Simpler/Sampler do not accurately retrigger when sample is still playing

[heartbreak city]

Pretty surprised nobody has ever noticed this bug before, but if you play a sample in simpler/sampler that is still playing (aka a 1 bar length sample played every quarter note, like a 4 on the floor using a kick sample that has a lot of silence at the end of it) then it will trigger late. It is not much, only about 2ms or so, but that is still enough to throw off anything requiring phase accuracy.

In this screenshot, this is the second hit. I only cut off the beginning of the clip to highlight how late it is vs where the midi is

[Jolaff]

Can we see the sample inside Simpler/Sampler ?

If your kick hasn't been trim from a long silence at the end there is possibility there is also a silence at the beginning....

[heartbreak city]

Can we see the sample inside Simpler/Sampler ?

If your kick hasn't been trim from a long silence at the end there is possibility there is also a silence at the beginning....

It's not a kick, it is a noise spike with silence after that I created for this test. It definitely starts at 0 with a very hard transient at the beginning. I made sure of this to see where the placement is on the grid. Maybe I'm not explaining what I mean clearly enough... the sample placement accuracy is fine when it is NOT triggered while currently playing the sample back. The initial triggering of the sample is accurate and then every one after that is late (if the sample is triggered while playing.) If enough time passes that the sample has fully played back and stopped before the next triggering, it is on time (because the sample was not currently playing while it triggered again)

Try it yourself and see, this is pretty quick to setup and test

[heartbreak city]

Nobody is concerned with this?

[Jolaff]

Yes you are right..

The first occurence is on time but the following are delayed...

I'm not too concern about that since I rarely use long samples in sampler but this should be reported ...

[heartbreak city]

I'm not too concern about that since I rarely use long samples in sampler

You never trigger a sample before its done playing? Do you not ever do a hihat roll? Or play a melody with a oneshot with a tail to it?

[mr.adl]

Just tried it myself and unfortunately your right.
Using Sampler is more accurate, but with Simpler the second hit and those after that are off by some milliseconds. Can you report this to the support? I tested this on Ableton 12 beta btw.
If you convert those midi clips to audio using Simpler and Sampler and play both those (now audio) tracks together the first hit is perfectly synced but after that they sound phasy, cause their not aligned correctly anymore. Damn, thats a biggy, Ableton.

[chapelier fou]

Seems like an important problem. I’ll have a look as well.
Does it behave the same no matter the polyphony settings ? (1voice VS more than 1)

[anticontraband]

so this is not a new issue, i have seen posts about this issue from 11 years ago. i personally have been having this issue since i started using ableton on like version 7 or something. not only does the sample become desynced but also the samples following the initial hit will have a nasty click added to the attack.

i have never been able to resolve this issue and the only work around i have found is using polyphonic mode so that each hit gets its own voice however this is an unusable solution for something like a bass instrument where the tail end of a note in a polyphonic setup will cause dissonance.

not only does this happen in simpler/sampler but it also occurs in every stock instrument in suite. operator, analog, drift, etc. all of them will cause this issue in monophonic mode or when retrigger is enabled.

i am absolutely devastated as last night i did a thorough experiment session and recorded a full 12 minute video that i uploaded as private for ableton tech support to see. i am wishing that this is just user error as ableton is very expensive and i have paid for every upgrade and i just cannot fathom that such a damaging issue could be existent in the software however i have seen far too many echoes of my experience from others' and i myself have tried every work around possible.

notably, this issue does not happen with 3rd party samplers inside of ableton or in other daws (fl, protools, logic, reason) that i have tested. i sent a ticket to ableton support along with my video detailing everything.

i love ableton so much. i have a push 2 setup and everything - tonnes of money spent on ableton, but if this issue is truly not user error and just exists in the daw i will have zero choice but to move to something like fl studio. either way i will update this thread with the reply that ableton support gives me. if the issue is not user error i will make a public video dissecting all of this.

[siliconarc]

This was brought up way back in 2007 where a dev explained the 1ms:

if the voice management runs out of voices, the oldest one is faded out in 1ms = 44smpls @ 44.1kHz sr. this can cause a delay of one ms. it should help to increase the number of voices and|or to disable retrigger.

https://forum.ableton.com/viewtopic.php?t=80670

So this is a legacy issue. It's interesting to setup a looping 4x kick pattern playing a kick sample in Sampler, disabling its Retrig, and setting its voice count to 3: when you freeze/flatten, the first 3 kicks don't have the delay but the fourth does, so the dev's comment still stands 17 years on. Thing is, in the intervening years Simpler was upgraded with a 1-shot mode (where voice stealing is always on) but this 'glitch' was never addressed.