Super Scene getting out of sync with embedded audio file

[pkap]

Hi,

I have a super scene in DasLight 5.0.4.2 which has an embedded wav file I created using Cubase.

It is in exactly 128 bpm and has exactly 193 bars with 4 beats per bar, so 772 beats in total.

When I import this wav file into the respective DasLight super scene while being set to 128 bpm in the selector to the top (dont know if that is actually necessary), DasLight recognizes the bpm "almost" correctly (it says "128.012 bpm") and correctly sets the super scene length to 772 bpm.

The music in the wav file starts on the 4th beat as I found that necessary to have a little time in the beginning of the scene to have my moving fixtures to speed up or move to the point I want them to be.

On the 4th beat I turn on the lights and that is exactly when the music starts.

More than often though, the lights do go on before the music starts, and that is - funnily enough - exactly one beat early. How do I know? I have the lights go on and of on every second beat and that still happens perfectly on beat. So it is not an awkward delay, but the scene starts a beat to early, it seems.

That offset then carries through the track, which is annoying but at least provides a level of consistency. The only problem is, that during a live show I would not know, whether the offset actually occurs or not, so I cannot just move all effects one beat later, as it might also be the other way around, which is bad.

But there is also another issue: Half of the times, the scene goes out of sync with the audio during playback even worse than one beat, up to several beats. Due to the different nature of my scene in the end of the track I cannot tell if the scene is still "on beat", but the scenes start way too early at the end of the track.

It is really important to notice, that this only occurs if the super scene is left running from start to end! If you just skip manually to somewhere near the end of the scene and start the scene, it is in sync (with the occasional 1 beat offset). So, there seems to be an issue that either there is an accumulating delay (which might not be "beat related" but actual time delay accumulating) or the beat sync mechanism goes rogue in itself so that the super scene assumes it is later in the track and therefore starts scenes to early.

As I assume that this is broken in some way, do I have other options of syncing a super scene to an audio file played? I see there is something with "Ableton" beat sync, but I do not have Ableton nor do I know how to connect it. If you could guide me through that, that would be fine.

If it is a known issue and a fix is under way, that would be great!

If I can help to fix the issue, tell me what you need.

TIA!

[chrischris]

i strongly advise you to forget the audio with the dashlight. i did extensive tests with a daw, putting on one side an audio track coming out of repear and on the other the same audio track coming out of the dashlight. 4 times out of 5, the two tracks were not synchronized with each other, it's a matter of milliseconds, and sometimes a bar. the dashlight audio system is not yet perfected .... so for the moment, the light comes out of the dashlight and the audio from a daw, and that's a good match, I had published a post on this subject, and to date no feedback from the dashlight team. viewtopic.php?p=25770#p25770

[pkap]

Thank you for your reply!

I would be very interested in your current alternative approach:
Which software do you use to play back audio and how do you setup this software and Daslight to keep the audio playback in sync with your Daslight Superscenes?

Thank you!

[pkap]

An additional note maybe:
I would also not only have to keep the audio bpm in sync with DasLight, but also have to start a specific SuperScene on the start of the audio playback, as I have laid that out to specifically match the dynamic of the song. So, it is no use, if my scenes start a beat to late (after the drop or the break).

Is that possible somehow?

[pkap]

Another addition:
I have Cubase AI Elements 12 and Rekordbox with a pioneer dj deck available, but I would be willing to add other stuff.

[pkap]

As you might have noticed, I'm a fool with a tool, well, several tools...

[chrischris]

Hello pkap,

The process is simple.

I put an audio track in the superscene of dashlight in order to set up my light settings. Each superscene has the name of the song; Then I go to reaper (it works the same way with a cubase or a logic), I place my song in the time line, it is important that your start is the same in reaper as in dashlight, I return to dashlight to mutate the audio track that I had placed during my light preparations.
And then I use an Akai APC 25 mk2 , in which I assign a midi pad for the start of my superscene in dashlight and I assign the same pad in the daw to start my song. the two starts in the 2 softwares are simultaneous and it works very well.

there's a template in reaper that lets you do all this very simply for song tracking. you assign each song to the pad you want in your akai and then do the same thing in your dashlight. https://youtu.be/aqQyKdFa6Y4?si=aRYcGCFaO9MARis6

the preparation takes a little time, but once it's done, it's easy to manage.

I've tried different systems, you can also put a sampler plugin in your daw and start your songs with midi pads, but it's the same thing and I find it much more complicated to set up ...

The advantage of this system is that all your departures are managed in midi, so there are no surprises, it's synchronized and stable.

audio synchronization is not perfect in dashlight.
From the moment we put even two tracks (a bass + a drum) in dashlight, it is essential that these tracks can play together without delay. However, that is not the case, the synchronization is not stable.

I hope you achieve your goals, keep me informed.

[chrischris]

An additional note maybe:
I would also not only have to keep the audio bpm in sync with DasLight, but also have to start a specific SuperScene on the start of the audio playback, as I have laid that out to specifically match the dynamic of the song. So, it is no use, if my scenes start a beat to late (after the drop or the break).

Is that possible somehow?

I only use the bpm when preparing the superscene (each superscene has a different bpm, that of the song) this makes it easier to write your light composition in the dashlight timeline like on a daw with the mesures bars.

[pkap]

Very cool, thanks a lot for the inspiration! Will test this out!

[pkap]

I have not tested reaper, yet, but I tried the same with Rekordbox and DasLight.

It seems that both Rekordbox and DasLight seem to "lock" the Midi Devices from each other. When I assign my Donner Starrypad (https://us.donnermusic.com/products/don ... ller-black) to DasLight as a MIDI input device, Rekordbox does not see it any more and if I do the same in Rekordbox, DasLight complains that the device would be locked.

I am under Windows 10.

Does it work differently with Reaper?

[pkap]

So, I got it running know.

I'm using a combination of multiple tools and I think it is ridiculously complicated, but at least I get reproducible and consistent results.

For audio playback I use Rekordbox.

In Daslight the superscene is orchestrated using the same embedded audio, DasLight is just not outputting to the main audio device, that rekordbox is using (actually that is a Pioneer DDJ-400).

In Rekordbox I can activate Ableton Link, which is from my understanding sending a pulse for every beat on the configured BPM (Rekordbox 6 does NOT use the beat of analyzed audio file, but the BPM of the Ableton Link is not linked to the BPM of the currently running audio file, you need to manually adjust that to have it matched, which is bullsh*t from my perspective. Since I know the BPM of the file and wont change speed, thats ok, though in this scenario).

So, as long as I start both the Super Scene in DasLight and the Rekordbox playback of the audio file, everything will run in sync.

But exactly this turned out to be another problem. I have a Donner Starrypad which I can connect to either Rekordbox or DasLight but not both to send MIDI signal which I can use to start the playback of either the Super Scene or the audio file, which helps nothing.

Then I found Soundigy MIDI Patchbay and loopMIDI.

In loopMIDI I create 2 additional virtual MIDI devices. The first I use as input devices in Rekordbox and the second as an input device in DasLight.

Then I use Soundigy MIDI Patchbay to redirect all commands from the Donner Starrypad to both these additional virtual MIDI devices create in loopMIDI. So each button I press on the Donner Starrypad is kind of replicated to both loopMIDI devices.

In Rekordbox I now configure a button from the Starrypad to start the audio playback of e.g. Deck 1, where I have my audio file loaded. I just do not use the Starrypad MIDI device, but the virtual loopMIDI device, where each MIDI command from the Starrypad gets replicated to.

The same button I now configure in DasLight to start my specific super scene, also using the respective virtual MIDI device, where that button press MIDI command gets replicated to.

Astonishingly, all of this does not add enough latency to be unusable, but it actually works fast enough to produce an usable result.

But I still hate, how complicated and unflexible this is.

[pkap]

I also tried it using Reaper, but ended up with the same issue, that Reaper was exclusively blocking the Starrypad MIDI device, which only made the whole MIDI command replication using Soundigy MIDI patchbay and loopMIDI necessary.

Don't get my wrong, I love the existence of Soundigy MIDI patchbay and loopMIDI, I still wonder why all of this needs to be so complicated.

I do not think my use case is so extrordinary and both the docs of DasLight and Rekordbox are very thin to non existent for my use case. But maybe I'm looking in the wrong places.

If anybody knows of a better approach (maybe using different tools, even different from DasLight), I would be grateful for any recommendation.

What do the pros do?

[juls]

Hello,
Can you send your project file to try to unerstand what happens.

Thanks.

[email protected]

[pkap]

Hi Julien,

thank you for gettting back to me. I sent you the project file by mail, as I cannot attach it here.

Alas, it turned out, that even though everything looked fine last week, it does actually NOT work reliably. DasLight seems to "hear" additional beats from the Ableton link from Rekordbox. Occasionally, the DasLight BPM counter on my running scene, goes ahead two beats at a time instead of one, which leads to DasLight being ahead of the actual progress in the audio.

So, my approach of using Rekordbox with Ableton Link is also a failure.

I tried this on two different machines, with Rekordbox and DasLight always running on the same machine to avoid any latency issues. I used Rekordbox 8.5.8 and Rekordbox 7.0.1. In Rekordbox Ableton Link is set to 128 bpm and the Deck is also configured to sync ("Link" is activated) to the Ableton Link BPM, even though the track is already 128 bpm. Ableton Link is also showing 1 active link, so it notices DasLight is listening. DasLight is also showing the BPM of the Rekordbox Ableton Link, i.e. when I change the BPM in Ableton Link in Rekordbox that is also showing directly as the BPM in Daslight.

The super scene is called "This is a test" (Armin van Buuren).

Let me stress, that the main issue I notice is that DasLight is getting ahead of the track by sometimes (and not on the same position of the track and not deterministacally in any way) going 2 instead of 1 beats. You can see that in the scene counter while the scene is running.

It would be really great if you could help and find out.