Moog Music Forum

Hi, I am using my Phatty in a band where we have the backing tracks and some vst instruments running in Ableton LIve. In one song I play an arpeggiated bass line (in latch mode as I need to tweak and twist buttons). The arpeggiator is set to midi sync, and the sync button in Ableton is checked for the midi out to the phatty. On firing the system up I let the click track play with the phatty, and synced them by using the midi sync delay function in Ableton.
We notice, however, that the Phatty is not always in sync with the click. The following things I tried:

- sync lock on / off (don't really notice an improvement)
- in Ableton checking the sync on the MIDI in of the phatty (of course, we don't want that, but just to try)

anyone has some tips how to improve this?

cheers,

Roger.

Hi Roger,

The issue is actually Ableton and not your phatty. All DAWs have issues sending reliable sync and unfortunately Ableton is by far the worst I've personally come acrossed (Logic X is extremely better).
The cheapest solution for rock solid sync (sample accurate to be precise) is a product called USAMO by expert sleepers. Fortunately, I own an Elektron RYTM and their OverBridge software sends out pretty stable sync. I will purchase the USAMO at some point as reviews online seem pretty good. There are other options, but they generally start in the $500 plus range.

Good luck!
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I found a solution. I will be playing the songs with an arpeggiator via Ableton. Local control off, using the ableton arpeggiator. Not the most charming way to work but it does the trick. And I will be looking for another backing track host like Mainstage.

Found something else too... global quantization was off in the ableton project. So when the next scene was selected the arp set to the right speed but not the right phase.... feel like a beginner. Now the sync works much better...