I've been having severe timing problems in certain scenarios combining TI Virus Control USB with my Elektron Analog Rytm Mkii (no overbridge). Here's the setup:
- Ableton Live 10 with a Clarett Thunderbolt 4Pre with 64 samples latency (4.5 ms) (no glitches). I am using 2015 MacBook Pro 16Gb RAM 1Tb SSD and high end processor.
- Virus Control USB stereo outs 1,2 and 3 and processing the monitored audio in Ableton - works perfectly
- Adding to that VST and devices hosted in Ableton (Up to this point in the set up this works perfectly on my Clarett 4Pre)
- Adding Analog Rytm Mkii (no overbridge) with either USB MIDI or DIN MIDI with Note receive, Note send, Transport Rcv, Clock Rcv, program change etc... (This is where timing breaks down badly)
Observations:
- Virus sequenced with Virus Control from ableton and my casio sequenced and monitored and processed in ableton and NO AR - was perfect timing
- AR running patterns and receiving sequenced program changes from ableton and with NO Virus Control and my casio sequenced and processed in Ableton - was perfect timing.
- Combine Virus Control and AR (with or without Casio and all hell breaks loose with AR delayed a 16th note whether it is a pattern playing or my fingers drumming on the AR. TI Stays in perfect time with the metronome.
- if I don't monitor AR in Ableton and unmute the mixer channels in my 4Pre to hear what's going on, once again the timing is perfect!!!. This is not a solution because I have no effective way to mix/eq/compress/process the AR channels.
- When I switch Virus TI to multi-mode and monitor the ins in Ableton sending MIDI (without Virus USB present or Virus Control in the project) and keeping sending patterns to AR and monitoring 10 channels works perfectly. This could work but I really want to leverage the Virus Control sound design workflow.
- I also tried an iPAD running a groove box (Rozetta XOX in a midi slot in AUM running into Ruismaker in AUM) running under Ableton Link. This also worked perfectly only when Virus Control was removed from the project
- I then added the AR to the iPAD groove box (above) and this too worked perfectly. (essentially AR is a groovebox like RuisMaker in AUM).
The common thread is Groovebox (AR/Ruismaker in AUM) + Virus Control monitored is a problem. So I started to think maybe the combination is causing MIDI clock problems. So I took the midi port on my iCM4+ to AR and set a delay of -92.5 ms! I now had perfect timing and then I applied the same clock delay to the iCM4+ midi channel going to my iPAD where the RuisMaker standalone app receives MIDI clock. They all work in synch with TI virus control now, but really? 92.5 ms negative delay?
What is going on here? Is TI Virus Control messing with the clock somehow? I wonder if this number I found through experimentation will be constant.
Unfortunately the fix above did not solve my Ableton Link timing problems; they were still sneakers in the dryer so to speak. I might be able to figure something out with Audiobus, I think something like MODSTEP now becomes essential to solve this problem.
From another angle I noticed that if I didn't monitor in Ableton (without the midi clock tweak) there was no problem because somehow the midi clock didn't effect it - I'm not sure why. . That could be acceptable in some scenarios but this will require buying an audio interface/mixer like the SoundCraft MTK 12(or 22 if I find a place for it in my studio) to EQ, compress and balance the un monitored channels . When I record without monitoring I get perfect stems! Ideally I will find a solution without going to multi-mode or buying a mixer.