I am using bitwig and Ableton and can’t stand the midi drifting working with the Machinedrum anymore.
I am about buying the motu xt to operate as mater clock.
I am wondering, is this solution help other Machinedrum users get over the midi drifting?
ADD: I think I should do it correctly
My setup:
MD mkII UW (The TM-1 doesn’t improve much)
A4 mkI
Moog Minature
Doepfer Dark Energy mkII
Korg Arp Ody
Nord drums p3
(All connected to the motherboard via USB)
I have no experience using the motu midi xt but I did want to point your attention to the cheaper, and tried and true, usamo by expert sleepers. Perhaps you are already aware of this device and have reasons to prefer the motu midi xt, in which case disregard.
In my experience USAMO will happily forward midi CC. At the same time however, sending CC and clock at the same time will introduce/worsen jitter in any setup, no matter what the clock source.
Before buying any new kit have you had a look at the midi data? You might find that a device is spewing out sysex or cc data that’s causing a bottleneck and delaying note or other midi packets.
That is the setup I’ve been using for the last 4 or so years. I’ve one USAMO that is connected to a 4 way midi thru/splitter so I can have 4 more or less jitter-free clock signals. I couldn’t be happier tbh.
Please note that any midi thru will introduce some additional latency, but the most important thing is keeping the jitter down, you can compensate for latency but not for the jitters.
I cant seem to gauge if you are using OB for the A4?
I have an old MOTU midi timepice AV that i used to use as a master clock, but with the DAW audio drivers at low audio latency it still wasn’t rock solid. Once i introduced OB, set clock and sync for the transport and just accepted the biggish latency everything was very stable and my timepiece became a midi out matrix for the DT. And my DAW and other out board didn’t flay about wildly with time clock.
And the devices connected to A4 AR DT and DN via 5 pin din were bang on…
You could try increasing your asio or audio driver latency or going with the recommended set up for the A4 and basing the timing of everything around the A4 using OB plugin
I was a madman about latency for the past few months (probably years now, actually, just more adamant about a fix recently) and eventually realized that I think Apple is the way to go for audio processing - gross I know, but my more resourceful cousin helped reinforce that thought. Not sure if you were aware of this, but I read somewhere on reddit not long ago that because of the way windows audio drivers are set up they automatically add 10ms latency and everything else is extra on top of that. It’s like the foundation is flawed from the start. I have a 4790k/32gb ram/RX 580 8gb/1tb Nvme, and with MD+TM-1 I was getting a weird 30-40% usage while IDLE (no audio playing) displaying in the top right CPU meter in Abelton. I think that may have had to do with some plugins/fx on Abelton. Not entirely sure and still don’t know.
The only main workarounds that dramatically helped improve the jitter for me is if you go into your Task Manager > Details Tab > Right-click DAW (I use Ableton 10)> Set Priority > Select Realtime
Then, while in Task Manager Details Right-Click DAW again > Affinity > Uncheck CPU 0. I also do the same for another Task called Ableton Index.exe just in case. Apparently, most if not every active task on Windows uses CPU 0 as a database, or something like that I can’t remember exactly off of the top of my head, but unchecking CPU 0 forces your DAW to use the other lesser used, possibly healthier cores on your CPU. This was from a link on the Ableton sub-reddit that was actually linked to Avid’s advice to reduce latency for Pro-Tools. That and adding liquid metal/delidding temps dropped significantly, so there is much greater stable overclock potential.
Results will differ, but try syncing your MD only with start stop, not actual clock. And set your Md clock appropriately. It’s ~possible~ your MD timing as an internal clock is rock solid and it trying to adjust to a jittery clock is the causing drift. It’s almost impossible for it to not, really. When I do this I record a bar of metronome from each box before live switching to my first real pattern (and yes, in order for them all to be offset the same amount you’d have to have one splitter sending out to each box with the same length cord, etc) but the nice thing is with that bar of metronome is you can nudge each track vs it’s latency easily and get them all in line without issue. Assuming all devices have a similar and steady clock you may find them free running resolves most of your issues.
For an hour long set his probably won’t work, and mileage will vary even for short tracks, but worth a shot.
I’ve been trying to do a lengthy 26min set with MD + Ableton and it’s difficult to achieve a solid timing link in my case when involving common ASIOv2 drivers on Ableton. What worked for me was using FL Studio ASIO drivers (have to install/uninstall FL just for the drivers). For some reason my connection between MD+TM-1+PC never drops with that driver, but its at 256 buffer as lowest rate.
Thank you for the info. Well, there is an xt connected to my Pc. I am using the “sync in All out” mode on Abelton and Bitwig, It is better now, The MD starts on time, and it is closer to “tight” with the DAW’s metronome.
But I must admit I have a very uneducated feeling that my AMD/win is the part to blame
temps dropped significantly, so there is much greater stable overclock potential.