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Ableton Link: How to Make It Work?
People seem to love Ableton Link, but it's been nothing but a headache for me. It's always enabled by default and seems to mess with the tempo and transport of my apps, forcing me to disable it whenever I can just so that I can get apps to even work as they should. To add to my frustration, I'm not exactly sure what Ableton Link, as a technology, is supposed to do that MIDI Clock doesn't already do.
In particular, I've been having a problem with iElectribe. It seems like, whenever it detects Ableton Link being used by another app, I lose all transport and tempo control; tempo won't change, but, more importantly, the pattern stops and the 'Play' button becomes unresponsive, so I can't get it to play any patterns. In iElectribe's settings, there's a "LINK" button, which is gray, but tapping it seems to have no affect; doesn't change color, doesn't seem to be turning anything on, doesn't seem to be turning anything off, and transport control doesn't come back. In any case, AUM, when LINK is enabled, shows that it's connecting to 0 apps, and transport in AUM doesn't make iElectribe start playing.
So, how do I take advantage of Ableton Link? Is Link just for transport controls, and, if so, who is the master? How do I set the master? Is there a master? Some posts make me think that, with Ableton Link turned on, transport and tempo changes in any app should affect all of them, so there'd be no "master" as with MIDI Clock, which would be cool, but then why do my apps refuse to change their tempo and sometimes refuse to transport at all, as though they're rigidly being made slaves to something?
Thanks for your help. I'd like to make use of this technology to the fullest, but I don't seem to get it, and it's killing me.
Comments
For instance, first of all, is anyone able to get iElectribe to play in time with AUM? Can you tell me what steps you went through to get it to work? That'd be a big insight for me and would probably help me figure other things out.
I don't get it either. What I thought it was, was actually what Audiobus remote does. I've got several link enabled apps and I've yet to encounter a situation that made me go " thank god for link!" I'm interested to hear how it fits with others workflow.
Link is essentially a sync device; in Link there is no master, you are right, so ther won't be any master control but you actually won't need it to sync start because Linked apps with transport controls will wait for the next measure to start synced with all the others; on my side linked iElectribe is working perfectly: I can start, stop and change tempo to all linked apps
Can you tell me the steps that you went through to get iElectribe synced to AUM? Who did you start first? Does your 'LINK' button in iElectribe seem responsive at all?
Link is absolutely amazing as a zero config sync tool, but it is a performance tool, it is absolutely not a production tool. Think of it like a metronome in a rehearsal, it keeps everybody in time, but everyone is still responsible for starting their parts and coming in at the right time. What it's doing is making sure everyone is on beat at the same tempo without any setup. The whole idea of link is that it does not interact with transport controls, it just tells everybody what beat and phase everything's at.
Think about it like this: you fire up your drum machine and get a tasty beat going, then you want to add an evolving synth patch on top that has a beat-matched LFO driving its pulse. Prior to link there were very few ways to just start jamming and have that all work together. Also, if you think about it like live, where you can trigger loops while you're performing, link expands those loops to third party apps and devices.
It absolutely will not start and stop your loops together. For that you need IAA host sync, midi clock, mmc, or some other tech that provides start/stop/and position. Link is great at what it does, though.
Thank you for the insight. So, in other words, LINK just makes all connected apps share the same tempo, which would be handy for things like beat-synced LFOs considering that MIDI clock doesn't tell anybody the tempo -- just what everybody should be playing "right now." You're sure that LINK has nothing to do with transport, though? Because now I'm hearing conflicting notions about that.
What you're saying is, if I have a bunch of apps connected with nothing but Ableton Link -- no MIDI routing between them, no IAA-sync -- pressing the 'play' button in any of them won't cause any of the other sequencers to begin moving.
@lieslavish From ableton's FAQ on the issue:
"What kind of musical information is sent via Link?
Link currently provides tempo sync and a grid to which apps can align. There are no Song Position or Start/Stop messages sent via Link, nor can any other MIDI data be sent."
I'm pretty sure, which raises a question as to what's going on with your ielectribe, is it possible that you're also setting it for "ext" clock? Check out my post over in the AUM thread that's active to see how I got gadget working with AUM, I'm assuming korg's midi implementation is the same for ielectribe (although that's not a given).
Yes, pressing play in any one app should not have any impact on the remaining apps, which in a performance is exactly how you would want it, but if you're tracking several apps, you just want to have a dedicated transport.
Same here, everyone seems to love link, but I don't get it, it's seems to me that most people are trying to use it as something it's not, It's a great tool of course but it's clearly made for live playing/ jamming. Saw the video when ableton announced the technology and it's mostly presented as that. As it is right now it's not really made or really useful for production wich seems to be what most people are doing with it.
Personally some aspects of link as it is right now are really annoying to me, find myself disabling link more often than I have used it again, it's clearly made for live performance.
Thank you for doing the leg-work for me; I'm embarrassed that you had to do that. For anyone else reading, the FAQ is here. I understand what Link is supposed to do, now, and I can see how it differs from MIDI Clock; indeed, it seems like it'd be useful for performance and for jamming (an integral part to most people's production, I think), since MIDI Clock will make everybody start playing with the master does (not always what you want).
That being the case, my problem with iElectribe seems likely to be related to IAA sync or something making it into a slave. In its internal settings and global settings (in the Settings app) I don't see anything about enabling this or disabling external sync (pretty easy to find in most apps) -- and, like I said, if it is being made a slave to somebody, it's weird how transport in any other apps doesn't seem to make it start.
So, I'd still love to hear if anybody can get iElectribe to sync with AUM and how they did it.
Also, when I MIDI Clock sync iElectribe as a slave to Genome, it doubles Genome's tempo. Jesus... Setting Genome to 90 sets iElectribe's tempo to 180. This caused me to look up what MIDI Clock really is, and it turns out that, yes, Clock DOES send tempo information (I was getting it confused with MIDI time codes) and, in fact, its purpose is to keep devices in sync without sending transport and for letting synths and effects know what the tempo is in case they rely on those.
So, the only thing that Link does that Clock doesn't is that there is no single master. Which is cool, but still, there you go.
Also, iElectribe is being a nightmare.
[EDIT] Turns out that iElectribe was receiving the Clock from Genome twice; iElectribe auto-connected once, and then Genome's manual connection counted as a second. First of all, this is what I hate about virtual MIDI on iOS; there's no agreement about who should manage the MIDI connections. Second of all, if MIDI Clock is sending the tempo, why should receiving it twice cause iElectribe to interpret that as twice the tempo? Man, this #$%@ is so complicated.
More important than tempo, link is sending phase.
For example I use a lot SeekBeats which is not link enabled, so I use midi link sync(free app) to run a master tempo in sync with link. Doing this I can go to MODSTEP, launch the midi clip for the bass drop(that will start playing in the next two measures) then I switch to patterning and press play button(it will play at the beginning of the next measure along with the MS clip), switch back to SB and wait till my metronome hits count 3 and press play. Being it in phase with the rest via MLS it will just play from count 3 instead of starting again from the first step.
About the doubled tempo: I guess that midi tempo is like a square wave instead of a number, so if you send it double you are effectively changing the message sent instead of repeating the same information twice
And yes korg's midi in iOS is a nightmare(iElectribe runs on channel 10 if you want to sequence it, can't remember the note range)
well i was coming here to post about Link myself , if OP doesnt mind I'll add another question to this useful thread :
how does Link work re: non 4/4 time signatures ?
I realise my early Link successes were all 4/4 ,
I've just spent a session trying odd(er) numbers between iSpark & Patterning / iSpark & ModStep with no success :
the 2 apps 1st beat do not sync , & repeated starts generates different counter-rythmns each time , which do then repeat consistently although probably just playing at the same tempo rather than any sync .
Is Link only for 4/4 ?
It works fine once you set your step count to 12/6/3. I don't have isparkle so I'm just guessing.
I've tried with patterning along with iElectribe and also midi link sync to check what was going on. And once you set the step count right you should be able to go
thanks . well , I thought I had my steps set , matching on all apps , but no luck so far, I've tried 7s & 13s . will try more later .
That's a bit too odd:)
Just fine. Just did this simple experiment with three apps synced via Link...
Set up simple patterns in Patterning, Gadget and Fugue Machine. Set the patterns up so that I could clearly hear the first beat of each pattern. The patterns had the following characteristics:
Patterning - 1 bar in 7/4
Gadget - 1 bar in 5/4
Fugue Machine - 1 bar in 5/8
All patterns looped correctly and everything stayed perfectly in sync when I moved the tempo around.
With this degree of flexibility you can obviously do some very complex polyrhythms
As to the OP's original question - just enable link in all apps that have it. Start them playing one at a time. They play in sync with each other. It's that simple. Change the tempo, they stay in sync. The only way I know of to start and stop all linked apps at the same time is with the Audiobus global transport. To use this transport, all "linked" apps have to be loaded into Audiobus.
HTH
A great example of why MIDI Clock sucks and why I choose not to include it in AUM. I don't want to encourage any developer to continue supporting it.
The reason it interpreted the tempo as doubled is because MIDI Clock does not actually send tempo, it sends "clock ticks". On the receivers end, the tempo is then derived by counting how many ticks came in during a known time frame. There's 24 ticks for each beat (which is very low resolution), so if there where 48 ticks during the last second, it means tempo is 120 BPM. Now, if there's a double connection, each tick will be received twice! So then you'll get 96 ticks during the same second, which is interpreted as tempo 240 BPM!
Is there an equivalent of SMPTE within an iPad, unconnected with midi and its clocks?
Sorry to be simple, but I also can't seem to start ielecyribe with aum either. I have some pretty good and crazy connections so far with lots of other apps, but ielectribe just doesn't start. Any help would be appreciated. I do notice in ielec that top left I can see link timing wheel running fine
Link does not support any kind of 'remote start/stop' see it more as a global metronome and apps that support Link wait for the next 'pulse' before starting but the user has to initiate the 'wait' by pressing play.
Link does NOT Start/Stop apps , except using the Global Start button within Audiobus .
Otherwise , individual apps can only be self-started , what Link does is make sure they come in on time / in sync when they start .
You can use Aum as a Link> IAA translator ; to start apps with IAA sync if they have this option , load them in Aum then set Aum to Link .
SMPTE is just a timecode
i think it thinks in frames as it was made to sync film & music ...
so position 00.00.00.00 (? (you get what I mean)) is the start of the movie (the first frame) and so on
IOS sends timestamps (now its 12 o clock beep) ...
midi clock on iOS is made this way ... I did send you 24(?) ticks on those timestamps then you reorder the timestamps so they follow one after the other in correct order and then you start calculating the average - this ends up in the mess we all know for complex reasons ...
if you are looking for the right buzzword that equivalents SMPTE it would be (something timeline based and) sample accurate
This is why I wish AUM still had MIDI clock as an option, sorry @j_liljedahl !
@ghostly606 but Aum can start your app from its master play button via IAA ...
Launch Aum (Link ON) inside Audiobus (Link On) , & drum app/s( IAA ON) inside Aum :
Audiobus <> Link <> Aum = IAA <> drum machine
you can start drummachine from :
1. Audiobus Panel "PLAY" ( Link Global Start ), starts AUM Play & ALL other apps
2. Aum "PLAY" ( IAA master synced to Link tempo /beat) starts Aum loaded Apps
3. drummachine app ( synced to Link tempo/beat) starts itself .
@wally not if the app doesn't support iaa sync but only midi clock. Your ab solution doesn't change that. Even if you do the reverse (load your generator into ab and the that into aum) only the ab play will start/stop your appams will not control playback position like midi clock. Link has nothing to do with this problem. There are workarounds but they involve launching a third app to receive iaa from aum and send midi clock to midi enabled apps
@khidr9 Unless you do 'pattern changes' in iElectribe all the time I suggest to render the patterns as AudioFiles and use the AUM File-Player. That should also save some CPU
@samu I hear you but just loading loopyhd or running something like modstep as a sequencer solves the problem. Rendering is cool but if you're tweaking a sequence as you're writing it's helpful to be able to sync the playback of the engines not just the audio files. It's a simple enough work around until these apps catch up.
Midi link sync is a app everyone should have to solve many of this issues
Granted not all apps have IAA , & Midi Link sync app is useful .
But if we're going to get deep n dirty understanding various syncs on IOS ,
let's not forget that " midiclock" should not be used , but often is , to mean Start/Stop .
There are some apps claiming midi clock sync that can neither send Start or be started.
edit// so for both midi & Link we have confusing terminology for "sync" , where timing & start/stop are 2 different aspects which may not both be implemented .