Hello!
I want to use Ableton as midi clock master for midihub and after that I want to play 2 Roland tr8s, Korg Sq-64, and arturia beatstep pro in the ins of midihub A,B,C,D to send midi further to some synths from outputs of the midihub.
It is possible?
Thank you!
Depends what you mean to send Clock to, @Gherasim:
-
if Ableton’s Clock is coming in via USB (A-D) and you want to send it out to some synths on the outputs then Yes
-
if you want to send Ableton’s Clock to any of the input devices then you will need to send directly say Ableton → {USB} → Beatstep (or via Midihub USB & Patchbay†)
Your title “Ableton midi clock master to all ins A,B,C,D” makes it look like the second option.
†PC/Mac/Linux btw?
Midihub owner or Midihub tempted?
I’m sorry for the confusion. I want the second option for PC(Windows)
I already get one midihub recently.
I want to make Ableton master clock via USB and the Midihub to be the slave.
So I can press the start/stop on the Ableton and the tr8s/beatstep etc will start in time with the Abletons clock.
I’m a Mac user, Cosmin, so I’m going here on what I’ve read.
So assuming…
- …tr8s/beatstep etc connected to PC via USB, and
- you’re not using Ableton to connect directly with these device to send Clock & Transport…
…have you got MIDI-OX installed?
Here’s Blokas’ Giedrius on that utility
Once you’ve got that set up,
Try a preset like this
DAW_Clock>Sequencers.mhp
…just to test starting and stopping your Beatstep etc.
Then we can start building!
I think @Gherasim is using MIDI connections to the rest of the devices. 
In that case, as @resonotter showed, what you want for synchronization from an external master, is a Filter pipe letting through only the real-time transport control messages (and possibly Song Position Pointer and MIDI Timecode), sent to all the outputs, so a preset like this should work:
Ableton MIDI sync.mhp (426 Bytes)
This gives one way synchronization from Ableton to all the MIDI output ports. You must select at least the ‘Sync’ checkbox in the MIDI preferences of Ableton for the first Midihub’s port:
‘Track’ should be enabled if you want to send MIDI clips to MH ports.
See https://help.ableton.com/hc/en-us/articles/209774205-Live-s-MIDI-Preferences for more info.
The clock receiving devices usually start syncing to external clock once they receive a Start or Continue MIDI message (which is sent when you start the play triangle)
Some devices must be manually configured to sync to external MIDI clock received on the MIDI IN connector.
To send MIDI clips to/from/between the devices, you should add appropriate additional pipelines.
Let us know in case you have any questions on how to move from here.
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@Giedrius I couldn’t make it work with midi-ox, don’t understand how it works but I think there might be a way if it’s possible to route the signals.
@resonotter I want to use all 4 sequencers in the IN ports of the MH and they must start in time. Don’t need them the get notes from Daw or something like that. I need them just to start stop and send the clock.
I want to know especially if there it’s a chance to get the clock of the Ableton in the Ins of the MH so I can start all these 4 sequencers in time.
I need to use the outputs of the MH for another propose and to build a network with 13-14 devices in total.
What you have told me is to send it in the outputs. This works but I will have little space to build up.
Also, I have tried with Ableton via USB cables of the sequencers and after midi out them with a DIN cable but I got some delay and couldn’t solve the problem with some devices.
It would be great if it’s possible with the internal clock MH clock to play the sequencers somehow in case of Ableton play doesn’t work. I could get the tracks to the grid after recordings.
If you have any suggestions or ideas let me know please.
Thank you for the support!
@Gherasim, I’ve described in the above reply how to get Ableton’s clock flowing to the rest of your setup. Your connection graph should be like this:
- Midihub connected to your PC running Ableton.
- (make sure to enable Sync output on Midihub’s 1st output as shown in the screenshot in above reply)
- Midihub’s MIDI OUT A, B, C, D connected to the MIDI IN ports on your devices.
Midihub should have the attached preset loaded.
Clicking the Play button in Ableton should start the master transport on Ableton and it should be getting sent to Midihub which in turn should be routed out to all devices. Use the Monitor pane to verify that you’re getting MIDI Start and MIDI Clock messages flowing through Midihub and the activity LEDs are blinking at quarter note intervals.
If the devices are not responding to this on their inputs, you must configure the sync settings on each device correctly.
I want something like this:
Ableton out—>MH virtual in---->MH virtual out—>MH physical ins A/B/C/D---->MH physical outs A/B/C/D.
But something looks out from ecuation and this is probably because I can’t use the out pipes to send messages to ins I think.
Your option exclude the physical ins.
That’s what I want to know if you think is possible something like that.
What I’ve shown is just how to sync up the devices to the same USB master. Once you have that going, you should add in additional pipelines to route the MIDI data according to your setup and device connections.
Whatever Ableton sends to the selected Out ports of Midihub in Ableton’s Preferences, should appear within Midihub at “FROM USB X” pipelines (see USB MIDI Port Mapping). I’m not sure what do you refer to by “MH virtual in”.
@Gherasim Hi, I’m afraid that you’re basically wrong, there’s no way to send clock (or anything else) OUT thru IN ports, it’s simply reversed.
But you can send clock+transport from USB IN to DIN OUT A (for example), then split it (or use daisy chain) to four sequencers and MIDI OUTs from them connect to DIN INs A-D (but clock+transport msgs has to be blocked/filtered here to avoid clock/RT loop). then you can use DIN OUTs B-D to send MIDI data from sequencers to synths etc.
Just a notice, due my experiences, the best place for DAW is on the end of the chain, especially if you want to use it as clock gen (I can’t recommend it, issues like flowing tempo and jittering can be awaited :)). HW generated clock will be always more accurate and precise than interface/driver/protocol/software/CPU bunch.
