Hardware Synth - "Swing"

[zstowasser]

wanted to ask you a question - I just got a novation supernova 2 keyboard

how tight are these hardware synths supposed to be? is swing natural? cause I recorded some straight 8th notes as audio and I can see the attacks moving back and forth off the grid slightly, enough to be noticeable...

plus, Im having to use the delay in ableton below the channel to compensate, I think this is normal. The delay should be steady.. so not sure why the notes are moving around.

all a bit new and confusing. wondering if the 'swing' is ok or if the unit is faulty

i had some midi sync issues before, but I think it was because i had the midi coming out of my evolution uc-33e. im using my friends motu ultralite and it seems to work better, i also reversed midi cables. could a midi cable cause the sync to be lost? and why would the midi out of my evolution cause midi sync problems? weird...

thanks!

[sven hauck]

Hi zstowasser, do all your patches have this feature or anomaly? Did you quantize the pattern? What latency are you running at?

My Virus TI synchs up ok to Live, but right after I record a midi pattern I usually have to nudge a few notes due to the latency while I was recording.

I've also used the track delay feature when necessary.

[zstowasser]

yes quantized. i drew in straight 8th notes

I havent tried all patches yet, but I suspect there would be the same problem

I looked up on the ableton forum and found that live 7 may have some midi issues? I switched the output port type to MME from direct music and that tightened it up a bit, but the swing is still there

the notes sometimes are before the line, sometimes after. so it sways.

I was able to set the track delay to get the notes close to the grid, I have it set at 43.75ms. Is that normal to have that much delay? I assume it is? also do I set the track delay on the midi channel that controls the audio, or do I have to set the track delay on each audio channel that I record my parts to ?

soft synths were so much easier, but I really like how this novation sounds.. big and warm..

latency ?

buffer 512 samples
input 12.9 ms
output 11.9 ms
driver error compensation 0.00 ms
overall latency 24.7 ms

should / can I tweak my latency somehow?

thanks!!

[sven hauck]

Can you try other patches to see if this still occurs?

Is the 'swing' that you see before and after the 8th note markers or only before or after? What is the value of the Global Groove and did you designate Live to swing the 8th notes of your midi pattern?

[zstowasser]

same problem with other patches

global groove is 0

default swing on the midi parts is "swing 8", but i thought that has no effect unless global groove is enabled.

I called m-audio because I have an evolution uc-33e that Im using as my midi out, he suggested I download their driver. Simple, I know. But I thought this thing didn't need one! ha. Going to try it out now, and I'll try disabling the groove on the part and see.

[zstowasser]

well I think the new drivers tightened it up a bit, but the notes still move back and forth within about 2ms. so pretty close I'd say. But is this normal for hardware? I'm leaning towards yes, but im a hardware newbie

i tried straight groove and swing 8 groove, both with the global groove at 0. no difference.

I have my midi channel track delay at -42.75ms now and that seems to get the audio channel recordings from the synth to line up close to the grid (except for the 'swing' I have).

is this the best way? or should I be adjusting something in preferences?

Also, whats the difference between MME or DirectMusic for midi out. looks like MME is oldschool, but is there a reason for having directmusic ? When using DirectMusic, the notes REALLY move. like 10ms range..

a

[zstowasser]

checked this out with live 6.0.7, same problem. so its not a 'new' bug if it is one.

so should I just deal with this, or is there a way to fix it.. hmm. I'm not sure if its very noticable. changing from direct music to MME in live 7 made a huge difference.

I did email ableton support..

if you have suggestions let me know, I'll be making some music and I'll try to use a mix of softsynths and the external synth to see if the timing bothers me or if its noticeable at all.

[sven hauck]

The MME driver is old school, it generally gives the worst latency.

What does your midi chain look like?

[zstowasser]

i tried two different midi devices, same problem. so its gotta be either the cables, ableton, or the synth, or neither (its normal).

evolution uc-33e
and motu ultralite

then its just a 3 foot midi cable from that to the novation and another 3 foot cable back to the interface

[admin]

Zachary,

43ms seems like a lot to have to compensate. Generally drivers will compensate automatically for recording. The only thing that doesn't get compensated is the latency from the converter itself, this is anout .75ms each way though. The rest of the latency must be from MIDI, but that should only be a few ms as well.

The swing itself is normal though, 2ms is a bit on the high end for a newer synth but they are all different obviously. Also note that it takes about 1ms for a single note to be transmitted, so if you play two on top of each other the second note will arrive 1ms after the first one does, this is just due to the slow speed and serial nature of MIDI.

I recently hooked up my MKS-80 to Live now that 7 has support for external instruments (a great implementation of it too, very quick to setup). My problem was that the synth sounded tight as it was running but when I recorded it as audio it was off. Only spent a bit of time trying to figure it out but I'll let you know more when I'm back into it.

Anyways seems like you've got the part itself lined up properly, the 2ms shouldn't be too bad. Is there a pattern to the late notes,or is it random?