Another topic about latency and Ableton

The Lounge Other Gear
#1

Hi all,

I’ve already read stuff here and on the internet about latency but I’ve never found something solid for my setup.

I’ve got a pretty basic configuration, with A4 overbridged to Ableton Live, and a MS20 cv controlled by the A4 that goes into a soundcard. As Live says, I’ve got something like 20ms of latency for my ms20.
On a rythmic part played by the korg (bass or drum) it’s starting to get pretty hearable and annoying.

I’d like to know how you’re dealing with that ? Is there a way to eliminate that latency while monitoring with Live ?

This topic is not about a latency occured by Overbridge. No, this guy is fine.

#2

Use track delay in Live.

#3

Yeah I know this option but I never had any good result. I’ve follow those recommendations Sync + Latency advice and tips please re: OB, Virus TI & OT without success.

How do you recommend to set that up ?

#4

I usually run a really simple kick and snare loop in Live.
Then the ext gear I’m piping into a track, I start to dial the “Track Delay” down till I get a match.

#5

And does the time you put in the track delay is the same as the one under the preference pane ? Do you put negative delay time ?

#6

I forget the correlation between them, or the difference or whatever, I dont use Live much anymore.
But using the Track Delay works, I believe it’s there specifically for this purpose.

#7

By using the track delay, does it record on time ? I mean, by looking at the recording, do you see the delay ?

#8

For the MS20 at least (don’t know how OB works), you can get past the latency by setting your soundcard to monitor the input vs the ableton-processed output. You’ll of course lose any processing ableton is doing (like fx or whatever)…but so is the nature of the beast.

A lot of soundcards have a dial where you can mix between input and software output. You could set it somewhere in the middle and turn off monitoring in ableton.

#9

I’ve had the best results using the external instrument device, then aligning the sequencers via the midi sync out button in Live’s prefs. So in your case, maybe set the A4 to drive a simple short 4/4 sound on the MS20, and have Live play a the same with one of its own instruments, then dial in the midi sync out to the A4 until the MS20 sound is locked with Live’s sound. This stuff can get really messy really fast though, with multiple instruments, recording, monitoring through Live, and sequencers driving sequencers that drive modules. There are relationships between midi sync, track delays and hardware latency (in the external instrument device) that are hard to decipher. But in my experience usually using a combo of these at the same time will sort you out.

EDIT - I’m unfamiliar with OB though, so forgive me if my advice doesn’t apply in your setup.

#10

Yesterday I tried to deal with the track delay or the external instrument, so in order to do a proper test I put the direct monitor of my sound card at 50% so I could hear the direct signal and the processed signal at the same time. This way it’s easy to align both sound.
I then dial with the track delay or the HW latency but it seems that after a certain time (eg : 100ms) Live cannot handle the delay. I mean if you put 100ms or 500ms, you’ll have the same result.
Next time I’ll give the midi sync a try but I don’t put too much hope in it.

You’re right about the darkness that Ableton maintains around the latency, even in the user manual there no info about it. Pretty annoying.

The thing is that I don’t know how OB works in relation with Live, how it compensates delay or how it handles latency. I guess it’s easier if you use only one sound card and send everything to it, but OB is so useful, I’d rather remove my (cheap) sound card and use only OB.

#11

I’m not sure why you would have direct monitoring at all when trying to compensate for latency?
You’re trying to make everything show up late, at the same time with as little delay as possible.
The direct signal will always come first, so shouldn’t you cancel it?
Maybe I’m wrong here?

#12

Sorry, I should have mention that I’ve activated the direct monitor only in a test purpose. This way I can compare the delay of the processed sound to the non processed one.

In my mind, if the processed sound comes 100ms second too late, I should put a track delay of -100ms. So if I listen to a mix of both signal with the direct monitor knob set to 50%, I should hear the two sound synchronized.

Am I wrong ?

#13

I think that is impossible. You can’t push the DAW-monitored signal back in time using these controls - the direct monitored signal will always occur first. It’s just physics. But you can reduce the processing delay with a smaller buffer size, higher sampling rate, or better drivers.

What you can do though, is (like Juan Solo said) forget about the direct monitoring. Just monitor everything through the DAW, and set offsets for each track in there. Technically, this is actually delaying the DAW relative to the tracks you offset, and you can get everything to line up.

#14

hello, here is what I’ve done.

Set an external instrument track, to record the ms 20 and send midi from ableton, with a note on the first step, so the ms will normally play the ‘‘quicker’’ it can.

Then record what’s coming out of the external instrument track on another track.

Normally when you scan the audio waveform by zooming in you’ll see a difference (the sound doesn’t come on the first line as it should).

Then mesure the latency with you mouse and get into the exernal instrument and adjust latency by entering the same number as you got when you mesured the latency.

Now erase the recording and record again, the sound of the ms should start right at the first bar every time.

Then it’s no need the change the setting again, normally latency problems are gone for these synth as long as you set the same delay on the track when you use the ms.

No need for direct monitoring I guess.

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#15

Yeah, I’ve realized that while writing my post…

I didn’t thought about that, but of course, you can mesure your latency this way. It seems a good way to solve the problem. I just hope OB will not interact with the set up.

#16

I’ve never used Ableton like this…but am I correct in understanding that these solutions are not exactly ‘solving’ latency, but instead introducing latency to other tracks to compensate? So everything is delayed the same amount when you hit play, correct?

#17

Yes, the all point is to delay the other tracks. That’s why I don’t know how OB react in those cases.

#18

I’m not a master to those latency things, but I guess that if overbridge is treated like a plugin by ableton, sounds coming from OB are perfectly in sync.

(I have an a4 syncing this way)

the only thing for me is that the signal come 2 ms early with overbridge, not a problem but there is no way i can change that in the overbridge preferences or somewhere else.

But 2 ms , who cares I guess…^^

#19

I’ve never had much luck aligning all my hardware with Ableton. I typically set everything to play a metronome / click and then slowly sync each one with Track Delay. The only problem is, I come back the next day and it all sounds off again.

Frustrating.

#20

Finally I won !

I did it the @crazymilk57 way, using the external instrument and measuring the delay in Live. It works pretty well, I have way better results than using the track delay.

Thx everyone for the help, I hope this thread will help some others fighting against latency.

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