Timecode Video Control from Ableton?

[pies4peter]

Hello Folks,

I'm looking to replace my Midi workflow with:

Ableton on one laptop
OSC over LAN
VJ software on second laptop

that's pretty much what I have to work with.

It's been suggested that
Live > MaxforLive > OSC > 'someOtherVisualSoftware'

might be the way forward once I've made a Max patch that will chuck out timecode on a track by track basis.

In effect, I'm leaving Resolume Avenue behind for a moment so that I can try to find a better way of regularly syncing and doing speed control without BPM

Has anyone found a Cheaper solution?

Should I start looking into something like Puredata?

[stuckfootage]

I'm not really answering your question, but offering some thoughts.

Originally Posted by pies4peter

Live > MaxforLive > OSC > 'someOtherVisualSoftware'

I did this for a while, using the udpsend object to send OSC
over Ethernet to a Mac Mini driving two projectors.

The "someOtherVisualSoftware" was a standalone Jitter patch.
If you own Max you can build apps that will run on another
computer even if Max is not installed there. It worked quite well.
I operated the remote computer using Terminal and ssh
when I needed to reboot or whatever. I used the file sharing
in Finder to transfer media to the remote computer,
and Ableton+MFL sent remote commands to control the video
output.

I feel that trying to run remote video playback with SMPTE
timecode might be less than successful. I prefer to send
commands which tell the remote patch to start a clip
or control some effect, and let the latency happen. It's usually
not that noticeable. Trying to do a tighter sync,
with all the issues of network latency and disk read latency,
you might have some unpleasant results. If you want to
get things a bit tighter than just "play now", you could
try requesting each frame specifically, but make sure you
can drop frames at the other end if necessary.

One more note: if your Ableton clips use MIDI notes to control
your OSC messages via MFL, be sure to add a defer object
after your notein. MIDI is high priority in MFL, and it will cause
problems if you try to push that through a network and
read files at the other end.

Sorry I can't suggest a less expensive workflow. Using MIDI
is probably the cheapest way to go.

Perhaps others can chime in here.

[Pleasuretek]

the midi to OSC depends on whether you choose OSX or Windows. It is a very simple patch to receive midi from IAC or midiYoke and translate/transmit OSC messages in pureData. I think the pureData OSC tutorial does something very close. Yes using pure data will save you a couple hundred dollars.

Latency can get tricky here.. Although OSC are smallish signals and I was always using gigabit networking over cat6, there are nanoseconds (possibly 1-2ms) of latency with the sending, translating, packing, sending, receiving, and executing. The key that I found to sync clip playback and audio is to adjust your audio buffer size (usually creating more latency on the audio), so that the audio gets a few milliseconds of latency behind the midi signals -- you have to trial/error calibrate your DAW buffer against when your clips get fired. If you have the loot, putting a SSD, with x25 controller on it, in the vj machine would target your main bottleneck.

my suggested workflow:
Live > IAC or midiYoke > PD > OSC > 'somevisualsoftware'
Or even better
Live > IAV/midiYoke > 'somevisoft' all on one machine. less points to test when system fails (all systems fail).

[pies4peter]

Thankyou fellas - that's great info.
Would my desire for a proper timecode be satisfied by something that Puredata is doing?
I suspect that if it's just Midi triggers from Ableton - then I still have the same issue potentially.

However if the whole LAN thing ends up being more reliable than:
Live > ExternalSoundcard > MidiPort > Midi-to-USB adapter > USB plugged into VJ laptop > Resolume
- then I'll be happier.

It's conceivable that my HDD is causing small amounts of lag I guess.
DXV files are pretty huge, but I've not seen any lagging visible by eye.
I guess a few held frames will cause it over time though...

I've just got a ExpressCard SSD which is fast, and hadn;t considered using that - but I guess I could.