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Syncing Live & Logic via IAC MIDI


Dante310

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I'm looking for some advice on using IAC to sync Logic 9 and Live 8 as tightly as possible. I'm aware you can sync them using rewire, however, Live cannot access any plugins (AU, VST etc) in rewire mode, which is a major problem for me. So, I'd like to have both programs running side by side on my mac pro just using IAC sync.

 

So far I have this set up through a IAC port with Logic as master and Live as slave. Everything sounds quite good actually and I haven't encoutered any major issues so far. Two main questions for anyone with expertise in syncing two apps on the same computer-

 

1) is there a way to test exactly how tight the sync is? What I mean is, everything sounds quite good, I have loops loaded up in both progs and they seem to be staying in time. But is there any method I could use to actually test just how accurately Live is slaving to Logic? I produce a lot of electronic music so if I need to delay the MTC to Live by even a few miliseconds for perfect sync, I need to know this amount.

 

2) Is there any way to control Logic's transport in Live? This isn't that big of a deal as my Axiom can control Logic's start stop etc whether I'm in Live or Logic, but it might be nice to hit space bar in Live and have logic stop as well. Not sure if this is possible with logic as the master and in my previous experience trying to make logic a slave to an external device, it did not go well.

 

Any input is much appreciated!

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First, your right to use MTC rather than MIDI clock. Live seems to trip all over itself when syncing to MIDI clock.

 

The best way to test is with a 3 sample pulse. You can extract one by bouncing a measure of audio with the test oscillator set to "Needle Pulse". Then edit one out and paste it repeatedly to beat 1 for about 20 bars. Bounce that 20 bar file. Now bounce it again but this time with like 6dB gain added. Place one file on a Logic audio track at bar 3 and one on a Live audio track at bar 3.

 

Create a new aux in Logic and set its input to where your Live audio is coming in. Bounce the 2 streams into one file. In the sample editor, look at the result and see how far off the pulses are. You'll know which is which by their respective level.

 

Assuming both Live and Logic are looking at the same audio driver, (word clock source) there should be no difference in the amount of delay at each bar, ie if there is then you have a driver problem.

 

As for which app should be master, try this test both ways and see which is tighter/more responsive.

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Fader, thanks so much that is exactly the information I was looking for. I'll test and see how things go.

 

Do you know of any good solutions for re-routing audio within one system? I may just have to route out from live through my rosetta and back into logic. I've tried Jack OSX and Wormhole but both have a lot of latency and my impression of soundflower is that it introduces latency as well.

 

**edit** Soundflower is actually working great with my symphony system, disregard that last part

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Fader, one last thing- do you have any suggestions for getting the MTC lined up properly? I went back and looked at my settings and actually, Live seems to be synced via MIDI beat clock and responding rather well to it, but in my experience syncing via MTC is generally more solid and reliable.

 

The odd thing is when I attempt to sync via MTC, Live does stay in "sync", but it seems that the start point for this sync is way off. It's so off I'm having a hard time figuring out how to adjust the SMPTE offset to fix it. If you have any settings that have worked for you that you wouldn't mind sharing, I'd appreciate it. Thanks again-

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Fader- can't thank you enough for the help. I don't know exactly what's going on on my machine, but I copied the settings and Live is still way off. It actually sounds to me like the clock is drifting quite a bit as some clicks of the metronomes between the two programs line up, and others are quite off. I guess I'll stick to using midi clock for now

 

For anyone else who might be looking to do this, I can't recommend this setup enough. All of the limitations of rewire are gone and this really gives you the best of both worlds. On top of that I'm able to run logic in 64 bit mode while using Live, which looks like it will let me run much bigger projects at really low buffer settings. I've got a project here loaded up with 7 instances of omnisphere, 25 space designers, and 25 instances of devastor, all cpu hogs, and logic and live are running smooth at 64 samples buffer. Pretty awesome..

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Hey, whatever works best on your rig. If you explore getting MTC working further, try it first with empty projects in both apps.

 

Yes, Live via rewire is pretty lame. I have Max for Live and the "Max" part is completely disabled in rewire mode, so that's why I occasionally sync'm up like this.

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  • 3 weeks later...
Im really excited to try this setup as I really enjoy writing sections with ableton however I ran into a speed bump. While going into Logic to select where MTC would be transmitted from, the IAC bus was not available as an option. I believe it might have to do with my IAC setup in the audio midi preferences but im not quite sure. Also how were you able to disable to automatic rewiring with ableton?
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I have everything syncing up, but Soundflowerbed is not working out so well. I can get the audio to show up in the channel in Logic but it wont feed to the stereo out. Still playing with it though, gotta head off to rehearsal now. Thanks for all the help fader8!
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  • 1 year later...

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