Audio Sync in Ableton -> latency compensation

[MPrinsen]

I just saw this video instruction: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R-tWpy4XJIY

But what is not counted for in that video is latency compensation (when you’re monitoring/recording your instruments in Ableton).

So whenever there is latency added on any other tracks than the Midronome track, the audio that is sent to the Midronome (and thus the midi clock) will be delayed, but any audio coming into Ableton will also be delayed. So then the incoming audio is not in sync anymore with the clock of Ableton.

To prevent this from happening, you should use an External Audio Effect on the Midronome track, and use that to send audio to the Midronome. This will prevent Ableton from delaying the audio that is sent to the Midronome, so it will always be in sync, no matter how much latency compensation is applied by Ableton.

You can also use the output gain in this device to set the output level of the sync signal, so you can just keep the level of the track and audio interface at 0.

See attachment for example.

[Simon]

Amazing, thank you for that!

I will link this post from the Youtube video, maybe adding this part in the video at some point.

What about the track delay, to adjust the latency on the sync, does that still work with the External Audio Effect?

[MPrinsen]

Yes that would work as well, but you will have to manually adjust the latency every time a plugin adds more latency.

The External Audio Effect just avoids having to hassle with adjusting latency alltogether.

You should only use a regular audio track without External Audio Effect when you monitor on a hardware mixer. So for example: the output of Ableton goes to a hardware mixer and all your external gear goes to a hardware mixer as well, and the main output of the mixer goes to your speakers.

[Simon]

Yes that would work as well, but you will have to manually adjust the latency every time a plugin adds more latency.

No, I did not mean adjust the track delay as a plugin delay compensation, but adding on purpose a negative delay to the AudioSync track, to send it "early" to the Midronome, to compensate for the delay created by a hardware sequencer (perfect example here with a Polyend Tracker which clearly has a 54ms delay).
I explain it at the end of the video: https://youtu.be/R-tWpy4XJIY?t=364