Hi team!
When Ableton Link is activated, triggering a cue point will cause a temporary glitch in the audio playback. I don’t have this issue in Traktor, can this be improved? I am currently in trial, considering the switch to Djay Pro but this issue could be a problem, since I also use Ableton to play instruments during a set.
Hi @ludof, welcome to the Community! Sorry to hear you’re experiencing this issue. Thanks for the setup details and video - this is very helpful.
The most useful test: with Link still enabled, turn SYNC off on the deck and trigger the same cue points. If the artifact disappears, we’re looking at the sync/phase realignment rather than Link itself. Then try Settings > General > Sync mode > Beat Sync interval at 1 beat vs 1 bar, and Sync type set to BPM instead of BPM and beats.
Another test worth trying: set Beat Sync interval to 1 bar so cue jumps land on the downbeat, and toggle Key Lock off on the deck to see whether the time-stretch engine is involved.
Thanks!
Hi, thank you for the answer.
With SYNC off the issue doesn’t happen, so yes it is related to the playback phase correction. Unfortunately it doesn’t make sense to play in LINK mode with SYNC disabled (or with BPM only sync type ), because that result in misalignment between phases (Djay Pro and Ableton in this case).
I suspect the problem here is that the cue point is triggered instantly and then the phase correction happens (causing the glitch), while probably it would be better to trigger the cue point on the nearest beat so that the phase is already aligned when the jump happens. At least it seems to me that it’s working in this way on Traktor when LINK/SYNC are activated.
Best
You’re welcome @ludof. Thanks for the additional testing What you’re describing already exists in djay as Quantize, and rewatching your video it looks like it was switched off. Enable it in Tools Bar > Cue Points > Quantize (the circled Q at the far left of the cue panel header), then choose a snap value from the dropdown beside it: 1/16, 1/8, 1/4, 1/2, 1 beat, or 4 beats. With it on, cue triggers snap to the beatgrid rather than firing instantly, which is the behaviour you’re after. Try 1 beat first, then 4 beats if you’d rather jumps land on the downbeat.
On the recording, you can skip the loopback entirely. Use djay’s own Mix recorder (the red record button at the top left) with your local track, since streaming tracks can’t be recorded. That captures djay’s master output directly: if the glitch shows up in the file, it’s in the playback engine, and if it doesn’t, it’s happening downstream at the RME. Either way it tells us something.
Hi @Slak_Jaw ,
I made some more tests. I can confirm that with quantize enabled on cue points, the glitch issue doesn’t happen anymore. But I believe the core issue is not solved yet, because the glitch happens also when you press PLAY (the engine try to sync the out of phase after the playback is started, causing the glitch). Another small issue I’ve found: if you change bpm on the Deck with LINK enabled (also Ableton running with LINK enabled) and start playback, it will reset to the Ableton bpm instead of overriding it (with LINK each peer could set the bpm, there is no master).
You can see both issues in the video, I’ve also recorded the audio using Djay recorder as you suggested.
Cheers!
Thanks for running all of that @ludof, and for the recorder capture.
Good news first: I can confirm the tempo reset from your files. The pitch fader moves back to centre on its own about 14 seconds into your video, and your cursor is parked somewhere else, motionless, while it happens. The tempo change is in the recorded audio too, not just the on-screen readout. Sync is never switched off anywhere in that clip either, so this isn’t Settings > General > Sync mode > Reset tempo when turning sync off causing it.
Here’s the one thing I can’t separate from what you’ve sent. Your track’s own tempo is 120.0, and the deck resets to exactly 120.0 at 0.0% — so “djay is adopting Ableton’s Link tempo” and “djay is resetting the deck to the track’s original tempo” look identical in the recording. Those are two different problems with two different fixes.
Could you run it once more with Ableton set to something other than 120 (128 works well), and capture it with both djay and Ableton on screen? If djay snaps to 128, it’s the Link tempo. If it snaps to 120 again, it’s a local reset. That one test settles it, and it’s what I need before I can write this up properly.
On the glitch when pressing PLAY: your recorder file came through clean, but I couldn’t pin the artifact down in it myself. If you can note roughly where in the recording you hear it, I’ll go straight to those spots.
In the meantime, try setting the tempo from Ableton rather than on the deck. djay is designed to follow another app’s tempo in a Link session, so that should sidestep the reset while we work this out. Thanks again, this is excellent reporting.
You can hear the PLAY glitch issue at 0:12 - 0:14. Actually to reproduce the issue you don’t even need Ableton, just activate LINK + SYNC on Djay Pro and do several PLAY/PAUSE on a track, you will hear it.
Here is the video showing bpm link issue (Ableton bpm is set to 133, track bpm is 125). It seems that Djay Pro doesn’t send bpm updates to the LINK protocol when playback is stopped, like in this example.
Thanks for the additional info and video @ludof. I went back through our Link documentation on this one, and the tempo sounds like it is behaving as expected in your use case. djay only takes part in Link tempo negotiation while a deck is actually playing. If the deck is stopped or silent, djay stays connected to the session but stops pushing tempo changes out to it. Ableton was already playing in your test, so it was holding the session at 133, and the moment you hit play djay joined and took the session tempo rather than asserting its own 125.
If you want djay driving the tempo instead, the first app to start playback normally becomes the tempo leader, and djay will take over as leader if the other apps stop playback. So either start djay’s deck before Ableton’s transport, or stop Ableton’s transport while you set your tempo. Worth knowing that Live is one of those apps that tends to hold onto session tempo control fairly firmly.
The audio artifact when pressing play is a separate matter and I’m still on it. Your PLAY/PAUSE repro without Ableton is what I’m taking forward.
Full guide here, worth a read since it covers the active-deck requirement in detail: https://help.algoriddim.com/topic/using-djay/using-ableton-link-with-djay
