My main purpose to use Gig performer would be to perform live complete songs with my Electric Violin along with backing tracks with future purchase of a powerful Macbook laptop while using Ableton Link and automation with stock and 3rd party plugins both within Ableton and GP.
So far this is the workflow I’ve been doing:
Using plugged-in Electric 1/4 inch cable Violin to M4 Audio interface and having automation done with the GP Streaming Audio File Player using Marker Points and Timeline Actions Tools as well as some Virtual Instrument stock plugins from Ableton playing back and sequencing etc… (all kinds of Rackspace configurations within GP too). The MIDI I receive is triggered from MIDI Guitar (standalone app) from my Electric Violin input which will generate MIDI notes and messages which will be picked up by Virtual Instrument plugins inside both Ableton and GP (Artuira, Kontakt etc) and be played back and automated in GP simultaneously. Ableton is in Arrangement view. The Streaming Audio File Player is in Global Rackspace within GP.
I have an identical WAV file of the backing tracks in both GP Streaming Audio File Player and Ableton. I do mute the volume output of the WAV backing track in the SAFP and use the Ableton one for the audience to hear. (use it in SAFP for the purpose of Marker Points and Timeline Actions Tools)
So far I thought it was going fine until I was playing back a song in Ableton which had tempo changes. When that happened even if starting the song and playback is synced, when the tempo change happens, 9 out of 10 times the Song tempo automation in Ableton gets greyed out and the playback of timing and click track becomes out of sync.
Am using Mac Studio M1 Max (Silicon) with Sonoma 64 Gigs Ram, Ableton Live 12 Suite, 96 khz Sample Rate, Buffer 128 for all (except MIDI Guitar which sometimes changes to 256, and after testing it MIDI Guitar is not causing the Link issues, as I took it out of the equation)
Is there a way to fix and align the playback time so that both Ableton and GP are in sync and remain in sync when playing back with tempo changes? (and song tempo automation does not go grey in Ableton)
I have not managed yet to figure out a way to have Ableton as the master when pressing Play on it and GP to start playback simultaneously of the song with the SAFP. It only works the other way around for me. There must be a way, with maybe MIDI or Relayer ? if not Link.
Already spent a lot of time trying to figure this out as well a searching other forums (GP and Ableton, videos etc). I see others had some bpm issues too but could not resolved.
Thank you in advance for your help!
Energieswithin
Yes I changed the starting tempo of the track in GP to match that of Abelton, and they are both in sync when starting. GP seems to follow even the tempo changes decently, --IF-- they actually do happen when the song tempo automation is not greyed out in Ableton.
a) Is there a way not send any tempo changes from GP to Abltn while in Link?
b) Or is there a way not to even use Link at all and just have Ableton send a start play message to GP so that both start at same time? via MIDI somehow?
Even though it says in it that it works on ‘‘allows to make tempo transitions while playing in Session Mode’’. I am using Arrangement view, but am crossing fingers!
Thanks I will give it a try and report back the progress.
I do similar, but then render audio files and use that in session view.
This way each song is a scene and with OSC messages I can easily sync songs in GP and Scenes in Ableton
Can you automate tempo changes without issues between Abltn and GP is session view?
If so how?
I saw that YT video before but could not comprehend it too well.
…I also use time based sequenced playback VIs from Ableton stock plugins
not sure how that would be implemented smoothly with Session view
Yes, I can understand this, but at times there are gradual tempo changes, how would that work in session
–all this hopefully without trying to do rocket science of a basic simple task in principle which is to playback sync-- my geek skills are limited as well as patience to waste time chasing unknown ghosts
Not that I sound baffled but I’ve had my fair share of unfruitful journeys that lack results. My conclusion is that if it’s too complicated to do what seems to be a very straight forward objective, probably it is something to do either with the process, or lack of, or miss information or skill somewhere.
