akai mpk mini mk2 arpeggiator drift

So I decided to sit down and figure out the individual latencies of my MIDI gear to figure out what delays I should set in Ableton to get everything as close as possible to the actual time and so that when I render MIDI clips to audio, there's no delay in the audio and no messing around trying to get different tracks to sync properly.

At first it was easy enough, but now I am looking at the arpeggiator on the MPK Mini and it's seems like it's drifting pretty wildly. Basically I have it set to receive clock from Ableton and I want to fine tune the sync delay in so I will always receive a nice MIDI stream from the MPK without any annoying short notes in the end or beginning of clips. But it's enough to record a simple hihat 16th beat pattern, let it play along with the MPK arpeggiator and I hear already how Ableton's clip and the arpeggiator drift out of sync and produce a phasing effect.

What is going on?

Is the MPK arpeggiator simply too cheap to use like this?

Is Ableton somehow messing up the sync?

Is my cheapo powered USB hub messing things up? I think this might be it, because I have had a couple of times when the MPK stops responding to any control movements but the lights stay on. Might also be that the MPK is not working as it should. Any other MPK mini mk2 owners have experience with this stuff?

I have tried just keeping the arpeggiator on and recording MIDI clips to visually see if the 16th notes more or less match the grid, and the result is the same - at one point it records fine, but the next clip shows the notes wildly off again.

Comedy option - maybe those cheapo USB-C to USB2.0 adapters got off Amazon are pieces of shit?

Can't believe I am googling audiophile USB hubs now.

Nobody has any answers! I thought it was a good piece of kit, Akai and all!

I have that same keyboard but alas never used the internal arpeggiator and use the DAWs one (or VST arp) instead

I would guess it's Ableton causing the drift in timing. Can you test the Akai with signal from some other hardware, or reverse the sync so Ableton is slaved to the Akai's time?

Yeah I've had troubles before with timing drift from Ableton and an external device fighting for the master clock timing. It'd drift in and out by fractions of a BPM in a sinusoidal like pattern

Thanks for the suggestions, I was not aware that Ableton itself would have timing issues. I tried using Reaper as clock source and the effect was more or less the same.

Unfortunately the Akai doesn't output any clock messages so I can't actually sync from there. Next best thing is probably to drive everything with my MS2000R.

I did not think some pesky MIDI sync issue would cause me to seriously consider getting into hardware.

Wait, maybe this sort of thing is because of the Spectre/Meltdown patches?

  On 1/15/2018 at 3:22 PM, thawkins said:

Wait, maybe this sort of thing is because of the Spectre/Meltdown patches?

lol

Most software (from my little experience and much reading of others') has imperfect timing. Hardware often has imperfect timing, some machines more so than others. Ain't nothing perfect, but if you're looking for the absolute best MIDI timing then get a dedicated box, there's a few out there that some people swear by. They often run a few hundred bucks though, and even then if you're using software there's going to be a little 'mushiness' to be expected from that, in general. Some say you can clamp this down with a dedicated, stable computer and software, etc., but I'm mostly going from other people's blabbering at this point so I should shut up :)

I know that software and computers in general have imperfect timing, but I was not aware that this imperfection could be so hugely fluctuating that I can actually see how arpeggiated notes end up all over the place. I am also skeptical of this explanation because if Ableton's master clock is fluctuating, I fully expect that the MPK's clock and arpeggiatior fluctuate along with it!

Because after all, the clock signal is 24 pulses per quarter note (so 6 per 16th note?).  And it is also weird that the fluctuation is kind of smooth - the audible effect sounds like a phaser (two hihat beats playing side to side and one of them drifts in relation).

I am going to test the MS2000-s arpeggiator next. And then switch to the MicroX as clock source. I know people buy MIDI clocks, but I was under the impression that a general purpose computer probably also has a clock source inside that is reasonably stable.

I sync my hardware via Ableton and everything is prone to being a little off. If you look at the Rytm screen when it's slaved to Albeton it's constantly bouncing around within a few points of BPM readings around the actual BPM (132.5, 132.8, 133.3, etc when running at 133). That's pretty common for Elektron stuff from what I've read, and the actual feel of the music coming from the Rytm seems stable to my ears. But that's where I go with all of this...If it's mostly working, I don't really care. My stuff is often out of sync and it's fine, I'm not recording 32nd note arp clips and analyzing it. Just not something that bugs me personally. I think of it as built-in swing/funk/humanized patterns :D 

I know it can be frustrating trying to pin something like that down though, so good luck figuring it out and do report back with findings. Anything beyond what I said up there is past my knowledge/experience though, so I'll shut up now :)

Yeah I don't go around with a ruler to see if things are off by a fraction of a BPM, that's entirely fine. But the arpeggiator thing is a bit nagging because it drifts so wildly and you can hear the results as well. Maybe it would be possible to use some automatic record quantization for taking care of this.

Anyways I'll keep looking and thinking, thanks for your answers guys!

lol akai

Yeah those industry defining MPC manufacturing twats, what idiots would even think of using that brand

Honestly I thought that getting things to sync over MIDI would be a solved problem by now, and even though my Macbook does not have a real-time operating system, it wouldn't matter because I would have to fuck around with some arcane atomic clock + oscilloscope setup to discover a timing issue. Instead it's blatantly obvious in the some of the most used software and hardware.

Possibly the strongest argument so far for me to start seriously getting into hardware. There is even a MPC1000 on craigslist god help me.

Yeah hardware does dumb shit sometimes too but now that I've amassed enough sequencers I hardly ever even bother with MIDI sync, just press play at the same time and trust their clocks to do their job. Latency and shitty sync drive me bonkers.

If you want to stick with software that doesn't have shit timing, though, I can vouch for Renoise.

  On 1/16/2018 at 2:55 PM, mcbpete said:

Yeah those industry defining MPC manufacturing twats, what idiots would even think of using that brand

akai of many years ago is not akai today. the akai that produced iconic machines collapsed in 2000 owing over $1 billion to creditors. the akai brand was bought in 2012 by inmusic brands, who also own numark, ion and alesis amongst others. akai also now do a lot of rebadging of other people’s kit.

the akai of today is a shadow of it’s former self and mostly produces cheap crap with many technical issues (timberwolf et al).

hence: lol akai

Good factings, had no idea - Did another big music hardware company go down around then too, seem to remember buying some midi gear from a shop then they were unable to provide repairs due to something going tits up.

EDIT: Actually it was a few years later (late 00s) and I think it was the shop itself that went tits up.

yeah alesis went bankrupt in 2001 as well. basically anything owned by inmusic brands is extremely likely to be a formerly well known brand with gravitas, that was bought for sod all for the brand identity alone. their business model seems to be buying up brands that have gone bust, manufacturing new gear cheaply and badly (or simply re-badging no-name kit), sticking whatever brand badge on it and selling at a premium. nice work if you can get it.

Damn I had no idea.. thanks for the info!

I fucking hate it when I have to play guessing games with megacorps like this, never sure what gutted supply chain is actually used. No wonder there's two other mpk minis on Craigslist.

It's like the high fashion industry which was pretty much bought up a few decades ago by 1-2 real estate moguls and now it's mostly LARPing new and ground breaking shit while all the players play to the same masters' tunes.