trying to get my sequencer to sync to ableton song position

[gumbomasta]

i've modified a step sequencer (http://liine.net/en/community/user-library/view/7/) that sends note messages for drum programming. I've successfully gotten it to sync to Live's tempo, but I'd also like to get it to sync to Live's song position, or at least keep the downbeat of Ableton and the lemur's downbeat in roughly the same place. Any idea how I'd be able to acheive this? I'm pretty new to how scripting works in the Lemur environment.

thanks,

-g

[Tao-Nhan]

Well good job man, I never managed to even get where you're at. I'd love to know also how to get that right, can you please keep us posted if you manage to get it ?

I had a try with your template, and with the ipad connected wirelessly in ableton live, the midi clock I'm getting is not stable. The bpm value is moving up and down by +/- 3bpm... It really doesn't sound tight. Does anyone have some experience on hwo to solve that? It is notoriously known that that the Ableton clock is not very stable (we had similar issues when trying to midi slave drum machines, and changing midi interface didn't help). Ultimately, tech support of the drum machine (Dave Smith) blamed it on ableton.

[gumbomasta]

I disabled Bluetooth on my iPad and that brought my sync up from "totally unusable" to "a tad bit janky" for me. You try that yet? I feel like if I can get this working in Ableton I can get it working w any Daw w that spit out a master clock.

[Tao-Nhan]

Disabling bluetooth didn't work so I tried another path.
I used a MIDI_ARGS function tracking for the FA - Start Sequencer command, and use a tempo that I adjust manually from the lemur sequencer (and I match my project tempo). Clock is then steady but however there is another problem there : the step sequencer is a bit late vs that of ableton : comparing with a metronome clearly shows a slight offset, and it doesn't sound good at all. Using a ableton compensation delay on the midi track did not help.
Any ideas ?

[nick_liine]

Wi-Fi latency and jitter can definitely be a downer in this case. I highly recommend you try a cabled solution (like iConnect MIDI) for the fastest possible communication. At the very least connect through an ad-hoc network rather than through a router.

[Tao-Nhan]

Nice Nick thanks, I'll have to experiment with those interfaces. I am using a adhoc coonection and can clearly hear both jitter and delay
In the meantime, I found a workaround that is likely to solve the latency issue, but not jittering : What I do is that I put a audio delay plugin at 100% wet and match by ear the second quarter bar of the lemur sequencer to the beginning of the bar on ableton (280ms on my system). What I need to do then, is to modify the lemur template with an offset so that that second quarter bar actually becomes the first one, but I haven't been able to work out the maths yet, because I essentially took gumbomasta's template, which I don't understand fully yet.

gumbomasta : would you be able to offer me a few cues on how to adjust that ?