MIDI Latency Hybrid Set-Up Hapax

Hapax
1

Hi,

I think i may have a very specific problem and i’d love to get some help if possible.

I work with a hybrid set-up between Hapax and Ableton. The set up is built the following way:
I have an external MIDI clock (ESI M4U eX) that syncs all my hardware together with Ableton and I recently added the Hapax to my set-up. The Hapax is also connected to the external MIDI clock and recently I’ve experiencing some issues.

For instance, let’s say i’m playing a 4/4 loop with only a “Kick” already recorded into Ableton and perfectly quantized, but when sending MIDI notes from a Hapax Drum track to my Korg Electribe EMX-1 to play the “Snare” it sounds delayed but if i program the same “Snare” directly into the Electribe then it sounds perfectly quantized. The way my Hapax sends MIDI to the Electribe is through an Ableton MIDI track gettin MIDI IN from the external MIDI clock input channel and sending it back to the external MIDI clock out channel to the Electribe.

I’ve tryed compensating the latency directly from the Hapax but the negative values do not affect at all but the positives do making the “Snare” sound more delayed. Also, i’ve tried to compensate directly from the “Track Delay” of Ableton’s MIDI track and also from the MIDI Settings from Ableton to compensate the clock channel latency but nothing seems to be working at all.

Is there any solution to this?

2

thats for euro.

you can clock the hapax with a pulse wave from a dedicated audio track to cv in that keeps hapax in very accurate sync.

from there you can pass out midi clock for other stuff.

voila, very tight sync with ableton

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The way I am reading this is that you are routing the Hapax MIDI sequence through your computer and back out to your Electribe? This is sure to add some latency, as this MIDI data needs to make a round trip through your computer, which gets stacked onto the initial MIDI clock out latency.
Ideally, you should connect a MIDI output of the Hapax directly (or via MIDI processor hub) to the inputs of your hardware devices.
From there you should be able to adjust MIDI clock offset/ Audio recording compensation in Ableton and get things lined up.

Big picture, DAW driven MIDI clock is notoriously (but not always) unstable. The Hapax is excellent for receiving an audio sync pulse, and then forwarding MIDI clock to connected devices (requires at least one spare audio output channel, 2 ideally).
In this case, I would reserve sending MIDI from Hapax to Live for control of soft synths etc.

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4

+1 to using the Clock in feature on the Hapax with an audio pulse sent from Ableton - so much tighter than midi clock and rock solid

What audio interface do you have? Send a clock-friendly pulse out of one of your interface outputs to the clock in on the Hapax - I use the Midronome plug-in in my DAW to provide the pulse, there are other options here as well

5

Another +1 for clock in. Anytime having the hapax sync’d via midi with ableton I had a lot of latency and crosstalk issues with my gear. However my interface isn’t DC coupled, but my TR-8S has a trigger out that I use as the clock for the hapax. All my issues were resolved after that.

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6

I don’t believe you need a DC coupled audio interface to achieve clock sync from DAW to Hapax - I’m using an output on my Presonus Studiolive console (AC coupled) and it works fine.

Most important is to have the output volume at max level - also try adjusting the Hapax CV/gate ‘CV in range’ setting to -1v/+1v