Huge Problem with Midiclock. Please Help!

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Audiol
Posts: 57
Joined: 24 Jan 2015

19 Jul 2018

Hi all,

end of the month I have huge live gig. My Reason 10 is synced via midi clock to Ableton Live.
My Problem is: When midi time clock is received there are a lot of artifacts/crackels when I play my sounds in Reason.
Here at home I test this with Reason to Reason. ( Reason with Focusrite Pro14 sends time clock to my Macbook with Emagic Mt4).
When I stop the "Send Midi Clock" all sounds fine, but of course no more sync. I'm desperate, any tips?

Thanks a lot

And sorry for my poor english.

Frank

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Loque
Moderator
Posts: 11170
Joined: 28 Dec 2015

19 Jul 2018

I dont have Live, but i would expect they can be connected via Link or ReWire. Might be the better solution than midi. Also ensure to have the right audio drivers selected.
Reason12, Win10

Audiol
Posts: 57
Joined: 24 Jan 2015

19 Jul 2018

Hi Loque,

thanks for the fast reply. Unfortunally the other guys have only old Ableton Live versions, so no Link right now.

I just tested the same configuration with Reason 9.5. No problems at all! But I use the new synths from vers. 10 for the set.

So it seems to be a bug in Reason 10. Anyone tried "LINK" from Ableton with Reason 10?

primitiveworker
Posts: 5
Joined: 09 Jul 2018

19 Jul 2018

I use Ableton Link, but within the same computer, launching Reason (10.1) first, then Ableton (10), no ReWire. I only use Ableton and a LaunchpadPro as a kind of hardware midi sequencer to drive Reason's rack and mixer, so all sound comes from Reason. This may not be similar enough to your situation to be useful to you, but it definitely works for me.

I don't get any crackles and pops anymore, but I HAVE gotten a kind of stutter in the past when I first created this setup. It went away when I migrated to a new template, so I'm going to guess it was some interaction between devices I had in my rack that was hopefully independent of the Ableton Link, but I never really tracked it down and isolated it so I don't know.

One thing I noticed is that my DSP meter goes way higher with this setup than with just Reason's internal sequencer. It makes sense that if it needs to respond to midi messages in realtime that it would have fewer DSP-buffer tricks available to it. I wonder if the same applies to an external midi clock.

If it's actually DSP related you may need to simplify some of the processing by switching from synths to samplers, consolidate and bounce down to audio tracks, etc. Bummer that we still have to do this in 2018, but it's a tried-and-tested method of playing studio tracks live.

electrofux
Posts: 863
Joined: 21 Jan 2015

19 Jul 2018

Midi Clock in a live situation sounds like a terrible idea to me.

I would definitly use Rewire or Link or even Link to Midi on an Iphone.

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jam-s
Posts: 3035
Joined: 17 Apr 2015
Location: Aachen, Germany
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19 Jul 2018

From my experience using Ableton link is much better when trying to sync reason with live (and other people).
I also used a hybrid setup once, where Live was synced with Reason via Ableton link and was also sending midi clock to a hardware synth via a USB midi interface and midi cables.

Audiol
Posts: 57
Joined: 24 Jan 2015

19 Jul 2018

To make it clear, its not about the "normal" midi clock problems like drifting etc. Its about that when you use midi clock in in Reason 10 you can "hear" the clock signal when you play a synth like Antidote or Europe. Bad noise. Its not happening in Reason 9.5. Sound is clear in 9.5.

My problem: I could use 9.5 but there is no Europa which I used in a few presets. And I can not load my combinators I made in 10 into 9.5.
So I have to reprogramm all presets new in 9.5 and look for alternative sounds to replace the Europe sounds.

So maybe with using "Link" these artifacts are not happening? That would be a lot easier. I just have to convince the guys to update their systems so that they can run "Live" with Ableton. (not easy ;-))

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Loque
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Posts: 11170
Joined: 28 Dec 2015

19 Jul 2018

Audiol wrote:
19 Jul 2018
To make it clear, its not about the "normal" midi clock problems like drifting etc. Its about that when you use midi clock in in Reason 10 you can "hear" the clock signal when you play a synth like Antidote or Europe. Bad noise. Its not happening in Reason 9.5. Sound is clear in 9.5.

My problem: I could use 9.5 but there is no Europa which I used in a few presets. And I can not load my combinators I made in 10 into 9.5.
So I have to reprogramm all presets new in 9.5 and look for alternative sounds to replace the Europe sounds.

So maybe with using "Link" these artifacts are not happening? That would be a lot easier. I just have to convince the guys to update their systems so that they can run "Live" with Ableton. (not easy ;-))
You could use Europa VST :-)

Never tried, but maybe copy&paste works...

You can "hear" the midi clock? Never heard this...But maybe there is something odd with the (power) cables. I have the bad luck, that i can hear my mice and harddiscs...Should invest for a module to compensate those power lackings...
Reason12, Win10

Audiol
Posts: 57
Joined: 24 Jan 2015

19 Jul 2018

I'm still on 10.9.5 on Mac, so no Europe.

But I just found the Problem which make that noise. It's the Delay Fx in Antidote and Europe. When I switch them off no more crackle sound.

Hm, funny and strange. Any tipps? And yes, now its not a real problem. Lets see how a attached delay behaves.

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Loque
Moderator
Posts: 11170
Joined: 28 Dec 2015

19 Jul 2018

Audiol wrote:
19 Jul 2018
I'm still on 10.9.5 on Mac, so no Europe.

But I just found the Problem which make that noise. It's the Delay Fx in Antidote and Europe. When I switch them off no more crackle sound.

Hm, funny and strange. Any tipps? And yes, now its not a real problem. Lets see how a attached delay behaves.
Whats your DSP? AS i already said, check your audio drivers...ASIO is recommended, preferable from the sound card manufacturer.
Reason12, Win10

Audiol
Posts: 57
Joined: 24 Jan 2015

19 Jul 2018

When I switch the sync in the delay Fx-section of Europe to off, bad sound is gone. Interesting!

Audiol
Posts: 57
Joined: 24 Jan 2015

19 Jul 2018

DSP is fine. I test now with only one combinator. Shows just one bar. Before I testet with Focusrite Pro 14. Tested different clock sources (Reason, Arturia Beatstep). I think nothing to do with that. I stripped my setup for the gig for minimum DSP pressure.

Audiol
Posts: 57
Joined: 24 Jan 2015

19 Jul 2018

And thanks a lot for your support!!!

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buddard
RE Developer
Posts: 1245
Joined: 17 Jan 2015
Location: Stockholm
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20 Jul 2018

Audiol wrote:
19 Jul 2018
I'm still on 10.9.5 on Mac, so no Europe.

But I just found the Problem which make that noise. It's the Delay Fx in Antidote and Europe. When I switch them off no more crackle sound.

Hm, funny and strange. Any tipps? And yes, now its not a real problem. Lets see how a attached delay behaves.
You probably have some tempo fluctuations on the MIDI clock, and it's possible that those delays don't respond well to that kind of tempo changes. Did you get better results with other delay devices?

Another thing you could try is to switch off the synced mode on the delays and instead calculate the needed delay time in ms. That might give you better results.

Audiol
Posts: 57
Joined: 24 Jan 2015

20 Jul 2018

Hi buddard,

yes it seems to be tempo fluctuation, but thats no problem in Reason 9.5. Clear sound.

And yes, I just switched the "sync" off in the delay as you said. Problem solved. Thank you.

Anyway, we just tried "Link" and its great, Much more safer feeling. No drift. Only thing, Reason is not playing automatically when Life is starting. Have to push the "play" button.

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