Ableton Forum

hi there,

having a question related to midi sync problems with ableton live and other
midi hardware

my midi master is ableton live 6.0.9
slave device is an korg electribe ea1 mk1
connected through a midi-connector adapted to the gameport
pc is an amd athlon 64bit 3200+ single core
512 MB Kingston RAM
soundcard: nVidia chipset

When trying to sync the devices, the electribe runs about 1 or 2 bars offbeat. it seems like the electribe starts a few moments after i hit the start button in live.

i found as a workaround to set the delay time in the live midi sync properties to -300ms which pretty much sets the sync to be in time and on beat. but i guess this is an imperfect solution and there must be a reason
why the device doesn't run in sync.

any help would be appreciated.

If the electribe starts at all, then its receiving MIDI Beat Clock OK.

My guess is that you will need a real MIDI adapter to reduce that whopping latency. That's a huge number, especially for something as processor-unintensive as MIDI. Usually, it's audio that gets bogged down by "latency" issues.

http://www.zzounds.com/cat--2434
better yet, look into a cheap soundcard that uses ASIO drivers... like maybe the maudiophile 2496 (it has MIDI as well as audio)

You can try reducing your audio buffer size to see if that helps, as well as checking your video-game cards' website for up-to-date drivers (is this a soundblaster or something?)

hi laird.

well i plan to buy an m-audio card anyway. but that's future music.

still it must work with the actual hardware. i cannot image it's the audio
delaying instead of the midi clock.

maybe also important to mention. the device doesn't run out of thing
the longer i play a song. it immediatly starts laters and stays in sync
for hours. the electribe just starts too late.

any other suggestions before i buy another card?

p.s. the card is no soundblaster. it's an onboard audio chip from nVidia.

Well, Mr. laird. You must be right.

i've been testing a little last weekend and came to following result:

It's the audio, which is delaying!

When i try to live "play" and record keyboard on the electribe (it has
a realtime keyboard-recording feature), the sound delays as i press
1 note. takes quite a while, maybe even a second to hear that sound!

Well, i expect, only an ASIO card will help on this one...

I've never used a soundblaster card.... but try this in the meantime:
http://www.asio4all.com/

Thank you A LOT for this driver.

this sounds quite a bit better mate.

Well yesterday night i tested this asio4all driver and i can
tell you guys, it's amazing what this little piece of software can do!

The delay with the asio4all driver is barely noticeable. for the human ears
it's zero i'd say. comparing to the original nvidia/realtek chipset driver,
where the delay was around half a second to a second!

i need to do some more reading on software music i guess. this is not
the way i'm used to - producing tracks back in days with an atari ST and
a bunch of synth's and drummachines. seems that the time has changed....

thanks again to "laird" for pointing me to this driver

Well yesterday night i tested this asio4all driver and i can
tell you guys, it's amazing what this little piece of software can do!

The delay with the asio4all driver is barely noticeable. for the human ears
it's zero i'd say. comparing to the original nvidia/realtek chipset driver,
where the delay was around half a second to a second!

i need to do some more reading on software music i guess. this is not
the way i'm used to - producing tracks back in days with an atari ST and
a bunch of synth's and drummachines. seems that the time has changed....

thanks again to "laird" for pointing me to this driver