Syncing 2 computer for a liveact

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Opuswerk
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Syncing 2 computer for a liveact

Post by Opuswerk »

Hello knowledgeable people,

We are currently preparing our liveact.

The way we want to play it is by using 2 computers (macbook 2.4Ghz) both running live7. We will be loading the tracks one by one on each comp so as to avoid heavy cpu use. Each computer will be plugged to its one input of a 2 channel dj mixing table.
Computer A will playing track one while computerB will be playing track 2.
Once we'll be over with track 1, we'll load track 3 on computerA and go on like that.

We are facing the issue of getting the 2 computers to run a the same tempo and to be in sync. Having a master and slave is not a solution, as we need to be able to stop the audio on each comp while it'll load the next track.
We found this marvellous little app called midiclock --->http://www.grantedsw.com/midiclock/ It does act as a master on one comp. Hence it starts and stop live and gets it to play at the desired tempo. But we don't manage to send it to the second comp in order to have it being really our master clock.

We'd be really grateful if someone could help us get the midi signal from the computer running midiclock to the other one.

If anyone's got some pointers, please help us out ;)
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tone-def
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Re: Syncing 2 computer for a liveact

Post by tone-def »

Opuswerk wrote: We are facing the issue of getting the 2 computers to run a the same tempo and to be in sync. Having a master and slave is not a solution, as we need to be able to stop the audio on each comp while it'll load the next track.
Why do you need to stop playback? I thought that was what's good about live, that you don't need to stop the audio.
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Post by habitueE »

check the ableton forums, think its there somewhere, if not, u can always ask them, they like to help
Opuswerk
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Post by Opuswerk »

we also posted on the ableton forum ;)

As for stoping the audio, its simply because as we are 2 we got 4 hands and we can basically really play the tracks. ie play the automations that were written. So we'd like to stay in midi for as long as possible. Hence we can't load all the vst's on one file in ableton. as it overloads the cpu.
That's why we want to use 2 comp. to load one track at a time. and save cpu. It's actually more opening one project file after the other...
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mlexicon
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Post by mlexicon »

wouldnt rendered loops help?
signatures suck
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hydrogen
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Post by hydrogen »

Opuswerk wrote:we also posted on the ableton forum ;)

As for stoping the audio, its simply because as we are 2 we got 4 hands and we can basically really play the tracks. ie play the automations that were written. So we'd like to stay in midi for as long as possible. Hence we can't load all the vst's on one file in ableton. as it overloads the cpu.
That's why we want to use 2 comp. to load one track at a time. and save cpu. It's actually more opening one project file after the other...

have you also tried using audio groups for your vst's?

i've been setting up a liva pa using them... and its working out pretty good so far... i've got about 10 vst's per track and i've got like 8 tracks loaded so far. pretty fat the way it can do things...

i think in reason you can sync up like that... but you have to send a start signal everytime you want it to sync in.... my friends do a live pa on reason and an electribe... he has to press start everytime they want to sync up again after stopping reason playback.
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Post by livecollective »

If you are using tracks (full length songs) then midi-sync might not work. Its just to long of a sample for the computer to be able to hold time.

Whereas with shorter clips or just midi, syncing up is fine...


thats from personal expirience, there is no point in syncing to mix songs on ableton...


its fun doing dual-live pa though.
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MINIMALTECHNOHOUSE
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Post by MINIMALTECHNOHOUSE »

How about using a mixer with midi clock support...

or a 3rd (!) laptop....
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