Ableton Forum

how do you do it?

wamcocoon wrote:how do you do it?

You Read the Manual

You haven't given us enough information to answer your question. give some info when you ask a question so you don't just get the canned responce RTFM.

Any information for what you are trying to do? two Ableton Lives on the same machine? on different machines? what sound cards? what operating systems? what versions of Live?

wamcocoon wrote:how do you do it?

dunno

yeah, read the manual. then search the forum. then connect the two computers with a midi cable and make sure one has the ext. button selected.

swishniak wrote:yeah, read the manual. then search the forum. then connect the two computers with a midi cable and make sure one has the ext. button selected.

you left out a step, check the manual for what it is.


or go to the Tips n Tricks forum and read the sticky for a few different ways to sync Live between computers.



(you left off the options-preference-sync in/out settings)

wamcocoon wrote:how do you do it?

I usually just put a bottle of Germany´s finest weissbier in an empty room - let Henke and Behles in there and let them work it out. They usually hook up.

-M

Lo-Fi Massahkah wrote:

wamcocoon wrote:how do you do it?

I usually just put a bottle of Germany´s finest weissbier in an empty room - let Henke and Behles in there and let them work it out. They usually hook up.

-M

lol, damn, I was just gonna go for that joke. Im half expecting nebulae to come by with a description of some sort of zoo-keepers insemination work in the Berlin Ableton Zoo!

OK, I'll be more specific:

My friend and I both DJ using Ableton Live. We are doing a party in Jan, and are thinking of starting a band. We want to be able to perform in the booth together, flawlessly running and syncing two laptops running Live.

I hope this is possible. Otherwise, I am certain there'd be a good workaround, or..

OK, go to Preferences->MIDI Sync for both computers. For computer 1, under MIDI ports, select your MIDI input and click the [sync] button. Computer 1 will now receive MIDI sync information. For computer 2, select you MIDI output and click the[sync] button. Now computer 2 will send MIDI sync information. Computer 1 will be the slave and computer 2 will be the master. You can now get out of Preferences. In computer 1, click on the [EXT] button which is on the top page next to the tempo.

Now you need to run a MIDI cable out of computer 2's MIDI output to computer 1's MIDI input. When you click play in computer 2, computer 1 will start playing too, and will slave to computer 2's tempo.

There may be a few extra steps in there somewhere... anyone wanna add to this???

I trust you have ears? And you don't want the same two bars running for hours and hours on either computer?

Really, just make sure you can see each others screens and set the tempos to the same value. It works and it doesn't require you both to keep everything running at the same time all the time, which I've found to be worth much more than MIDI-"perfect" sync.

So how do you sync two copies of Live? You press space..

I've done this with Machinate on several occasions. I seem to recall pulling off a slow tempo change (liek, 80 - 140 over 32 bars or something) in time with a human drummer. That would've been hell if one of us had been slaved via MIDI - here we were just tapping an arrow key to the beat. Worked like a charm. Andy might even have an MP3 of it somewhere..

noisetonepause wrote:Really, just make sure you can see each others screens and set the tempos to the same value. It works and it doesn't require you both to keep everything running at the same time all the time, which I've found to be worth much more than MIDI-"perfect" sync.

So how do you sync two copies of Live? You press space...

Hear, hear! And with each passing generation of Ableton Live this gets more and more true. Midi-sync is way too flubby. Press space indeed.

I'll bow down to Mach and Paws' experience any day, but I've found sync to work pretty well. even the people at Ableton have mentioned that this can be tightened up, that was BEFORE the Live 7 release, maybe it's better now.

Master computer
options-preferences-midi
sync out ON
midi cable out

Slave computer
options-preferences-midi
sync in ON
midi cable in
hit EXT at the upper left of the screen

hit play on the slave, it won't play until master hits play

turn on the metronome for both
slave machine - options-preferences-midi
on the port where the midi cable is hooked up hit the right facing triangle.
move the clock delay until the metronomes are in sync.



and seriously man, I posted a link where you can find this info. if you won't help yourself why should we? lazy...

If you have macs you can use network midi too and forget the midi interfaces & cables (you normally need a midi interface for each computer +cable). It will even report the latency for you. Works over wireless too, though you run the risk of a temporary lag if there's interference. This is very rare though and it sorts it self out in a few beats.

Don't forget option-space on the one you want to sync if the first one's already playing. (Cheers MobiusB!)