[ardour-users] MTC & MMC ...

Mon Sep 20 18:23:42 PDT 2004

On Monday 20 September 2004 06:05 pm, Third Option wrote:
> This is my main goal in life
>
> Yes you can do it but it ain't perfect yet.
>
> Paul tells me that slaving Ardour to MTC works since beta17 - not
> perfectly, but it does it.  Another cat on here says he's been able to do
> that.  I haven't tested it since beta16 so I will be in a couple weeks
> (busy - sorry!
>
> :) )
>
> the way I'm syncing my sequencer setup now is a bit of a mcgiver hack, but
> it's working.
>
> My main sequencer is Cakewalk for DOS on another computer.  It syncs
> flawlessly to MTC.  now since I haven't been able to send MTC from ardour
> yet, what I've been doing is using my Darwin (which does send MTC and works
> with cakewalk nicely) and ecasound - like so:
>
> 1) connect Darwin MIDI out to cakewalk
> 2) put cakewalk in MTC receive mode
> 3) open ecasound, no chainsetup, MMC mode on, jack transport master (ask
> and I'll hunt down the command - I can't remember it offhand)
> 4) open ardour, put it in jack sync mode (so that it will respond to jack
> transport
> 5) now whenever I type "start" in ecasound, ardour, darwin and cakewalk all
> start at the same time
>
> a note on this.  this is not the best method of sync.  in fact, in the days
> of analog tape, you couldn't do this really.  the reason is although
> everything's started at the same time, not everything necessarily runs at
> the same speed (except darwin and cakewalk, in this scenario) - this is ok
> if they all stay the same within themselves, but of course tape doesn't.
> digital stuff does for the most part.    but here's an example where this
> free floating kind of jam sync thing doesn't work:  if I get an xrun at all
> in Ardour, even if that doesn't actually mess something up in ardour (say
> i'm just playing back for mixdown), it messes all the sync up, because the
> other machines don't cachunk at that same spot.  of course xruns will mess
> ya up anyway, and I'm wondering just what it'll be like when ardour xruns
> when running in MTC sync -
>
> but anyway - that's my hack for doing it.  like I said, somebody else on
> this list has been successful with MTC.  I'll get back to the list when I
> test it for myself (I had given up on MTC until version 1, but was
> surprised by this new report of this guy having used it)
>
> cheers

Gotchyha!  Thanks for the info...

But...this tells me what I really need to know...that I can't do what I want 
right now with Ardour. :(  

I need SMPTE time code so that the song pointer tells slaved apps right where 
it is. I'm using Cakewalk Sonar XL as my seq. I need to be able to keep midi 
and audio wav in sync to the point that I have my best takes and I can 
mixdown in this way, keeping midi limited to a stereo mix but mixed none the 
less.

 My alternatives SUCK! I would have to bounce midi tracks to wave 2 x 2 and 
then still possibly suffer from sync issues or just do as I'm doing; dump a 
stereo mix of the midi to 2 tracks in Ardour and ~guess~ the mix {Which is 
bloody near impossible}...

Maybe I'm wrong...I'll be happy to be wrong in this case if anyone has a 
better idea??   

R~
>
>
> ----- Original Message -----
> From: "Mark Knecht" <markknecht at gmail.com>
> To: "Ardour-Users" <ardour-users-ardour.org at lists.ardour.org>
> Sent: Sunday, September 19, 2004 7:36 AM
> Subject: Re: [ardour-users] MTC & MMC ...
>
> > > Olah Senor Mark! :)
> > >
> > > I can get Rosegarden and Ardour synced thru Jack but that's not what I
>
> want.
>
> > I understood that, but it was something to talk about when I wrote
> > back. Ihave a lot of problems with RG also, but to be fair it has many
> > things that Pro Tools doesn't so that's impressive too.
> >
> > > Rosegarden is getting better but it's SUCH a PAIN to import a midi,
>
> setup
>
> > > each and every channel each and everytime you load a new file...If they
>
> would
>
> > > just make a template so you could load say GM2 files that would
> > > allocate
>
> to
>
> > > their correct instruments, etc on the same midi device...Puhleeeze! I'm
> > > begging the Rosegarden peeple's.....Pluuuh...Leeeeeeeeze!!! {It's
>
> horrific to
>
> > > see a grown mmn beg really ain't it? }
> >
> > Yep, but it happens. I was there a year ago. Drinking makes the
> > embarrasment more tolerable... ;-)
> >
> > > > As for your Sonar soft synth, are they VST? I'm impressed that I got
> > > > the full version of Battery running tonight under jack_fst. I've got
> > > > a couple of reverbs working, so there is some life there if you have
> > > > the stomach to go through getting that working on your end. On my
> > > > side I'm running about 8:1 don't work:do work, so I'm batting about
> > > > .125 or so. Not so good.
> > >
> > > In point of fact, Sonar is using DXi's but...I have jack_fst working on
>
> this
>
> > > machine...(After much hair loss, sleepless nights, deserting wife, dog
>
> and
>
> > > kids, flatulence, etc...) {Not reeelly flatulence but it seemed to fit
>
> for
>
> > > some reason! } and I have the vst version of the softsynth too...so, I
>
> ~can~
>
> > > have that working on my linux box...but that leads me back to bloody
> > > Rosegarden! I would use RG in a New York minute but for the pain of
>
> setting
>
> > > up each and every file from scratch.
> >
> > True.
> >
> > >Muse would be good but the last release
> > > is so buggy, I don't trust it at all right now.  I know the guys for
>
> Muse are
>
> > > working on it but it's not ready for me right now...
> > >
> > > I want Sooooooooo badly to migrate completely to Linux for all this
>
> stuff, but
>
> > > the sequencer stuff is still too glitchy and labor intensive.
> >
> > MIDI will start coming for Ardour, probably sometime reasonably soon
> > after the 1.0 release. I'm pretty sure it's planned for 2.0. Stick
> > around and influence the way it works. As for my MIDI use I do pretty
> > much all my MIDI from scratch except with I'm playing around. I'm slow
> > and it all takes time so setting it up on any program is not usually
> > my problem. Actually getting it recorded or written is where I spend
> > my time...
> >
> > > > I'll follow this thread and try out whatever gets suggested between
> > > > Ardour and Pro Tools to see how it works.
> > > >
> > > > - Mark
> > >
> > > Just a side not on Ardour though...although I've been using it forever
>
> as a
>
> > > simple mixer interface for live fx, recently I've been cutting tracks
>
> for my
>
> > > own demo. It is working really well and it's flexibilty, along with
>
> JAMin,
>
> > > and the LADSPA plugs is outstanding!
> >
> > Don't get me wrong. I'd be interested in using Pro Tools for MIDI with
> > Ardour for audio, if it was easy to sync the two. There are features
> > for doing this in Pro Tools. I've jsut never tried them. Time to do
> > so. I'd place most of the VST's in jack_vst and things would be
> > interesting.
> >
> > Take care,
> > Mark
> > _______________________________________________
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> > ardour-users at lists.ardour.org
> > http://lists.ardour.org/listinfo.cgi/ardour-users-ardour.org
>
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