Synchronizing 2 computers to jam

[thehauntingsoul]

I know I post alot of noobish questions but I appreciate the help I get from you guys.

 

Me and my buddy have been jamming lately and we are wondering how you go about syncing up the midi clocks on 2 computers.

 

First of all, He primarily uses ableton and I use Reason. We have both programs on both computers, and we are both semi-adept at the other program. The way we have set it up so far is that I have a big male-male audio cable running from my speaker out to his line in. Basically I run reason, output goes through his computer and then is re-processed through ableton. It works alright but my sound quality suffers, and there is a rediculous amount of latency added in the process.

 

We would prefer to be able to use our respective favourite DAWs if possible, but are willing to lean either way if necessary.

so I have 2 questions:

 

1: Is it possible to sync midi clock on two computers between Reason & Ableton or does it have to be the same DAW for that to work out?

 

2: How would one go about setting all of that up? What cables would i need, drivers, etc.

 

Keep in mind I'm a bit of a noob like I said and I'm self taught so I'm probably missing alot of the basics. Thanks for your help.

[BCM]

you can do this wirelessly with macs, but don't know if you have macs. the old fashioned way to do it is to sync the two DAWs together via MIDI by using an external USB soundcard with MIDI out on it. so you set one of the DAWs to be the master and the other one to be the slave so it will sync with the master's clock signal. you'll probably also need a USB to MIDI converter, so one of you can plug into the MIDI out socket of the soundcard thus enabling synchronization of the two. it's easy really, but configuring the two programs to sync may require reading the program manuals.

[Guest sysex]

http://www.musiclab.com/products/rpl_info.htm

 

http://www.nerds.de/en/ipmidi.html

 

There's one other app for windows only, but the name escapes me at the moment.

 

 

If you are using 2 mac's then its much easier using the IAC driver between the two.

[thehauntingsoul]

alot of that went way over my head, but I think I get the general jist of it.

 

He has a desktop PC.

I have a Dell XPS, and as far as I know there is no midi port on it, however it could just be that I have never dealt with physical midi cables/ports and that I'm retarded.

 

Is there any way to sync this over a windows network? How about if I connect the computers with a double ended USB cable? Again I'm completely new to all of this stuff.

 

Edit: I was replying to the 2nd post. I'll check those links when I get home, thx for the help

[Hautlle]

I wanted to bump this thread because I kind of have the same question. The other night I was trying to sync ableton w/ my friend. We got it kind of working by connection the midi out from his fantom-s to the midi in on my padkontrol but my bpm would vary between 118-123 while his was set at 120. I read that was kind of common and that we should use an external clock we can both slave from I guess. Anyway, I figure we can use his fantom as the heartbeat and take the midi out from it into the midi in on our machines. Is this correct? If so do we just need a simple 2x2 midi interface?

[BCM]

yeah you need a MIDI Thru Box with one MIDI in and multiple MIDI outs. I use this one:

 

Kenton Thru 5

 

works well for me - i just take a clock signal from my multitrack and slave all my synths, drum machines, computer etc to that, so when I press play on the multitrack, everything starts in sync and stays in sync.

[Guest Laughable Butane Bob]

It is my understanding that Reason won't send a MIDI clock, but it can receive it. You will have to run off of Ableton's clock, get it between the computers any way you like... via physical midi cable or some WiFiMIDI implementation...