I want to sync SL to Ardour looping, use stop/start via MIDI
Posted: Mon Sep 02, 2019 12:06 pm
#1 I'm back trying Sooperlooper again. Not sure what happened previously, but there is a complexity hump to get over initially.
#2 I'm trying to replicate a pedal sort of setup, not for live looping, but for catching and elaborating on ideas.
#3 In order for me to stay in a musically creative zone mentally I cannot be mousing around on a screen. I wish it were not true, but I think it is. So I have to be able to do useful and reliable things with footswitches.
Here's my setup so far:
Macbook Pro 2012 model
Sooperlooper latest version
Ardour, bought it rather than mess with building it
MIDI patch bay
QJackctl
JackPilot
Eleven rack for guitar sounds (analog outs)
Behringer UMC-404 audio/MIDI interface
McMillen softstep
some other MIDI pedals
My SL template is 4 tracks. Trying stereo and mono arrangements.
Ardour is set up with INT/JACK sync mode. If I set the tempo in Ardour that value is shown in QJackCtl.
I set Sync in SL (just one track for starters) to "Jack/Host". When I press the "play" button on the QJackCtl transport bar, then SL follows Ardour's tempo.
I set the quantize to "Cycle" and put in 16 8th notes for the cycle length.
I put in a click track to Ardour and started it playing back, then I started recording on SL.
I think it waited about 2 measures and then recorded for 2 measures.
Playing back the loop in sync with the original sound works very well and no discernible drift was detected in about 5 minutes. That is good enough for pop music.
What I'd like to do is be able to sync playback of something in Ardour (probably a short loop of MIDI and or audio) with SL. A count-in would be even more amazing.
I think that when Jack transport is "Stopped" it does not broadcast some Jack messages from Ardour to SL, as I can set SL to start recording and it doesn't do anything until I set the Jack transport to "Rolling". There also appears to be a delay which is probably the normal sync catch up but I'm wondering, isn't there a way we can all start at the same place?
If I'm recording in SL and "stop" the transport, SL keeps recording, and if I try to stop recording, it will say "waiting for sync" but it never gets sync unless I set the Jack transport to "Rolling" as before.
Also, Ardour didn't start but I haven't dug into that and this isn't the Ardour forum.
#2 I'm trying to replicate a pedal sort of setup, not for live looping, but for catching and elaborating on ideas.
#3 In order for me to stay in a musically creative zone mentally I cannot be mousing around on a screen. I wish it were not true, but I think it is. So I have to be able to do useful and reliable things with footswitches.
Here's my setup so far:
Macbook Pro 2012 model
Sooperlooper latest version
Ardour, bought it rather than mess with building it
MIDI patch bay
QJackctl
JackPilot
Eleven rack for guitar sounds (analog outs)
Behringer UMC-404 audio/MIDI interface
McMillen softstep
some other MIDI pedals
My SL template is 4 tracks. Trying stereo and mono arrangements.
Ardour is set up with INT/JACK sync mode. If I set the tempo in Ardour that value is shown in QJackCtl.
I set Sync in SL (just one track for starters) to "Jack/Host". When I press the "play" button on the QJackCtl transport bar, then SL follows Ardour's tempo.
I set the quantize to "Cycle" and put in 16 8th notes for the cycle length.
I put in a click track to Ardour and started it playing back, then I started recording on SL.
I think it waited about 2 measures and then recorded for 2 measures.
Playing back the loop in sync with the original sound works very well and no discernible drift was detected in about 5 minutes. That is good enough for pop music.
What I'd like to do is be able to sync playback of something in Ardour (probably a short loop of MIDI and or audio) with SL. A count-in would be even more amazing.
I think that when Jack transport is "Stopped" it does not broadcast some Jack messages from Ardour to SL, as I can set SL to start recording and it doesn't do anything until I set the Jack transport to "Rolling". There also appears to be a delay which is probably the normal sync catch up but I'm wondering, isn't there a way we can all start at the same place?
If I'm recording in SL and "stop" the transport, SL keeps recording, and if I try to stop recording, it will say "waiting for sync" but it never gets sync unless I set the Jack transport to "Rolling" as before.
Also, Ardour didn't start but I haven't dug into that and this isn't the Ardour forum.