Understanding Latency - The key to recording music hardware
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- เผยแพร่เมื่อ 28 ส.ค. 2024
- Synchronising music hardware with a DAW is one of the more challenging technical tasks even in a basic studio setup. Here I go through some of the steps required to get Ableton and my drum machine to talk to each other properly, and get both of them to behave! We take a look at what audio buffers are too...
All the links:🔗
mikerenouf.ban...
/ mike_renouf
www.buymeacoff...
Goodness. Are you still reading? Wow, thats kind of a suprise - thanks though. I do appreciate it. You must be pretty into this. I do write articles on my webpage from time to time - they get a bit long winded, so I don't talk about them much, but maybe you'd be into reading those? The link to the site is up above. It's not a difficult one to remember though - as long as you can spell my last name, right? 🤖
Alrighty. Full disclosure. As @krezmuzik says below, the best way to connect a hybrid setup is with the external instrument device. I've done some more study and im confident all the theory about buffer sizes is correct, but i think the use of midi clock adjustment is only applicable in the specific context I was using.
Turning the channel monitoring off reduces latency dramatically, so if have things set up as I did and you then toggle monitoring, things go out of synch again.
Probably best to consider this as a bit of a workaround and I'll try to put up a better video soon. ✨🪐
Holy crap, I've been wondering about this for years... Thanks man!
Hey, you're welcome 👍. Glad this helped!
@@MikeRenouf Curious if you've seen this. I'm trying to sync up an Elektron Analog Rytm MKII to Ableton. I'm just trying to go simple by getting a kick lined up, but the very first kick of every recording seems to record at 1.1.3 then it's lined up at 1.2, 1.3. 1.4, 2.0, etc.
A little strange here and I'm scratching my head.. not sure if this is an Elektron thing or an Ableton thing.
I find the first percussion hit is sometimes a bit off too but everything matched after that. When Im recording I find its worth giving a bar or two of lead-in time for the gear to all synch.
Its interesting that your setup is off by that specific time period though.
@@MikeRenouf Yea, it's been a while since I've tried syncing up with Ableton again. Haven't had any hardware for about 4 years. But this video got me going better than I ever had in the past. If you experience the same thing, it's probably just an Ableton thing.
You mentioned it's a percussive thing.. I haven't tried a hardware synth yet.. Do those not have this issue?
I just meant its more noticeable with percussion, because the first fragment of audio is misaligned. It no-doubt affects keyboard synths too in that way.
Can't beat a simple refresher, nice one big sir
Absolutely! I've been doing so much hardware-only music in the last year or so that this was helpful for me to look at again too. 🪐✨
Tip: If you view the recorded clip in Ableton, you can click and drag the distance between the grid and the first transient of the audio. In the bottom of the clip, Live will tell you the duration of the selection in milliseconds. You can then use that value to adjust the latency compensation as shown in this video.
Good idea. Thanks for sharing this. 👍
Problem with this is if you’re recording synthesizer you can’t really see the transients like you can in the video
@@ProducedI You can if you make the synth have a short transient (attack) at the beginning.
True
Thanks! I may end up coming back to this vid once I get a more proper DAW.
Dying with the flu….
I’m bed since Saturday….
First time I can handle the world….
Thank you,as per usual Mike,cracking upload!!!
❤
Get well soon Barry!
You on a spacehip, i like , looks fun 😊
Yeah, currently in orbit around Mars. Who knows where we fly to next? 😁 ✨🪐
thank you so much for this :) helps alot
You're welcome! ✨🪐
This is so weird, I’ve never had issues with my hardware syncing with ableton??
You're the luck one! 😆. Maybe your interface is extremely good? ✨🪐
0:56 = "hello darkness my old friend...."
🤣 It's painful isn't it!
u delay clocks to in and out time and thats it.......u do it wrongggggggg
WRONG! Use the Hardware Instrument device.
Not WRONG. If you check the Ableton website it gives several methods. If you have Ableton Lite or Ableton Intro the External Instrument doesn't exist. Its only available in Ableton Standard and Ableton Suite.
The External Instrument is preferred as it is more convenient - but isn't the only solution.
@@MikeRenouf its the only method that works when you start using plugins etc to compensate for additional latency. I’m not being a jerk I’m trying to help other people avoid the frustration when using a hybrid environment. It really is the only way that works without issues.
@@deepnlow808 cool - thanks for updating so we get a clearer explanation. I'll look more deeply into the options so we get a better understanding 👍
@@deepnlow808 I’ve been using Live for 15 years and I still can’t figure out a way for it to not all go to shit timing wise. As soon as I add a latency inducing plug-in all my timing goes haywire. I’m using external instrument and hardware latency, as well as midi clock compensation in the preferences. It honestly drives me fucking crazy. How do you have it working once you add plugins? And the plug-ins don’t even have to be on the god damn hardware tracks for it to fuck it up, just anywhere in the project. It’s really insane :/
I really dont have enough knowledge to be sure, but might it be due to your system struggling and a need to increase the buffer size so the processor can cope? That will increase latency, but allow synchronization to be achieved?