2 Questions about Traktor to Ableton with Timecode
Hi everybody, I was googling around to answer these 2 questions.
Normally im pretty good with using keywords but I ran out on these two questions. I can’t find anything simular to this.
First of all, let me introduce myself and my setup so you can think with me.
Im Matt from the Netherlands.
Been djing with traktor for almost 2 years now.
Started as fun at private party’s and got allot of good feedback so it grew further. Nowadays I play at local clubs.
But something got me bothering during my (live) sets… latency!??
Ableton Live 8 with Audio Damage Dubstation & Soundtoys Echoboy used as live effects.
UC-33a in midi channel 1 used as effect rack with 4 faders + knobs in ableton and 4 as effects in traktor.
Akai MPD24 in midi channel 2 used for trigger effects cue/play etc only in traktor.
Reloop RMX40 4 channel mixer.
With a few mods I followed this tutorial about setting traktor to ableton up.
Im routing my 1/2 out and 3/4 out from traktor using Soundflower as my audio out device to ableton.
1/2 (Deck A) comes in over Audio track 1, sends only to Return A and then 1/2 out on my Audio4DJ to line-in 1 on my mixer.
The same story for the B deck on 3/4 out ofc.
Also I got my Traktor and Ableton synced using a MIDICLOCK as described in the tuto.
Check this printscreen.
As you see im using 2 effects each audio rack. Audio3 is offtopic because I messed that up
Now my problem comes here I think. When I play a set for like 20minutes or so my master out is starting to stutter.
Like the clock is out of sync passing the effects when the effects are completely dry..
It starts to ramble the audio. But when I switch to my ableton screen I can’t see what happened because the audio is playing good again.
I also watched my cpu in both programs but it gives no sign of stressing. Time/audio bombs in the effects are not the case. (legal)
On windows laptops sometimes the wireless card causes latency and gives a simular effect of what im having. But I closed my airport down.
Does not seem to fix it.
Im getting sick and tired of this problem and I ran out of possible solutions. Hope one of you can help me out on this one.
The second question I have is that if im using this setup traktor over ableton.
Is it possible then to use timecode?
Because the audio4dj is assigned to ableton for A/B out and not used as audio in or out device in Traktor.
Would love to try timecode but I love my vst’s!
Your help is much apreciated on this one so thnx in advance
I’ll give you the usual suspects :
First update your drivers for audio 4
Then update your traktor to 2.0.3 since 2.1.1 seems to be a bit of a botched update.
Also update your mac to at least snow leopard 10.6.8
Maybe the thing that will do the most change in your case is the osx update, also, because you are trying to use two programs at the same time (audio related) maybe think about getting 4 gigs of ram for your computer. It shouldn’t be that expensive, and will really boost your computer, for a definite boost in your system, grab yourself a faster hard drive.
I will try to update everything and see what happens. Hope it will fix the issue because it sucks when you have to play somewhere :S
Another one: what happens if I put my buffer size to a higher value?
its now 512, I tried 1024 but I dont know if it has something to do with it.
It also happens when I load an analyzed track into a deck while the other deck is playing. Looks like my mac is freezing for half a sec. So mayb lack of virtual memory will solve it..
And does somebody know that timecode will work when you use the audio4dj as audio out device in Ableton? I dont have the resources to test it..
AFAIK, there’s no way to route Traktor’s audio into Ableton if you’re using time code without using a second audio interface for Abeleton and actually using cables.
I want to use Maschine, not Ableton…but that is one of the reasons I’m very hesitant to bother with time code.
You can use Virtual Audio cables to route Audio From Traktor to Ableton. But for safety sake, I would prefer real hardware over any virtual patch for live performances.
The virtual stuff works just fine…the problem is that it’s hard to pull the signal out of Traktor when you have to select the Audio [4|6|8|10] as the sound card to make the DVS work.
And i think it would actually be better for performance if you use everything internal. Think about it, if you use the same audio device (without scratch functionality) then the clock (internal clock for your audio device/drivers/audio software) is the same, and you have the same latency set in each programs (the way you can do it with jack audio for osx). Were you to go the hardware route, you’d end up with : input latency for traktor + processing latency + output latency + input latency in Live + processing + output
And that is without taking into account that you have to have 2 audio interfaces + cables, what a mess…
Jack audio is the best bet (once you found thru testing the best latency for your set up), because everything is centralized. The only downside is no scratch functionality, but this is native instruments imposed, because in reality it can work, even with really low latency.
I’m now a proud owner of traktor scratch pro 2 myself, but it really sucks that you cannot use jack for example and get the scratch.
Because soundflower can only have software inputs, unlike jack that handle both. If not for that soundflower wins by its minimalistic and uncluttered design ( plus ease of setup of course ).
Well with a physical input to jack, jack is then exactly like a “normal” soundcard, really like a centralized audio hub, so for example :
jack audio in 1-2 = audio8 1-2
jack audio in 3-4 = audio8 3-4
jack audio out 1-2 = audio8 1-2
etc…
Plus the ability to route one program’s audio to another (virtually), just like soundflower.
But the thing is that a certain number of audio drivers ( i can only speak for mac ) can only be active for one program, and/or you cannot (usually) route virtual audio between 2 programs that are using the same soundcard.
Thank you guys for all your responses. Made me understand things allot better.
Well I have found my latency problem!
It was Soundflower that created the sound. Still really dont know why exactly.
I was about to upgrade to Snow Leopard and would have bought my macbook some 4gb to work with.
Will buy it anyways later on but it has been fixed using JACKOSX again!!
Took me over a week to reconfigure my setup but it works flawless now.
So F… soundflower xD
Oh and I discovered a way to still use timecode vinyl when routing audio from Traktor to Ableton to external mixer! (smart mixing)
I was fooling around with JACKOSX connections and I tried to use the audio4dj inputs 1/2 for recording my master2out but I did something (wrong?!) and suddenly Traktors timecode vinyl calibrators responded to the audio that I was about to send back in to Ableton for recording my sets.
I was like wtf? So this is how Stephan Bodzin does his live sets!!
I saw him a month ago at the Sugarfactory in Amsterdam during ADE and his “live set” was also routed from traktor to ableton. He used his famous lightsaber midicontroller that has to be connected to Ableton. I saw his screen and he was running Traktor and 2 cdj’s for timecode control!
Anyways it is possible! Don’t believe it?
I tested it last night at my friends house with his turntables.
Im trying to upload a vid on youtube now that shows it works.
here is the short movie! ignore the audio because it’s not from my macbook but from the computer my friends were using messing around with some vst’s
You can see that my audio from Traktors deck A is going in Abletons Audio1 and sends it to Return A. Return A is set at external 1/2 out on the Audio4dj to the Xone.
I can make a turorial about this if people want to, but only when enough people requests it. Or a djtechtools admin will
Im so happy with this because it will make me use timecode!!
Lol, I didnt even read this. I should have because this is what I did to get the timecode working.
You are also right about that you can only use 1 program each soundcard.
I tried this too for recording in Audicity with the audio4dj selected as input from my master2out but all I got is a really strange noise trough the audio that is playing.
Are you saying you can use timecode vinyl, with the audio from Traktor being sync’d to Lives master tempo? (Or Live’s master tempo being sync’d to Traktors audio, more like…)
It is! The cool thing about JACKOSX, you can route endlessly. Even the same signal thats coming in to mutiple programs/channels.
Soundflower sucks (I can only speak for mac tough), because it gave me 3 months on latency and a terrible headache.
Yes I am saying that! xD
Im using Ableton for fx so I need my Ableton being synced with the clock and audio that Traktor is sending into Ableton for delay and echo stuff..
You know how timecode responses in tempo depending on your turntable. (if you have Technics turntables you should be fine)
It does NOT give a steady bpm all the time. For instance 127bpm in Traktor will be 127.01 /02 or 126.98/99 in Ableton. But when you change the master tempo of the deck you are playing, Traktor will sync this to Ableton CONSTANTLY! Pretty cool feature!
I didnt have much time to test the full potential of this because I did not test my FX rack in Ableton when I hooked up the turntables.
It was only a test to get the timecode working (and it did!) but im not 100% sure if the tempo’s are being synced all the time when u have crappy turntables.. 5 min ago I tested this without timecode vinyls/turntables but using the same audio/clock routing and I changed the tempo of the track playing on deck A and Ableton did catch up with that tempo!
Here you see it working:
(ps does NI even know about this smart mixing and timecode vinyl? I couldnt find anything on the web related to this.. I think that Stephan Bodzin is using it like this too… I can’t be otherwise!)
I love Jack, I use it on Windows to do some over the top experimental routings of timecode source audio before routing it into VDJ as a control. Jack lets me send the timecode audio to multiple different programs at once before merging them back down to send as the control source for VDJ. This way I can control 2 virtual decks with one movement on one deck (scratching boths decks exactly in sync with each other) as well as apply a heap of effects to the timecode audio. Jack is an incredibly versatile program.
