Hi everyone,

Did someone here ever managed to sync BPM on 2 PC's, both using Live, in a stable and jitter free way?

I tried a dozen times, both with FL11/12 and Live, and never managed to do it correctly.
With FLS the stability is a bit better than with Live IMO.

The funny part is, syncing MIDI hardware like multiple grooveboxes and synths with FLS or Live as master, never was a problem. Very stable and reliable. I played dozen of livesets this way.

Do any of you know the reason why it seems impossible to do so?
Precision I tried with an external MIDI USB box I have, several soundcards with integrated MIDI I/O, etc.

The BPM on the slave computer is always jittering and at some point PC's go out of sync.

Since a few years, I play on a very regular basis with a friend, using Live on his/mine PC. We have to sync by ear. This becomes a problem if one of both PC's go out of sync out of the blue, playing on a soundsystem for example.

Can someone help?

(I did a little research using the search function and did not find anything interesting btw)

 

Ableton Live supports Ableton Link! Use this to sync devices like PC, Tablet, Phone etc with software which supports AL.
I'm syncing 3 Laptops with Windows 10 & Bitwig & WiFi AP (only for AL, no file sharing or inet) on jam sessions with friends. AL is a protocol over LAN. Absolutely great.
For years i'm using Midi Clock but sucks with Windows. Then Cubase with VST System Link (SPDIF digital connection).
Works ok but sometimes it sucks also. Now since Bitwig supports AL i'm in a sync heaven.
Reaktor, Traktor, VCV Rack and many more..
There is also a AL-to-Midi box..

 

Yes I heard of this but somehow did not manage to configure it. Will definetly give it another shot since I have feedback now !
So if I understood correctly I can sync 2 PCs via an ethernet cable right ?
Thanks a lot

 

Last edited: Jan 22, 2020

Yep, totally simple. All hard/software with AL support connected via LAN in the same network. No further configuration is needed. And it runs absolutly stable, hours, maybe days or weeks.

The only thing what you can't anymore is surfing in the web. It's too intensive. But we want making music and not online porn!

Test it with your smartphone and an app with AL support and your Ableton Live. For Android use these apps:
https://play.google.com/store/apps/dev?id=5200192441928542082

I'm mainly an Android user and i crying that so less good apps with AL support around the Play Store available. For iOS it is the Garden of Eden. Many superb apps with AL support!

Extend this thread with a 'link' tag ;)

 

Last edited: Jan 22, 2020

Not a problem, I don't surf the web while making music anyway.
And done ;)

Thank you so much, I will try it out tonight. Had to install Live on an old laptop yesterday to give it a shot, because current laptop has no ethernet port, and current workstation has no WIFI so did not have time to test it out.
I will give feedback after testing Ethernet and WIFI while being offline.

 

Link is a good option but even as a MIDI clock slave it works quite well if you "hack" the preferences file.
I don't have the documentation at hand now but search for something like "ableton preferences midi clock slave"...
By default, Ableton uses too strong clock averaging which makes it follow bpm much too slowly.
If you set it to the quickest option (shortest averaging window), I found it to work quite acceptably.
A big difference between Link and midi clock is that if you have a complete song, with midi clock both will start at the same position while LINK will make the members sync to relative beat position - great if you work in session view with pattern-based jamming but somewhat weird in linear song mode.
It's best to try both.

 

Like @poly said it works over LAN. Ethernet, Wi-Fi, Thunderbolt, USB(C) and all the IEEE 1394s (or FireWires). If your computers can see each other over the network, they can sync with LINK.

Your Ableton LINK meter should be blue. If not, right-click LINK and enable "Start Stop Sync (Pref)"

 

Last edited: Jan 22, 2020

Right! Maybe comes in a future update of the Ableton Link protocol.

 

Thanks everyone for your answers,

I have yet two more questions that might be useful for other members as well :

Is it possible to LINK two computers, one MAC and one PC using LINK over Ethernet/WIFI? I guess yes by the answers you all already gave me. My fellow friend was given an old macbook by his brother and is willing to get to the MAC world, and since this computer has WIFI and mine too, we could (finally) jam with a stable connection between those two over WIFI right?

And last question, in you all opinion will it be possible to use a smartphone as WIFI "router" (via Mobile Hotspot) tu use LINK between those two? That would be the best since there are no internet connection in the places we play most of the times. Or maybe I can make a Hotspot with one of two computers and connect to the second one this way ?
Totally new to those WIFI things sorry if some questions seems idiot ;)

Thanks again everyone

 

Yes, and both wired and wireless works and LINK is optimized to achieve rather precise sync even over WiFi. Worth a try. Mac or Win.

If you have a Mac, you don't need a phone.
Just go to WiFi and choose "Create Network". Log in to the newly created WiFi with your Win machine and enable LINK on the Abletons of both.

 

Thanks for the answer,
Will give it a go next time we are up for a session,
This would be a total blast not having to nudge from time to time while playing.

 

All hard-/software with AL support in the same Local Area Network. HaPPY JaMMiNG!

 

You can create ad-hoc connections on Windows, too. Before Windows 8 you could do this from the Control Panel and Network Connections (Network and Sharing Center?). Post Windows 7 you have to use the command prompt if you want the MS PC to be the host.
"netsh wlan set hostednetwork mode=allow ssid=XXX key=YYY keyUsage=persistent"
X is your network name.
Y is your password.

"netsh wlan start hostednetwork" to start the connection.

For example, if I wanted an ad-hoc connection named AudioZ, with the password jamlikeamofo and I wanted to keep these settings even after a restart I would open Command Prompt and enter the following:

netsh wlan set hostednetwork AudioZ jamlikeamofo persistent

 

Last edited: Jan 22, 2020