MIDI timing/sync issues

[lem]

Ak, have you decided on an interface yet?

[AK]

haha, I'm still looking right this second. I'm tempted to go for a hybrid, one that can use both Firewire and USB-2. At least that way, I have the option to try both ( assuming I can add a firewir port to my new PC )

I have this open in a new window at the moment, just going to check reviews on it: http://www.dv247.com/computer-hardware/ ... rid--69750

I might not need all the features as I have a mixer, well 2 mixers if I add the other one to my set up. There's a version which I'm looking at here: http://www.dv247.com/computer-hardware/ ... ace--84972

But, still looking at the moment.

[lem]

There is a Motu one that has both. I really like the look of that one.

I don't have any useful information on it tho! Good luck

[AK]

Here's a free tool that may be of use. Windows only: http://www.thesycon.de/deu/latency_check.shtml

[simonb]

I know how you feel mate.
This is a real pain in the azz and one would think in this day and age that midi timing wouldn't be a problem.
I have heard good things about this company that have made it their business to sort this problem out: http://innerclocksystems.com/
Looks good but costs $$.

Had a look at that site... "Meticulously over-engineered", I like these guys! Bit out of my budget for the time being though, it seems ridiculous having to pay the best part of a grand just to get gear in sync! My day job is in telecoms and I find it a bit annoying that I'm involved with multi-gigabit synchronous technologies and so on, then I go home and can't even get my drum machine and laptop to sync up over a connectionless 1-byte protocol

Everybody keeps mentioning the interface but I'm not sure this is the reason for any timing errors, I have heard things like 2 people using almost the same set up where just one of them gets issues.

There's a lot that can be affecting midi timing with modern computers, worth giving this a read and applying necessary tweaks: http://www.soundonsound.com/sos/mar00/a ... ditime.htm

I tend to work with audio a lot so even though I was getting timing issues, I'd be creating chains of patterns ( say on the MD ) and then just recording the audio into Live where obviously timing wouldn't be an issue but it's something I def need to address. Hoping to pick a new interface up today so I will at least be trying to tweaks laid out in that article.

I'll have a look at the tweaks when I get home, and yeah I'm using a Firewire interface already. I guess recording audio helps (yesterday after posting this I just recorded the hits from my machinedrum and arranged them as samples) but I quite like the option of having stuff being trigged through MIDI so I can keep tweaking sounds etc. I know some people prefer just getting it down to audio quickly so you're not tempted to go back and get into endless tweaking loops...

Can't you just use the track delay? There was a post before about how to set this up to be the extact ms timing.

Sadly not, track delay works fine for compensating for the overall latency I get of around 50ms but the timing is sloppy on a hit-to-hit basis, for example with a 4/4 kick drum each kick isn't landing precisely on the downbeat when being triggered from my computer, adjusting the track delay is like trying to beatmatch a record that keeps changing speed slightly.

[4am]

do you have the latest OS on your machinedrum?
http://www.elektron.se/products/machine ... =downloads
this solved my sync problems

[AK]

Yeah, could be the Elektron devices at fault. I haven't got around to doing all this yet as I'm waiting for a new audio interface and will first see how that fairs up but be sure to to do any necessary tweaks that could potentially cause timing issues and ensure you have the latest OS on the device.

If all the above fails, I wouldn't know what to suggest. I can't say I have tried doing what you're doing though, for me the strongest point of the MD is the parameter locks so I need to just sync it as tight as possible and trigger patterns. In this respect, it should be fairly easy to sync a 32 or 64 step pattern before moving on to the next?

MIDI has been kinda sloppy with a lot of things I have used, so much so that half the time, I just record to audio pretty quick, these days it's flexible enough to just get in right away but that really only works for studio stuff where you have time to move things about and reconstruct riffs or whatever. Sometimes you just want to jam live and keep things going for ages and if you get drift, that's a real friggin headache.

Who uses a Machinedrum and a MD together? If you sync those 2 up and just jam with those 2 devices and nothing else connected, how is the sync then?

[Barfunkel]

I use MnM as the master clock in my rig, works flawlessly. I've used the MnM as a slave only once, with my friend's Cubase, and it did work well, don't remember any midi hiccups happening.

I've also used MnM as a slave for an MPC2000, but for some reason the MPC didn't send stable midi clock, the BPM was all over the place.

I'd always put the hardware as master though, I don't trust computers and midi.

Thankfully I don't need computer midi with my setup, I just jam with my synts and record the audio.