.

What MIDI interfaces are you currently using on the master and slave laptops? Are they macs/pc's?

Pitch Black wrote:MIDI cables.

You could see if your audio buffer sizes have any effect on the tightness of your sync.

What MIDI interfaces are you currently using on the master and slave laptops? Are they macs/pc's?

Yeah going through A/D D/A conversions typically cause that latency between devices. Have you tried SMPTE cables between interfaces and sent timecode through that? What's your setup? Synch problems are common for varying hardware setups and doesn't always relate to the DAW.