improv 3 laptop production...?

[Elkie]

basically, me and 2 of my housemates were saying it would be sick if we coud somehow connect up our 3 laptops and create a sort of magnetic man style mash up, just like dropping loops in and stuff, i was just wondering if anyone knows much about how magneticc man do this, what gear we would need and anywhere i could read up about how to create such a setup?

i tried googling it but i just got loads of stuff that was either not what we are looking for or really confusing...

am i right in thinking the best software for this kind of thing would be ableton live?


cheers guys!

[AFL]

Ableton definelty sounds like the best sort of program to use.
I'm not sure how you would go about linking all 3 instances of Ableton together tho....
I like the idea of a jam session of that style.

[Elkie]

yeah, ive managed to find a bit about it online, apparently its possible to sync via midi, but im not really sure how to go about this?

could we get away with just buying 3 1x1 usb midi interface cables off ebay?

also ive read about syncing via ethernet, would this be possible with 3 computers?

its all so confusing haha

[kindofblue272]

you can use midi-yoke to sync multiple machines.

[mrwould]

I am trying to find information on the exact same thing. I've had limited success using a program called ipMidi to sync Ableton on 2 PC's. It uses your network without any new hardware or midi cables. It's tricky getting the latency just right but I think I'm on the right track.

[boomstix]

you could just run the three laptops into a mixer and just sync them up live.

agree on a bpm with the others and then.. one two three
push the button.

it'll work fine for jamming

[casioboy]

I've never tryed it myself, but you can do it with ableton. BUT it won't be easy to sync all the laptops on the fly, you can spend more time trying to "beatmatch" your laptop with your mates than throwing loops.
I think, there is some kind of device called midi clock that can do all the tempo sync for you so that you just have to throw loops, play drumpads or whatever else you want to do.