Using MIDI timecode for

[LoganRParticipant]

My school’s theatre is getting a dLive system soon (the supply chain is great right now, definitely no problems) but in preparation, I am doing some research as to how it will fit into our workflow and also what new things we can do that our old Yamaha M7 couldn’t.

Is it possible to send MIDI timecode or beat clock from a computer running Ableton Live, Mainstage, or a similar program and have that MIDI signal be received by the dLive console and use it for effects timing?

For example, using MIDI timecode/clock to synchronize a delay effect with a click track to keep it perfectly in time with the music and not relying on the FOH person to tap out the time.

I know this is something that is possible in the lighting world, but I am curious if it can be done here too.

Thanks!

[DaveParticipant]

The dLive MIDI docs are here. I didn’t see anything in there about setting tap tempos, but maybe I just missed it.

One work-around is to have a scene for every tempo you use, filter out everything but the tap tempo, and recall the relevant scene over MIDI. Or have a “tempo scene” for each song that you recall via MIDI.

Either option would be a pain to setup (the latter less than the former, IMHO), but I don’t see why they wouldn’t work. If you go down that road, be sure to double-check the recall filters whenever you change the MixRack configuration. I don’t know what A&H’s algorithm is for figuring out what to do WRT filtering if you change the buss allocation or input stereos, but it usually does the opposite of what I want.

[Author]

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