Syncing Delay Times and Looper to Ableton Midi Clock

I

imrecs

Inspired
I just want to make sure it's possible to do the following, as I read on here some people were having issues with Midi Clock.

Live, I play guitar along with backing tracks in Ableton Live. The tempo changes from song to song, and occasionally within a song. Ableton's sequencer/click is always in time with the music.

So I'd like to send this Ableton midi clock signal to the Axe FX so that the delay blocks are always in time with the song, as well as the looper start and stop points, etc. In addition, I plan on sending midi clock out to a couple of Midi capable pedals such as a Moog MF-104M, so I would want the Midi clock signal to hit the Axe and then go through to my pedalboard as well.

Just making sure this is possible. Specifically for the looper as I want to do a lot of live looping so time sync'ing is crucial.
 
Is that possible? I know I can do this with a Pigtronix Infinity Looper slaved to Midi clock, though I wouldn't need the pedal if the Axe could accomplish this.
 
imrecs said:
Is that possible? I know I can do this with a Pigtronix Infinity Looper slaved to Midi clock, though I wouldn't need the pedal if the Axe could accomplish this.
Click to expand...

How does that pigtronix sound? Does it actually sync to clock well?
 
Syncing delays to an external midi clock is dead easy. Just send the midi clock into the axe, USB or midi port.That s all.

Check the midi thru settings in the manual to forward the clock and other midi to other downstream devices. Put each one on a different channel, else it may get messed up.

Not much experience with the looper or ableton here, but you might set up a sequence to send the start, stop cc's in proper time. You can also automate fx on off cc, xy cc, external controllers, basically anything.
 
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imrecs said:
I just want to make sure it's possible to do the following, as I read on here some people were having issues with Midi Clock.

Live, I play guitar along with backing tracks in Ableton Live. The tempo changes from song to song, and occasionally within a song. Ableton's sequencer/click is always in time with the music.

So I'd like to send this Ableton midi clock signal to the Axe FX so that the delay blocks are always in time with the song, as well as the looper start and stop points, etc. In addition, I plan on sending midi clock out to a couple of Midi capable pedals such as a Moog MF-104M, so I would want the Midi clock signal to hit the Axe and then go through to my pedalboard as well.

Just making sure this is possible. Specifically for the looper as I want to do a lot of live looping so time sync'ing is crucial.
Click to expand...

Ableton Midi Clock => Axe FX: Yes, possible.
Delays always in time with the song: theoretically yes, depends in reality.
Looper start and stop points (in time with the song): theoretically/ideally yes, depends in reality.
MidiClock pass thru to peripheral devices: might be possible, might not be optimal unfortunately.

Getting some things down:

Ableton have a history of not being the most stable and reliable clock source. I´ve heard this so many times from so many different peoples on different forums, that I think that there are some truth to it at least. The reason(s) however, are probably equally as many as the people having their issues. Could be their computers, could be Ableton itself, could be that it is via MIDI (an old protocol), could be their audio/midi interface(s) and/or more. Most certainly it could be a combination of all more or less.

Say that the computer struggles in doing all the stuff it does in Ableton. And it in turn makes the clock transmission being somewhat of a 'lower priority' in its stability. This 'lower priority' would possibly mess things up. A millisecond (or even a fraction of it) too late or too soon will mean a lot for the result in the end (having all music/instruments in sync). It doesn´t need to be much deviation back and forth to getting out of sync, but 'still be in the right tempo'. Quite interesting read on the subject:

http://www.innerclocksystems.com/New%20ICS%20Questions.html

http://www.innerclocksystems.com/New ICS Litmus.html

Looper start/stop points being in time are probably even harder as it adds your 'fixed' history of stuff you played some time ago onto something that might have gone back or forth regarding sync since then.

MidiClock pass thru to peripheral devices, might be possible. But due to the old protocol MIDI is (= not fast), and due to the risk that you might want to have other things going on in the midi stream. I e controlling a parameter in those devices, you may get (a fraction) out of sync because of just that. Both the parameter control and the midiclock are messages within the same wire. There´s a risk that the bandwidth isn´t enough...

You´ll probably have to test for yourself to see what is possible and what is not.
 
Yes, I too have the Axe follow MIDI Clock tempo fine. But remember that the MIDI Clock in fact is a "slave working ass off trying to catch up but never gets it exactly right" protocol. I'd guess you would be better off looping in Live since there wouldn't be the. MIDI Clock induced drifting going on. You can also set up Axe's delay blocks for looping maximally four bars. That's cool for morphing if assigning an expression pedal to tht delay block's Feedback parameter. And some delay types have a Freeze function, not good for morphing but well for simply catching something to loop


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Midi clock stability depends. I've never had audible issues with the software midi clock in cubase. And there are special hardware midi clock devices available. Even dyi ones, I had very good results with midibox ng.
 
I use AL for backing tracks and changing scenes on AFX in one song via MIDI. The scenes have the same sound but different sequencer patterns.

So far I haven't had any issues with that.

If I needed a looper though, I would probably use the one in AL. But I'm sure it's possible to use the AFX looper, too. I would suggest though to start and stop this looper by explicit MIDI instructions rather than relying on MIDI clock.
 
The problem is not that "the MIDI Clock signal might be bad" or so. The problem is that the slaving device can't look into the future so when those small deviations in the master device happen the slave is already "behind" or "early" and starts to correct. But the poor sucker can't figure out when to stop catching up until it is passing the corresponding tempo and then it is immediately "wrong" again but at the other side of the correct tempo :) So what is constantly going on in a MIDI Clock sync setup is the slave devices desperately trying to catch up. The "sync issue" is part of the protocol, so to say.
 
Unbelievably, the AXE does NOT pass THRU MIDI clock, so it must be at the end of the chain or use a splitter.
 
what kind of splitter would i need to send the Axe Midi clock from my interface, and also send midi clock to some pedals at my pedalboard?

Seems it makes the most sense to use Ableton as a looper, or try to sync the Pigtronix Infinity...though I think the looper sounds better when it comes after the amp/cab on the axe rather than running into the front input....I could try an FXL block and put the pigtronix in there, though it would probably be easier to just use a software looper whether Axe or Ableton.
 
imrecs said:
what kind of splitter would i need to send the Axe Midi clock from my interface, and also send midi clock to some pedals at my pedalboard?

Seems it makes the most sense to use Ableton as a looper, or try to sync the Pigtronix Infinity...though I think the looper sounds better when it comes after the amp/cab on the axe rather than running into the front input....I could try an FXL block and put the pigtronix in there, though it would probably be easier to just use a software looper whether Axe or Ableton.
Click to expand...

I've tried extensively to sync the axe to a DAW using midi clock and was never really happy with the results. I've had the most success with setting the tempos the same and using the looper unsynced. It sounds crazy, but it's worked for me. The quantize function has been a lifesaver for me. I used to run a boss rc50 (controlling click/loop) in the fxloop, but it sounds so much better without it. We now run the click/tracks from a roland spd-sx.

Things can get funky when trying to stop and restart loops or use reverse/halftime since those pedal functions aren't quantized. If anyone has a work around for those, I'd love to hear them.
 
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