Quote:
Originally Posted by HomeProducer  sorry I don't get it.
Of course sample clock is 44.1 kHz (or 96 kHz or whatever).
And midi frame rate is much lower. But still: midi clock or absolute counted sample position both
relate to a timing position within the audio stream.
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It's not that simple.
The issue of syncing a digital workstation lies in the fact that there are 3 different types of synchronisation exist which are mixed up, like the comments in this thread reveal.
-tempo: MIDI Clock, or MIDI Beat Clock
-Time Code (absolute position): MTC, SMPTE, LTC (among others)
-clock: Word Clock, any digital connection
Now, the latter is the culprit. In order to slave a DAW, you will have to control its speed using a digital clock. Cubase and most other DAWs use the so called jam sync method, which is that at a start command, it puts the cursor at the position given by the time code (MTC). From there, it *IGNORES* the time code and runs its speed by the clock - which comes from your AUDIO CARD. 44.1kHz is not always exactly that speed, and especially when syncing to other devices with a less stable clock (better said, speed) (tape based digital units like DAT, ADAT, Digibeta, or their analog predecessors using synchronisers for exactly this issue), the results will vary. If you sync a DAW (or any recording/playback device) with only time code, the units will drift apart and your tracks are not in sync anymore, audible from a certain point.
So, to slave a DAW to an MPC, you need to feed the MTC signal in a synchronizer that resolves that time code to a digital clock signal (typically word clock). The MOTU Midi Time Piece AV is one of a few units that does this. Rosendahl has a MTC-SMPTE converter (MIF) but you will need a device that converts the SMPTE to a valid clock signal (LynxTwo does this, RME TCO daughterboard and the EMU sync daughterboard as well, so does the old Rosendahl WIF, rebranded by Steinberg as Nuendo Timelock Pro).
Another method would be to put a recorded SMPTE recording on an MPC track and feed this to one of the above methods. This is how it was done in tape days, track 24 was time code and track 23 was empty for crosstalk reasons (you don't want that aggressive clock sound to leak through a recording). You'll need to set your Cubase song to the time range of that SMPTE track in order to work with it, of course.
I don't know Ableton Live very well, but its realtime time stretching is unlikely to solve this all by itself since it can't discover whether there would be a sync issue or not.