Midi Clock with Ableton, Timing Issue

[Martin_B]

Hey Guys,

i have the following Setup:
Win10-Laptop Running the latest Ableton Live -> Via USB to Focusrite 2i4 -> Via Midi Cable to the Rev2

When i set the Rev2 as "Slave" i have an unstable Midi-Clock.
For example: Ableton (which acts as Clockmaster) is set to 120BPM, The Rev2 shows 122BPM, sometimes it Jumps to 123BPM. So, there is allways af difference of round about 2 BPM.

Any Ideas how i can fix that?

Thanks a lot.

[Gerry Havinga]

Hey Guys,

i have the following Setup:
Win10-Laptop Running the latest Ableton Live -> Via USB to Focusrite 2i4 -> Via Midi Cable to the Rev2

When i set the Rev2 as "Slave" i have an unstable Midi-Clock.
For example: Ableton (which acts as Clockmaster) is set to 120BPM, The Rev2 shows 122BPM, sometimes it Jumps to 123BPM. So, there is allways af difference of round about 2 BPM.

Any Ideas how i can fix that?

Thanks a lot.

I am not sure of this is relevant for Ableton, but let me post it anyway. Make sure you only switch MIDI clock on for one MIDI channel. The Rev2 (and other MIDI equipment) start behaving erratically if multiple (independently synced) clock packets arrive. I am using Bitwig 2 and the Rev2 clock is dead on the beat when slaved to one MIDI HW instrument.

[kryptonitejesus]

Hey Guys,

i have the following Setup:
Win10-Laptop Running the latest Ableton Live -> Via USB to Focusrite 2i4 -> Via Midi Cable to the Rev2

When i set the Rev2 as "Slave" i have an unstable Midi-Clock.
For example: Ableton (which acts as Clockmaster) is set to 120BPM, The Rev2 shows 122BPM, sometimes it Jumps to 123BPM. So, there is allways af difference of round about 2 BPM.

Any Ideas how i can fix that?

Thanks a lot.

Any luck with a solution? I've been having this issue only in Ableton for some odd reason, Cubase seems to be steady but I do get that drift like you mentioned, but mostly 1 BPM or so, the Rev2 is frequently showing 8-12 BPM higher than what Ableton is set to.

[Martin_B]

i figured out, that the difference of the shown BPM is correlating to the choosen bufferlength.
In the meantime i switched from the 2i4 Focusrite to a NI Audio 6. The NI controlpane gives more power to the user to set the buffer, so there is a "process Buffer" with an amount of samples and an "USB Buffer" (1 to 4 ms). I figured out, that the USB Buffer has a bigger influence on the shown BPM. So i usually have 0 to 1 BPM difference to the setting in ableton, which is acceptable for me.

Any luck with a solution? I've been having this issue only in Ableton for some odd reason, Cubase seems to be steady but I do get that drift like you mentioned, but mostly 1 BPM or so, the Rev2 is frequently showing 8-12 BPM higher than what Ableton is set to.

[michat]

Hi guys,

I´m new to the forum and new to DSI, got my Rev2 last weekend and I´m totally happy with it (not to say I loooooove it ).
I got the same issue in Ableton live, from 30 - 100 BPM the tempo is correct, after exceeding the 100 BPM it is constantly changing the "received" tempo from 1-3 BPM higher than the clock. It helped to reduce the audio buffer but that cannot be the solution as the system CPU increases doing that. Also, my Access Virus C and the "cheap" Behringer Neutron manage to receive the correct tempo, sooooo it is a rev2 thingie.

[Troy92Evans]

If I have my arpegiator on with ableton clock it gets wildly off if I have switched patches/gone to the global menu. Only way to get it to stay on tempo is stopping and starting the clock right before the tune. Haven’t exactly narrowed down the variable (clearly), but I’ve had to abandon songs live because the arpegiator wasn’t on, yet if I stop and start clock right before the tune it stays on....not a good feature when it comes to life transitions...

[rhullings]

I too have problems syncing my rev2's arp and sequencer (latest firmware) to Pro Tools. I've discovered that the arp (quantized) will only be on the beat if I play Pro Tools from the beginning of its time line. If I start playback from anywhere else in the song, the arp is guaranteed to be off. It's super annoying and I've pretty much given up on trying to solve it after lots of experimentation and forum surfing. And it sucks to have to use the clunky arp on my $120 keystep (which has rock solid clock sync, all the time) to control my expensive and otherwise lovely rev2 anytime I want an arpeggiated line.

It's got to be a rev2 thing. They've definitely improved the clock sync a lot from earlier firmware versions, but something's still off.

[Troy92Evans]

I too have problems syncing my rev2's arp and sequencer (latest firmware) to Pro Tools. I've discovered that the arp (quantized) will only be on the beat if I play Pro Tools from the beginning of its time line. If I start playback from anywhere else in the song, the arp is guaranteed to be off. It's super annoying and I've pretty much given up on trying to solve it after lots of experimentation and forum surfing. And it sucks to have to use the clunky arp on my $120 keystep (which has rock solid clock sync, all the time) to control my expensive and otherwise lovely rev2 anytime I want an arpeggiated line.

It's got to be a rev2 thing. They've definitely improved the clock sync a lot from earlier firmware versions, but something's still off.

This is exactly where I’m at with ableton. Kinda sucks because I like transitioning from one song to another seemlessly live sometimes. Stuck using an ext sequencer when I have this beautiful prophet right here..

[rhullings]

I contacted Sequential who said the rev2 arp relies on "midi start" commands to sync. They suggested that Pro Tools may only send a midi start command from the beginning of its time line, something I had considered and investigated in the past but haven't resolved. It's amazingly difficult to figure out midi in Pro Tools. Shocking, I know.

[JehuJava]

I had wildly different bpm on the R2 versus Ableton. Ableton was 91.00 and the R2 was displaying 191. I remembered this happened on the Prophet 08 as well. My issue was with midi port selection with Ableton. I also use a MOTU Micro Express. In my midi port preference window of Ableton, I had to select Output: Micro Express USB (All Cables)...not the specific port number the R2 was plugged into.

Weird. But hope that might help someone else out there.

[Tugdual]

As obvious as it might sound, there are I think 2 aspects in your question:REV2 and Ableton.

The REV2 might indeed slightly fluctuate and I would believe this is absolutely normal. MIDI clock is just a tick and the REV2 has to guess the BPM which is nothing but a measure of time in between two clicks and possibly a low pass on measure to avoid crazy changes on display.

On the Ableton front I faced a lot of issues when I had the sound card, the REV2 and other devices on separate USB.
After  a lot of experiments, the following setup seems the most robust:

• 1 USB connection for audio and midi
• 1 MIDI hub from the sound card MIDI port to all MIDI devices
• I can then keep other USB connections to any device for non musical purposes (patches)

As a matter of fact I do not use VST editors, I use standalone applications beside Ableton.