Syncing two laptops - erutufon|nofuture

FORMAT · 24th September 2003

Hello all,

I am wanting to play together with another laptop musician (on two Powerbooks) and we need to sync them. .We will use Ableton Live for live performance.
Do you guys know what's the best way to sync these two machines?

Any info/links much appreciated
Roland/Elecctromat

**Tec** · 24th September 2003

Hmmmmm, tricky...

Other than the obvious in counting on the beat and having your BPM's matched i can't think of any sure fire way to do it. I'm glad this has been raised as i am in the process of buying another book of power and REALLY want a rock solid way to implement sync'ing.
There must be some clever bastard out there who has developed an app/freeware to do this, i bet its PC only though.

Ethernet is not good enough imho (latency), it has to be firewire or maybe usb 2.0...

C'mon, somebody must know something....

euterke · 24th September 2003

By experience... with 2 major low latency card... you can still ear a little delay on a same loop kick used by both laptop.

What I can say.... just split part... so when some of you is using the drums (don't double your kit), the other just play anything else then drums.

Don't know if u try in Cubase environment with rewire or the vst host application that let you host your VST by an other computer (sorry not too familiar with cubase... more involve with hardware sequencer).

24th September 2003

What about OSC ?

c s · 24th September 2003

a friend and i tried to sync powerbook (max) and pc (reaktor3) via osc some time ago - we had no success at all. would be interesting if anyone succeeded in the meantime, osc-implementation in R4 looks much better than in R3.

c s · 24th September 2003

i guess one problem was that mac os 9 wasn't capable of pinging the other machine - at least we couldn't figure out how.

24th September 2003

i've never even attempted to sync 2 computers together and will never have a reason to... but wouldn't it be as simple as setting one to be master clock and one to be slave? you should be able to do it just through midi... right?

24th September 2003

i tried doing MTC to trigger it but had major problems,..
i would imagine having an external clock source would fix the trick,..

some kind of sync device like sync I/O from digidesign,..

good luck

euterke · 24th September 2003

other thing that would be much better... what if the 2 laptops will be slave of a master clock module like a drum machine... or everything else that can send midiclock...

25th September 2003

yea id try that,..cause i know a computers cpu does not have very good clock reference,..thats why you get crazy latency with windows,.. as the computer tries to catch up the clock is distorted,..where as a mac will just freeze>>>no better tho.
id try the external clock source from the drum machine,..its probobly better than the cpu.let me know if it works

mattp · 25th September 2003

Hi,

A frend and I receiently used two laptops running Audiomulch synced together using an external drum machine (Korg ER-1) and a midi-thru box (http://www.philrees.co.uk/products/thruunit.htm).

It worked a treat. We both use external USB sound cards that come with midi-in ports.

I believe the same will work fine using Albeton Live as well.

euterke · 25th September 2003

I think so too... but if u have the possibility to use a different channel... like firewire or usb2 when u use midi+audio...

In the past I had an EZbus.... and the midi+audio was crashing all the time... to much information for the bandwith of the usb.

FORMAT · 25th September 2003

There is one solution worth looking at, and that's MidiClock I think it's called. Don't know if it works (as I don't have two laptops) but a friend who has promised to check it out and report back.

I'll let you know as soon as he tells me.

Otherwise I suppose it's a SMPTE enabled Midi interface, right? So one laptop can be the master, the other the slave.

pille'ocheoni · 26th September 2003

i have the same curiousity about two laptops, especially with abletons. me and my buddy have been performing alot just doing the knod, and mostly just going back and forth during transitions. simple shit, but we do desire something in "sync"

FORMAT · 26th September 2003

Is a simple Midi interface enough? Like the 2x2 Midiman? And defining one laptop as the master the other as a slave? Llive has an option like that.....
I'll ask around.
But any sync-savvy guys are welcome to chime in

!!!!!!

Roland

KaOz · 26th September 2003

tcp/ip + netsend

FORMAT · 26th September 2003

Quote:

Originally posted by KaOz
tcp/ip + netsend

OK, thanks, .... while cryptic, this may be the path to a solution.... Would you care to elaborate? Haven't heard about Netsend before...

Thanks,
Roland

euterke · 26th September 2003

Also... Ableton works with loop... so you must be tight when you cut your loops...

nickedstole · 27th September 2003

for the double triggering problem when you have synched the machines together, i think if you just make sure that your samples are not the same in each track, and you are not using the same drum sounds in each track, you should not get the problem of that weird phasing you get from the same sound being triggered at slightly different times.

dont know about netsend, but it sounds like midi over lan for the pc - you can have virtual midi devices on each machine, and send midi between them over a networking cable - you could probably network with firewire or usb to get a much better latency and bandwidth for your midi timecode.

nickedstole · 27th September 2003

this is what you need, i think:

http://www.grantedsw.com/imidi/index.shtml

FORMAT · 28th September 2003

nickedstole,

that was the software I was referring to a few posts ago...

Do you know if it actually works reliably?

I saw Funkstörung here Friday night, maybe I should have asked them.... they used two Powerbooks

lokut · 6th October 2003

Midi portman is the pc version - don't know if you can do it with Macs. Maybe firewire or something like that?

24th September 2003	#1
FORMAT Registered Erutufon Member Join Date: Mar 2002 Posts: 433	Syncing two laptops Hello all, I am wanting to play together with another laptop musician (on two Powerbooks) and we need to sync them. .We will use Ableton Live for live performance. Do you guys know what's the best way to sync these two machines? Any info/links much appreciated Roland/Elecctromat
	:: quote post ::

24th September 2003	#2
Tec Acrue Hardware Specialist Join Date: Jul 2003 Posts: 5,387	Hmmmmm, tricky... Other than the obvious in counting on the beat and having your BPM's matched i can't think of any sure fire way to do it. I'm glad this has been raised as i am in the process of buying another book of power and REALLY want a rock solid way to implement sync'ing. There must be some clever bastard out there who has developed an app/freeware to do this, i bet its PC only though. Ethernet is not good enough imho (latency), it has to be firewire or maybe usb 2.0... C'mon, somebody must know something.... ........................... "Menzies and Calum merked that crew down bruv!" - Menzies and Calum killed those people badly my friend.
	:: quote post ::

24th September 2003	#3
euterke Xpekt di unXPekted Join Date: Jul 2002 Location: Montreal-Canada Posts: 663	By experience... with 2 major low latency card... you can still ear a little delay on a same loop kick used by both laptop. What I can say.... just split part... so when some of you is using the drums (don't double your kit), the other just play anything else then drums. Don't know if u try in Cubase environment with rewire or the vst host application that let you host your VST by an other computer (sorry not too familiar with cubase... more involve with hardware sequencer).
	:: quote post ::

24th September 2003	#4
Triptonizer Posts: n/a	What about OSC ?
	:: quote post ::

24th September 2003	#5
c s rotorikTET Join Date: Mar 2002 Location: hh Posts: 2,033	a friend and i tried to sync powerbook (max) and pc (reaktor3) via osc some time ago - we had no success at all. would be interesting if anyone succeeded in the meantime, osc-implementation in R4 looks much better than in R3.
	:: quote post ::

24th September 2003	#7
piscaries Posts: n/a	i've never even attempted to sync 2 computers together and will never have a reason to... but wouldn't it be as simple as setting one to be master clock and one to be slave? you should be able to do it just through midi... right?
	:: quote post ::

24th September 2003	#8
carlg23 Posts: n/a	i tried doing MTC to trigger it but had major problems,.. i would imagine having an external clock source would fix the trick,.. some kind of sync device like sync I/O from digidesign,.. good luck
	:: quote post ::

25th September 2003	#10
carlg23 Posts: n/a	yea id try that,..cause i know a computers cpu does not have very good clock reference,..thats why you get crazy latency with windows,.. as the computer tries to catch up the clock is distorted,..where as a mac will just freeze>>>no better tho. id try the external clock source from the drum machine,..its probobly better than the cpu.let me know if it works
	:: quote post ::

25th September 2003	#11
mattp Registered Erutufon Member Join Date: Apr 2002 Location: Oxford (UK) Posts: 973	Hi, A frend and I receiently used two laptops running Audiomulch synced together using an external drum machine (Korg ER-1) and a midi-thru box (http://www.philrees.co.uk/products/thruunit.htm). It worked a treat. We both use external USB sound cards that come with midi-in ports. I believe the same will work fine using Albeton Live as well.
	:: quote post ::

26th September 2003	#14
pille'ocheoni Just add a gabber kick Join Date: Aug 2002 Location: Los Angeles, CA Posts: 7,220	i have the same curiousity about two laptops, especially with abletons. me and my buddy have been performing alot just doing the knod, and mostly just going back and forth during transitions. simple shit, but we do desire something in "sync"
	:: quote post ::

26th September 2003	#16
KaOz Good Friends Join Date: Mar 2002 Location: Southpole Posts: 4,301	tcp/ip + netsend
	:: quote post ::

27th September 2003	#19
nickedstole Music Lover Join Date: Apr 2002 Location: mid underground uk Posts: 179	for the double triggering problem when you have synched the machines together, i think if you just make sure that your samples are not the same in each track, and you are not using the same drum sounds in each track, you should not get the problem of that weird phasing you get from the same sound being triggered at slightly different times. dont know about netsend, but it sounds like midi over lan for the pc - you can have virtual midi devices on each machine, and send midi between them over a networking cable - you could probably network with firewire or usb to get a much better latency and bandwidth for your midi timecode.
	:: quote post ::

28th September 2003	#21
FORMAT Registered Erutufon Member Join Date: Mar 2002 Posts: 433	nickedstole, that was the software I was referring to a few posts ago... Do you know if it actually works reliably? I saw Funkstörung here Friday night, maybe I should have asked them.... they used two Powerbooks
	:: quote post ::

6th October 2003	#22
lokut Havin' it Member Join Date: Aug 2003 Location: ox uk Posts: 50	Midi portman is the pc version - don't know if you can do it with Macs. Maybe firewire or something like that?
	:: quote post ::

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