Will: 00:00

What's happening, everybody? Welcome back to Behind the Spacebar. This is the podcast that helps you become a world class playback engineer. My name is Will, and the goal of the show is to help answer your questions. You can submit those.

Will: 00:11

We'll talk about how to submit those in just a moment, But you can submit those to us, and we will happily answer those. Again, all with the goal of helping you become a world class playback engineer. This is important, important work, and I cannot do this work by myself. And so I want to introduce you to the host of the Behind the Spacebar show. AI thinks his name is Reese Bago, Bilbo Baggin's best friend, apparently, but mister Reese Bagwell.

Will: 00:38

We it's either Reese we're trying to decide, AI thinks your name is Reese Bago, or I really don't clearly enunciate my words. I think it's possibly both.

Reese: 00:48

Probably both, but for now, I'm just gonna blame you because AI doesn't have a face, and you're standing right in front of me. But I'll never forgive you for just uttering that out loud, so it is what it is. Here we go.

Will: 00:59

It I apologize, Reese Bago. So, Reese, before we get into our first question, why don't you let everybody know how they can submit their question for me to answer on a future episode?

Reese: 01:09

Yeah. You need to find us on Instagram. You need to be following us from Studio to Sage IG. And once you're following and you're getting all of our awesome content, just send us a DM. Jump on, send us a message, and we will answer that question for you on podcast as soon as possible.

Reese: 01:28

Get in the queue if you haven't submitted one yet. We can't promise it's gonna be the very next week, but the sooner, the better, and we'll get them answered.

Will: 01:37

I love it. I love it. Well, the format of the show, you submit your questions. Reese picks from them, tries to organize them nice and neatly into fun little compact episodes or themed episodes. I have no clue what he's gonna ask me, but then we hop on, and he goes, here's your question.

Will: 01:52

You guys get to hear my response in real time. So, Reese, I'm hoping you got some good ones for us today. What question do you have for me today?

Reese: 02:01

K. We're gonna stick to one today because I think it's there's a lot to it. This one is from Roger. Roger sent us this on Instagram.

Will: 02:09

What's up, Roger?

Reese: 02:09

Hey, Roger. How's it going? He says, I'm using a Play Audio One u in a playback server with two m two Mac Minis. The problem is, if I select Play Audio One u as both Ableton output devices, Mac b starts drifting and lagging and getting out of sync. If I select built in speakers on my b computer, so only a is going through the Play Audio one u, it works wonders.

Reese: 02:36

No drifting. No anything. It's such a mess because I cannot have the redundant system synced, and I need it for backup. Any ideas on what might be going wrong?

Will: 02:46

This this may be a short answer, actually, Reese. So maybe get that second question prepped.

Reese: 02:51

Okay.

Will: 02:52

And here here's why. This is one of those that's really difficult to answer without sitting down with Roger. Right? Without knowing the specifics of Roger's setup and what Roger's doing, it's hard for me to give a really clear answer. But I I think what I can do so first, again, classic Will Doggett.

Will: 03:13

It'll probably be one answer, one question for this. But hearing what Roger said is our assumption is like, the way I think of problems is I try to drill down into, okay, what's the core problem here? So Roger said Let me state this back, and you clarify if I'm wrong or not, Reese. Let me know. Based on what I heard Roger say is he's saying, the Play Audio One U is causing his B computer to drift out of line from his A computer.

Will: 03:45

Or maybe said a different way, when he selects his PlayAudio1U on both as output for both computers, his playback b machine drifts from his playback a machine. Is that correct?

Reese: 03:58

Yeah. That's it. You got

Will: 03:59

it. So how do we state the problem? The the first thing is, okay, the Play Audio One U is the problem. Like, that that's that's what you would think based on the information he told us, based on what he's done up to this point. And so when I face a situation like this, I make an assumption, I come up with a hypothesis, and then I start testing that hypothesis, right?

Will: 04:24

And I start going, Okay, is this true? Is this accurate? And to see if that's actually the case, right? Kind of scientific method, if you remember back to high school. So, Roger, one thing I would suggest maybe we do is we go, okay, let's test this same setup with two different computers, right, two completely different computers.

Will: 04:49

So maybe you're with your buddy's setup. They've got two computers that are different than yours. Plug those in. Open the same Ableton Live set on both of them and see if it occurs there as well. K?

Will: 05:00

And that would let us say, okay. What's a common variable? It's our Play Audio one u. That's that's maybe the likely culprit. So that's typically what I would do.

Will: 05:08

Now just because of my knowledge and my experience, I highly doubt that the Play Audio One u is the problem here. K? So a couple things I would do, Roger, before I even do that first step that I mentioned, kinda like circular thinking here, jumping around, so I apologize. But the first thing I would do is double check that the settings on both machines are the same. Actually, Reese, let me jump even further than that because I think I know what the problem is.

Will: 05:36

Okay. And and then we'll jump to number two or not even necessarily what I think the problem is. Let me state a foundational thing that must be true in a redundant system, and then we'll walk through the settings and what I think maybe is Roger's issue. So number one, when running a redundant system, your computers need to be identical. And I know when you hear me say that, your next question is, but will my entire life is just full of but wills.

Will: 06:03

My inbox, my DMs, everything is just but Will.

Reese: 06:08

I don't know how to respond to that.

Will: 06:10

Yeah. A lot of butts. Show title. A lot of butts in Will's life. But identical computers.

Will: 06:19

But Will, should they be one's a newer OS, one's an older OS? No. Identical computers. Should one have Ableton twelve and one Ableton 11? No.

Will: 06:28

Identical computers. So what do I mean by identical computers? Same OS, same version of Ableton Live, same amount of RAM, same hard drive. Okay? Redundant is exactly the same.

Will: 06:42

Now you may say, well, because of money, because of finances, whatever, we have two different computers. Great. You don't have a redundant setup. You have a backup setup. Because the core of redundancy and the core idea of redundancy is we need both of those computers to be perfectly in sync at the same time.

Will: 07:00

The way that they're in sync at the same time is they're exactly the same with spoiler alert. We'll talk about this in a sec. Same exact settings, same exact Ableton Live set, and we keep them in sync by using a MIDI controller plugged into the USB host port of the Play Audio One U or potentially a MIDI controller that's plugged into a MEO XM that's connected to our Play Audio One U via ethernet. And we press play, and it starts both of these computers at the same time, and they run identical paths. I had someone the other day maybe we'll get this question.

Will: 07:31

Sorry, Grease. I may steal this question from a future episode. Someone reached out and said, how do I send timecode from my a computer to my b computer to keep it in sync using the PlayAudi One U? Maybe we we drill deeper into that on a future episode. But the the heart of that question is you can't because Ableton cannot sync to timecode.

Will: 07:54

It cannot follow timecode. Now it can sync and follow MIDI timecode, but the way that it works is it does not I think it's called freewill to where if it gets off of timecode, it just keeps going. Right now, the way Ableton works when it's chasing MTC, MIDI timecode, is if MIDI timecode stops, the B computer stops. So bad problem to have when you're building a redundant machine that this goes down, this stops sending, and your B computer instantly stops and your A computer stops. So all over the place.

Will: 08:22

I'm sorry. It's Friday. I'm excited for the weekend. The way this works and we keep our machines in sync is we use a MIDI controller, same Ableton Live sets on identical computers. That's how we sync them.

Will: 08:37

Okay? So foundational Roger was the name. Right? Is that who we're talking to

Reese: 08:41

today? Yeah. It's Roger.

Will: 08:42

Uh-huh. So, Roger, foundational thing, everyone else listening, foundational thing we have to be aware of is same identical computers. That's step one. Step two, Roger, is the next thing I would have you check is we wanna check the settings on both of those computers, primarily sample rate. K.

Will: 08:58

What's the when we choose Play Audio One u, what's the sample rate of our Play Audio One u? Make sure that's the same on both machines. I don't see a world in which sample rate could be different, but double check that. Like, I think Play Audio 1U, the sample rate, I know it's the same for both machines, but check that in Ableton. But step two, most importantly, is buffer size on both of those.

Will: 09:18

If buffer size is different, 100%, you could get things drifting in and out of sync. And buffer size changes based on your audio output or audio input source. And so you wanna check that and make sure that those are perfectly in sync together. Beyond that, one, I've never heard of this happening, other than two different computers. Right?

Will: 09:42

Having two different computer sources, that that certainly has happened. I another question I would have for Roger is how do you know that the b machine is drifting out of sync with the A machine? You could certainly plug headphones in and listen both to A and B. And drifting out of sync, does that mean when you listen to them, like, maybe there's a little bit of phasing happening, or is it, like, a couple beats, you know, later on on, the second machine versus the first? But, not knowing Roger's setup, if I had to guess, I would assume and guess that he's got two different computers going on.

Will: 10:19

And I would assume that his buffer size is different than like, they're they're different between the two machines. Does that make sense?

Reese: 10:27

Yeah. He did say, you know, he he does have two m two Mac minis. Yeah. It it sounds like if that's the case and he did actually buy the same two exact computers, it doesn't necessarily mean, like you said, do they have the same OS installed? What's the settings in Ableton?

Reese: 10:47

Things like that. Yeah. To to my first thought reading the questions, like, it's gotta be a setting. But, yeah, without having everything right in front of us, it's gonna be hard to say. Roger, maybe when this episode comes out and, you know, we address your question, please, reach back out to us.

Reese: 11:05

If you got any further details, it's always something we can revisit. But, yeah, I think settings is the first is the way to go. Again, I've used the Play Audio 1U as well. Never had any issues with it.

Will: 11:18

That actually reminds me Can I throw something in real quick,

Reese: 11:22

Reese?

Will: 11:22

Sure. Yeah. This is a general tip for all of us. We love getting your questions through Instagram. We'll have some other ways to get us questions maybe in the future that we'll mention.

Will: 11:37

And someone actually mentioned this in boot camp the other day on a call. They said they saw, I guess, an old episode of Behind the Spacebar that I did in our old format, talking head format. But where I mentioned, if you're having issues or bugs with something, reach out to that company. Roger, I'm not calling you out saying you didn't reach out to iConnectivity. But the amount of people that we have reach out I think this week, we had someone reach out and say, Hey, I'm having issues with I forgot what their setup was that they were having issues with.

Will: 12:12

Hey, can I ask you a couple of questions? Can you help us troubleshoot? I was in the middle of rehearsals for three days in Nashville. I don't have the time for that. I can't do one on one sessions anymore.

Will: 12:24

The closest version of that we have is boot camp, where we work twelve weeks in a row with students individually to set things up so that they don't have those issues. But the best resource we have available to us is the companies that make those things. So if you encounter a bug, some of us, for whatever reason, are resistant to email Ableton and say, Hey, I'm having this crash. I'm having this issue. Some of us are resistant to, Hey, iConnectivity.

Will: 12:50

I'm having this issue. I'm having this crash. The first thing I would do is reach out to those companies. Even if you solve the problem while you're waiting to hear back from them, email them back and go, Oh, I actually solved it by doing this. Because, one, either it's a problem they had never heard of and you just gave them the solution, and they can add that to their knowledge and help answer customers faster in the future.

Will: 13:12

Or you solved it, and if you felt like an idiot for asking, you maybe resolved in your brain that you're not an idiot because you solved it. But I can tell you, you're not an idiot for asking a question. You're an idiot for not asking a question. Right? We talk about that all the time in boot camp.

Will: 13:27

Like, the smartest people I know are the people that ask the most questions. So this isn't directed at Roger, but if we run into some sort of issue like that, your first reach out, 100% the companies that make the thing. If you're from CDSH student, bootcamp member, by all means, post in the community. We'll do our best. The community will do their best to try to answer as well, too.

Will: 13:47

But that's what I would do first and foremost for sure. So

Reese: 13:53

Yeah. That reminds me, actually, of a support video you did recently for iConnectivity about doing firmware updates. Yeah. Have you run into anything, not specifically this issue? Because, you know, as you mentioned earlier, it's you never really seen anything quite like this.

Reese: 14:15

But firmware, either, you know, with eye connectivity or any other possible mini controllers that he might be using, he didn't mention one. But have you ever encountered something like that where it could cause a glitch like that?

Will: 14:30

Yeah. So specifically with the one you know, but I have seen you know, obviously with Ableton 12, we saw an issue up until twelve point one, I think, where the return tracks didn't work. Mean, poor Tyler, he had a saved reply ready to go to about the 10 people a week that emailed us that said, Hey, I followed your process, and I drug my set into another set, and the return mappings didn't come over. And we'd have to say, Well, it's because of a bug in Ableton that Ableton has acknowledged because it was submitted to Ableton by me and every student we had that would reach out. And we would say, Contact Ableton, because the more people they have reach out, the more that gets prioritized in their queue, and they would fix it.

Will: 15:17

So, yeah, I have not seen this specific issue. I haven't seen an example of this specific issue being caused and fixed with a firmware update, but I've 100% seen issues, a similar type scenario with either hardware or, in this case, definitely software from the Ableton perspective, where a firmware update or a software update fixed that. And in that iConnectivity support video, I kind of teased, like, don't update your firmware right before the show, but then also don't wait you know, don't never update your firmware. Don't never update your software. I've got a buddy right now that's chasing down some issues.

Will: 15:58

And I honestly didn't think about this till the other day that I think the majority of his issues are because he bought a brand new computer with the brand new version of Mac OS, and he's running the absolute latest version of Ableton. I'm still on 11.3. I am holding off to upgrade my OS. I typically try to wait about a year to upgrade my OS on my playback machines because new OS, new software, maybe drivers for MIDI controllers, audio interfaces, or something like that could potentially cause issues. So, yeah, Roger, definitely thinking through your setup.

Will: 16:32

Again, I don't know that any of those are causing that specific issue, but, yeah, Reese, that's a good one to bring up of, keep your stuff up to date. But please, for the sake of every show ever, don't update your firmware right before the show. Definitely not during the show. Definitely not during a tour. Wait till you have some downtime to update.

Will: 16:52

But, yeah, that's a good reminder, a good thing to throw in there as a, again, potential issue, a potential reason why he may be having that issue. So that's a good one, Race, for sure.

Reese: 17:02

Cool. Hey. I think, you know, in typical Will Doggett from CDO to SAGE fashion, we took one question, we stretched it out the entire length of an episode. So we've done our due diligence. We did our jobs today.

Reese: 17:15

That's right. Go home, have a nap, whatever you need to do. But before you do, well, where do we need to have everybody go if they're looking for any free resources to maybe get their get started with Ableton, get started with playback. If they've never done this, this is all new to them. Where do they go?

Will: 17:33

Yeah. We, again, like I mentioned at the beginning of the show, we wanna help you become a world class playback engineer. And that can either mean you're just getting started, or it can mean you've been doing this for a long time and you're experiencing the frustrations of a setup of a programming style that doesn't allow for flexibility, doesn't allow for changes, and you wanna do things a little better. Your first step towards becoming a world class playback engineer is to head to from studiotosage.com/template. And the beauty of that is when you go to the site, you're gonna get access to our free basic playback template, and you're gonna get access to the program and the prep stage of the playback method.

Will: 18:12

That's two courses on our site where I'm going to show you exactly how to get started with playback. I'm going to introduce you to the 11 step song programming process, show you exactly how to program songs and build sets using this template. The beauty of the Internet is there's so many places to go to learn things. You can go to YouTube and search. You'll even find content of my own.

Will: 18:33

But if you go to fromcustage.com/template, number one, it's completely free. You'll get a world class template that's been downloaded. On the page, I think it says 6,000 plus people. We need to up that number because since we released the new version, I think we added another thousand people to that. So let's call it about 7,000 plus people that are using this exact template to create the perfect performance to become a world class playback engineer.

Will: 18:58

But you just don't need the free template. You also need the training to help you get through that, and you'll get that completely for free. So again, head to fromstudiosage.com/template. That's where you can get access to that. Instead of trying to look all over the place, instead of trying to just find an individual tutorial, get a step by step guide through that.

Will: 19:16

I'd love to lead you through that again as well as giving away that template for free. So, Reese, that's what they could do. I think that's their next best step. I think their second best step after that is to ask us a question to submit to have answered on the show. To close this out, why don't you remind everybody where to go to do that?

Reese: 19:35

From studio to Sage IG, find us on Instagram. Send us those direct messages, you'll get added to the queue, I promise. If you send us one already and you're like, what about me? It's coming. We we're we've got a I've got a long list of questions.

Reese: 19:50

We get them all the time. So submit them, and, before you know it, your question is getting answered right here by mister Will Doggett or whatever future nickname I have for him because I can't I just can't let this stand what he's done to me today with the Reese Bago thing. It's just it's not okay.

Will: 20:08

Let's get stuff, Reese Bago. Thanks for that. Thank you guys so much for watching, listening to this episode. If you wanna watch us on YouTube, you can do that. If you wanna listen on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, whatever you're doing, happy to have you there as well too.

Will: 20:22

Do me a favor. Wherever you're watching, listening, hit subscribe so you're notified when new episodes come out every Monday to name Eastern. And follow the show wherever it is. And if you like what we're doing or we've been beneficial in any way, then leave us a five star rating. If you got anything less than that, just keep it yourself.

Will: 20:39

Don't want to

Reese: 20:39

hear from Yeah. Shut up.

Will: 20:41

Five star, we'd love to hear from you. That helps get the word out there. Share it with some friends. But thank you guys so much for watching and listening. Reese, thanks for being here, and we'll see you all in the next one.

Will: 20:51

Take care, everybody.

Reese: 20:52

See you.

Will: 20:52

Bye. Bye.