Syncing Multiple Laptops Live?

[supraanimo]

Hey guys I wanted to see if you could help me out with this:

I have two laptops that me and my mate want to use live onstage, we were thinking that it would be best to sync them using midi, since we will both need to keep pretty exact timing.

The problem is that he is using Reason, and that when you sync you cant adjust the position in the arrange view when you are receiving sync messages. (I checked and he is not receiving the song position pointer if I am sending only in pattern mode on ableton). Now is there a way to adjust the song position while synced in Reason?

Or, should I just tell him to switch to ableton and use it to do loops? The only problem with switching to ableton is that he does alot of midi editing live and the ableton interface really isn't as easy as Reason's for this (check out jeremy ellis we do similar things, just a slightly different style). This is very important to our act is editing the midi live.

Or, should we work out the way to stay synced without using midi cables (I know computers tend to desync over time)? The problem with this is we want to stay in sync for quick tempo changes (we play with a drummer!).

Or, Maybe there is software that is as good at editing MIDI as Reason, but has the loop features of live. Or, is there a better way to edit midi in live?

Thanks allot, I tried to be as detailed as possible. And I know it is long. :)

JJC

[Ashiman]

we were thinking that it would be best to sync them using midi, since we will both need to keep pretty exact timing.

lawl , for this purpose, midi equals hopeless.

You'd need to have 2 of the same soundcards, with wordclock in and wordclock out. Then slave one to the other. Then you can play with digital SPDIF vica versa.

[Ashiman]

yeah and the wordclock thing is the most important, even better if you have a wordclock generator thingie with 2 outs, both laptops slaved to 44.1k for example. Downside is that external soundcard with WCLK won t be cheap ...

[stryd_one]

turuloid: do you know that you can edit your posts?

superanimo: wordclock should only be required if you need sample-accurate audio sync, and it won't give you tempo sync. For tempo sync that is perhaps not as accurate (24ppqn vs 44k1/48khz) but perfectly servicable, midi sync is entirely capable, it's what everyone uses. the problem here is not MIDI, it's your client (reason).

I'd suggest posting this to some reason forums too. I would have thought you could stop reason, reposition it, and play again - if it's syncing to midi clock it should pause until it receives the first clock signal from the master. If you want to use SPP from the master to reposition reason, and it just won't do it (did you read the manual?) then another app is your answer.

[supraanimo]

turuloid: thanks for the attempt, WCLK is not really important for live use and can only account for "long term" drift in accuracy (which is important for sample accurate timing when recording). In fact I use it all the time when recording to sync my preamps to my interface, 32 channels of adat requires some timing! I also stripe SMTPE when we do sound for video.

styd_one: thanks, do you have any suggestions for an app that can do something similar to reason (well I understand any midi sequencer would work sort of), but has equivilently good editing capabilities and can work in a live situation.

Really the problem here is finding an app that is useful for playing live and good sync capabilities (like ableton), and has good editing capabilities (like reason). I know you can use them in rewire mode, but that really doesn't allow us to use the editing capabilities of reason.

If anybody has any suggestions on editing MIDI quickly with ableton that would be useful too.

Maybe I just need to spend some time designing my own midi editing app in Pd (too much time, though).

[Sasha]

Really the problem here is finding an app that is useful for playing live and good sync capabilities (like ableton), and has good editing capabilities (like reason). I know you can use them in rewire mode, but that really doesn't allow us to use the editing capabilities of reason.

What do you mean? What is that you cannot edit in Reason if rewired to Live?

[supraanimo]

Sasha: Sorry for not being a little clearer, the technique my mate has developed for using reason in live situations is a little complicated to explain (its easier to show), sufficing to say that when you use reason under tempo sync its transport controls are inactive, which is a problem for him.

I thought if he would use ableton with reason rewired he could program loops into ableton, however the midi-editing capabilities of ableton are seemingly less user friendly than those in reason. I am not saying he can't program things into reason, however again when reason is rewired its own transport controls are locked to ableton.

Really the problem he has is he just needs to be able to change the size of the loop in reason and reposition the song position pointer on the fly. Or, have the nice functionality of being able to play, create, and edit loops in ableton, the only thing that is a hinderance here is that the midi editing cababilities in ableton are seemingly slower.

So, summarizing, I guess the question really boils down to:

1) what are other people using in live shows to play/create/edit loops, emphasizing edit?

2) is there a less cludgy way of editing midi in ableton, its just that part of the interface seems a little behind those in reason?

3) or is there a way to lock reason to external tempo and preserve the ability to more the song position pointer?

4) is there some other live preformance gear that would do better?

[Sasha]

supraanimo, thanks for reply. I was using Reason myself before and when I decided to continue with Live I still used MIDI loops created in Reason. MIDI editing in live sucks big time! So what I was doing I exported all MIDI loops from Reason and import them and rearrange in Live as a clips. So, when you rewire the Reason you can manipulate with MIDI clips and do what you normally do with audio except you are sending those MIDI back to Reason. That way you can tweak those knobs in Reason as you used to. I think Reason is really not program for live performance so it should be treated that way but it is really nice for editing. If you band mate adjust the way he work you two can have really good live performance using Live rewired with Reason for extra parameter tweaking and everything should work good and stable.

[supraanimo]

Sasha, thanks for answering so well! And I should be thanking you for replying!  :P Yeah, I was wondering if other people agreed with me on the midi editing capability of Live.  ;D

Although, I have been doing what you are suggesting (back and forth between Reason and Live), it works great when we are creating music in my studio. But, doesn't work so good in a live performance.

We do create some of our loops on the fly in a performance (at least we're trying to). So, probably the best solution would be to use a third program for MIDI editing and then export that and import it to Live (too complicated?)? Any suggestions (Logic Pro?)?

Really, I was just wondering what other people were doing, and well this being the forum it is I knew people were using allot of different solutions.  :) (And I can't wait till I finish my my SID, that will be great live)