Sync + Latency advice and tips please re: OB, Virus TI & OT

Elektron Software Overbridge
#1

Hi guys,

Firstly I’m really enjoying the new AR 1.30 update + 1.10!

I’ve been running 10.6 OSX on my studio computer for sometime, so only been able to use OB on my laptop at home occasionally.

I’ve now completely rebuilt my studio set up, and am able to have an Overbridge-enabled OSX installed (10.9).

Before anything else, I’d like to now try and configure the inevitable sync issues across the devices. And get all audio landing on the grid in the same place.

Does any have any tips with regards to tightening up sync between;

AR in OB Mode
Virus Ti
Octatrack
Overhub

Any tips on tools within Ableton that can take some of the guess work out, for example, of the track delay adjustments would be great as I’ve not attempted to really calculate and adjust, exactly, sync and latency issues before.

Also anything else to keep in mind? I’m pretty sure i can figure this out, but as it’s quite an odd setup with Audio coming from outboards synths + the above mentioned, I thought I’d ask here first.

I have a decent soundcard + Macbook pro so can handle low latency levels in Ableton, and I’m happy to look at Sync-gen or an Expert Sleepers solution (USAMO/ESX-8MD) to tighten up the midi if needs be.

Any tips, advice, stuff to avoid me wasting hours would be warmly received :slight_smile:

Another topic about latency and Ableton
#2

I did mine pretty simply but it does take time.

In your Ableton preferences go to the Midi tab and look for latency compensation. It will give you a number, for example mine was 15.92 milliseconds. If I adjusted my latency by -15.92 milliseconds in the preferences it would change to zero (0) ms but would have an indicator to suggest that the zero latency wasn’t perfect (I can’t remember exactly what the indicator is, I think it’s possibly a minus (-) symbol.) This is because Ableton only has 2 decimal point latency. I actually had to mess around within that 3rd decimal point experimenting with values until the latency became a perfect zero. mine ended up being -15.918 milliseconds.

Once you have that number write it down and save it because there is no way to retrieve it in Ableton.

Now, on all external tracks, in the track delay box (if you can’t see it, enable it in the View menu) put the minus value.

When you record, all your external notes/hits won’t be viewed as on the grid in the recordings, but when you press play, it will all play in sync with your internal sounds.

This is the way I did it. Hope it helps.

PS, are you the real Dave Angel? Great music!!

#3

I have a similar setup with virus ti2, AR and Hp elitebook 8770w. When I am using the access ti2 in USB mode with Ableton, I don’t enable the live button until I am recording sequencer data and then once recorded I disable the Ti2 live function. If don’t do this, all the midi data moves out of sync during recording, but if I do the recording with the live button enabled and then disable before playing back the recorded notes, everything works out fine.

As far as the AR is concerned, everything is in sync when using the Overbridge plugin. However, I don’t record my drum sequences on my PC with Overbridge, as I find the quality is not quite as good as it could be. So I record the AR patterns ( that I sequence in Ableton ) through my UAD Apollo ( up to eight channels together ) , which seems to have some timing issues ( notes seem a bit ahead ). I get round this by moving the pattern samples that I record in my arrangement screen to the correct position and then looping before arranging.

With the Overbridge plugin, I can do quite a lot with my songs before recording and arranging, but have more latency issues ( with my usb keyboard ) if I add high latency UAD effects to the master bus in Ableton. This means that I can not run a Live set with these mastering plugins whilst playing my keyboard.

I have a PC / UAD firewire setup and a not sure if this problem is overcome when using a Thunderbolt mac setup.

#4

syncing with an erm multiclock as I had to get one anyway to keep the rest of the gear tight. works much more relieable than overbridge sync

#5

Thanks for the tips guys - does anyone else have any further points to add?

Multiclock is looking like the one for me at this point.

djsm’s suggestions and pointers (thanks!) got me real close; however the Octatrack is still suffering from the inevitable USB midi jitter, due to syncing via a midi interface.

I was hoping that midi syncing the OT from an AR running OB’s would get me there, however it’s lagging behind Ableton & OB’s clock unfortunately. And so at this point the OT is more successfully synced using a midi interface, however the jitter is something I want to avoid

#6

Ableton has a notoriously sloppy clock.

I use my TR-8 synced via USB to clock Ableton, then route that clock out through a 4x4 midi module to all my outboard gear. The TR-8 has a really tight clock.

Maybe try tracking a hardware clock and then routing that out to all your other gear?

#7

So to make sure I understand you properly; TR8 is the master clock and Ableton is being slaved and is also spitting the Midi clock back out via a 4x4? Surely the jitter would still be present due to the midi clock being distributed out via a USB midi interface?
I was also under the impression that Ableton doesn’t like to be a slave in this situation? Interesting to hear that you seem to have it running as a slave.
Thanks for your help djsm

#8

So to make sure I understand you properly; TR8 is the master clock and Ableton is being slaved and is also spitting the Midi clock back out via a 4x4? Surely the jitter would still be present due to the midi clock being distributed out via a USB midi interface?
I was also under the impression that Ableton doesn’t like to be a slave in this situation? Interesting to hear that you seem to have it running as a slave.
Thanks for your help djsm[/quote]
This is correct, I use the TR8 USB to clock Ableton via an USB hub (not overhub) I point Ableton preferences to be a slave to this device. Then, through the same USB hub, synced to Ableton, my 4x4 midi interface sends midi to various other instruments, including the TR8 via midi cable.
I was also surprised that the jittery Ableton clock was completely bypassed using this method. In fact, without this method I would go as far to say that clocking anything to Ableton is useless and unusable.
Using OB I do get occasional glitches that throw the whole set up out of sync for a millisecond, this is all rectified very quickly and everything falls back into sync in less than a second. The glitches usually happen when I tweak a knob on my A4. I haven’t worked out if these glitches are caused by my A4 being connected to the same hub as all my other gear or not. I’m hoping all glitch sync errors will be rectified when I install OB 1.10.1.

#9

So to make sure I understand you properly; TR8 is the master clock and Ableton is being slaved and is also spitting the Midi clock back out via a 4x4? Surely the jitter would still be present due to the midi clock being distributed out via a USB midi interface?
I was also under the impression that Ableton doesn’t like to be a slave in this situation? Interesting to hear that you seem to have it running as a slave.
Thanks for your help djsm[/quote]
This is correct, I use the TR8 USB to clock Ableton via an USB hub (not overhub) I point Ableton preferences to be a slave to this device. Then, through the same USB hub, synced to Ableton, my 4x4 midi interface sends midi to various other instruments, including the TR8 via midi cable.
I was also surprised that the jittery Ableton clock was completely bypassed using this method. In fact, without this method I would go as far to say that clocking anything to Ableton is useless and unusable.
Using OB I do get occasional glitches that throw the whole set up out of sync for a millisecond, this is all rectified very quickly and everything falls back into sync in less than a second. The glitches usually happen when I tweak a knob on my A4. I haven’t worked out if these glitches are caused by my A4 being connected to the same hub as all my other gear or not. I’m hoping all glitch sync errors will be rectified when I install OB 1.10.1.[/quote]
Interesting. I’ve had my eye on a TR8 for some time now, but wanted to tighten up the sync in my studio first… So if I can solve with a TR8, which would save me having to buy a multi clock, that would be great!
Thanks djsm :slight_smile: