Ableton Forum

I'm looking for some advice on how best to play multiple external instruments together.

I currently have a Moog Sub Phatty and Vermona DRM1, and I'm looking into building a modular setup (the current draught is in the link below but could be changed).
https://www.modulargrid.net/e/racks/view/329360


At the moment I sequence the DRM1 through a drumrack in Ableton.
The modular setup will have a Rene sequencer on it.

Anyway, what I'd like to know is how best to set things up so everything can be played together and stay in sync. Preferably in detail including cables and settings on Ableton if anyone knows, as I'm no expert with hardware.

At the moment I only have a Roland Quadcapture interface but this will obviously need to be upgraded. How big an interface will I need exactly to make this work?

Like you, I've got a drum machine, an analog bass synth, a VA synth, and a modular system. I've also got a couple MIDI keyboards, an Arturia Beatstep, and a Circuit. The key to keeping all this stuff in synch is:

1) Get a MIDI hub and connect everything, including your computer, to it.
2) Set Live's MIDI preference to output sync to the MIDI hub
3) Set each hardware instrument to receive MIDI on a different channel (1 thru 16)
4) Set each instrument to sync to an External clock (rather than it's own internal clock).
5) In Live, create an External Instrument for each of your hardware instruments and save them as presets so you can drag-and-drop them from then on.
6) Create the appropriate number of MIDI tracks, drop your instruments on those tracks.

Hit record.

If you set up Live's preferences to also input sync from the MIDI hub, you can use one of your sequencers or the drum machine as your master clock. Just depends on what you're trying to do. The EXT button in Live toggles the internal vs external clock source. This button only appears if Live's preferences are set to receive external sync.

For example, if I'm using the Beatstep to sequence the modular, I find it easier to set it as the master clock, since it has no clock input or way to set exact values (just a big knob). Live will track it quite well while the MIDI hub makes sure everything else follows it too. I have another sequencer in my modular as well, with a MIDI-to-clock module for connecting to the MIDI hub, allowing me to sequence sequencers with other sequencers in the modular.

All this being said, you're going to need to pull out the user manual for all your hardware and figure out the best way to connect MIDI, how to a assign MIDI channel, and how to set the instrument's clock to external.