> (God knows why it needs 40ms of early. I suppose that's to compensate for the audio that might be coming out of a synth through a mixer with all the plugin delay stuff. But that means I may have to adjust the delay whenever I add a long latency plugin...argh!)
>

Ok weve found the solution, so its user error ;-) to help you understand, there are a number of timing issues going on at once here, and its a balancing act to get things working perfectly.

Audio buffer size-the "workspace" of the soundcard. It takes time and cpu to convert analog audio to digital, to sum all our tracks, etc. The more time, the less cpu thats needed, but also the higher the delay between the audio being created at source and it leaving our monitors. This needs to be as low as possible to allow the performer to hear themselves as they play.

Midi delay- the time taken for midi to be passed from the master device (for you currently, the dt) to the slave device at the end of the chain (ableton), needs to be catered for. Each midi device will require its own midi delay times for both input and output as their cable length and processing speed may differ (eg if daisy chained thru a number of devices).

Plugin delay and plugin delay compensation- related to audio buffer size, the time it takes for a plugin to process its input to create its output. Different for every plugin. If you have 3 plugins on a track that each take 1ms to process, the whole song must be delayed by 3ms to allow for the processing, which is done automatically by all modern DAWs.

This is further complicated because some say Abletons plugin delay compensation is broken. Ableton say its not so its not being fixed. But many users have noticed issues. The latest forum investigations seem to show that while a plugin is being compensated for, any automation for it is not. Refering back to my example, the automation for plugin number 3 would actually be 3ms early! Add to that, at least in ableton 8, if you use manual track delay it disables plugin delay compensation. Ive not checked if this happens with 9 yet.

To make the dt and ableton behave as you originally asked for, with ableton as master and dt as slave, you need to adjust the midi delay for the dt output in the same way you already have for the input. You will need sync and remote on, but i dont think you need track on. Hit play on ableton with metronome on while the dt is connected to a vco&eg&vca. No sustain, release or attack, short decay. Shift dt midi delay until metronome and synth are in phase.

You should now be able to choose between ableton or dt as master-ext lit, dt is master, not lit ableton is master. It may freak out if eg. you try to have the dt as master while dt is also getting clock from ableton. If it does freak out, try and think about where are the dt and ableton listening to and you should be able to figure it out.

I hope you figure it all out, good luck!

On 3 Jun 2013, at 17:42, Jim Credland < jim@... > wrote:

>
> On 3 Jun 2013, at 15:25, analogmonster@... wrote:
>
> > 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.
> >
>
> I'm presuming, as there's no install CD, that the Dark Time is relying on the built in OS X general purpose drivers.
>
> >
> > 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.
> >
> >
> Ah - genius! I've bought a couple of midi cables, plugged it into the Maschine's midi interface and added 40ms of early to it. Wicked. Right - let the fun begin!
>
> (God knows why it needs 40ms of early. I suppose that's to compensate for the audio that might be coming out of a synth through a mixer with all the plugin delay stuff. But that means I may have to adjust the delay whenever I add a long latency plugin...argh!)
>
> > 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.
> >
> >
>
> I've already got the expert sleeper bit though, so that's nice and easy :)
>
> Thanks for the help everyone.
>
> J.
>
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