I think saying abletons midi is unstable is a little unfair. Can be unstable is better. I have had a number of issues over time that have affected it, i also have had other timing issues that i thought was down to midi. To be honest most of the issues are user error- Driver issues, too high audio latency and simply not setting up the Midi settings correctly have all caused problems for me. Oh and in the old days, cracked software added to the instabilities (i pay for everything now).I now have around 25 different midi devices (obviously i never use all at once) that i use trouble free with ableton.

From what you have described im going to assume you were trying to run the dt as a slave to abletons master clock, but what about trying it the other way round In abletons midi settings, find the dt midi in port and turn on track, sync and remote. If you expand the midi input you get extra sync settings like sync type and clock sync delay, you may need to play with these to get it to sync well.

Back within ableton main screen, if you didnt have it already a new button marked ext will appear at top left. This is external sync. If you have it on (highlighted yellow) ableton will clock itself to external midi. If you click play (and record) now and theres no midi clock being recieved it will wait at 1.1.1 until it receives the clock. Hit play on dt and ableton should record it in.

I dont have a dt and I had a look at the manual and i couldnt see how midi clock works-does it only send clock when playing, does it send realtime messages, etc but in theory ableton should stop when you stop/play when you play/change tempo when you change tempo on the dark time.

Ms audio out to clock in idea doesnt need expert sleepers to make it work, just a standard audio out signal would do (my own es jacks are too precious for something as basic as a clock pulse). You want to have an audio sample which is basically nothing but a single cycle of a square wave, because the important part is the transition between low and high. You want a single cycle to occur 24 times every quarter note, or 96 times a bar. Ive not done it, but im guessing that making it once for one tempo and warping it to another tempo using the repitch algorithm would work so its not too inconvinient.

One final thing, usb has limited bandwidth. Before i upgraded to a firewire audio interface my access virus ti would freak out because all my bandwidth was being used by audio. If your audio interface has a spare midi port on it, disconnect dt usb and just use midi.

Analog monster

On 3 Jun 2013, at 14:11, Jim Credland < jim@... > wrote:

> M -
> Y. Good point. I'll set up a channel for the expert sleepers and it'll be nearly as convenient.
>
> Be able to work out if it's the clock sync or the midi input causing the problem like that at any rate!
>
> cheers! J.
>
> On 3 Jun 2013, at 12:49, Martin Klang wrote:
>
>>
>> yes, Ableton's midi timing is terrible.
>> Can you send a click track to the gate / clock input on the Dark Time That should give you much tighter sync. Plus, if you want it, groove!
>>
>> hth,
>>
>> /m
>>
>> On 3 Jun 2013, at 11:57, Jim Credland wrote:
>>
>>> Cheers Florian - I'll take it up with them. I'm on the latest version. Seems a shame it's so slack on that front. It's bloody good with other things.
>>>
>>> For now I've cured it with the quantise button :)
>>>
>>> On 3 Jun 2013, at 11:49, Florian Anwander wrote:
>>>
>>>> Ableton Live is known to have an awful timing in respect to MIDI-Clock no matter whether the MIDI-protocoldata are transmitted via USB- or MIDI-hardware.
>>>>
>>>> The latest version of live has some improvements in this regard.
>>>>
>>>> But nevertheless: all the Ableton guys come from audio and ITB-production. They never had their scope on midi and external gear.
>>>>
>>>>
>>>> Florian
>>>>
>>>> Am 03.06.2013 12:44, schrieb Jim Credland:
>>>>> After a year of having one I just twigged how cool the dark time would be connected to a soft synth. So I tried it and now have an awesome groove over a record. However, a couple of questions:
>>>>>
>>>>> The Dark Time's timing, into Ableton, is awful. I'm running it through USB into Ableton and it's neither precise nor accurate. Any tips Does MIDI work better I'm on a Mac, it's plugged directly into a USB socket on the front of the computer.
>>>>>
>>>>> Secondly, it'd be great to leave it plugged in all the time but whenever I hit play on the sequencer it kicks off. Is there some way of telling it that stop means STOP! ;)
>>>>>
>>>>> thank you! J.
>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>>
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