Ableton Link experience report about tidal

[Zalastax]

Thanks for the detailed report!

Having to set oLatency once is expected. Then you are configuring the time it takes from SuperDirt playing, to the sound coming out from the speakers. After that, I would expect everything to keep being synced up.

I had a quick look in https://github.com/tidalcycles/Tidal/blob/main/src/Sound/Tidal/Stream.hs and could confirm that nudge is in terms of seconds and does not scale with cps. But this is good! We would expect the latency from SuperDirt to be constant.

The strange thing is that there seems to be a new but stable new latency each time you use Transport? I can't see how that could happen from Tidal's perspective.

If you have time, going through the Link Test Plan would be really good. I have done it, but maybe I was sloppy.

[jarmitage]

Ok, using rotL can help with adjusting the location within beat if needed. (Note: djay / rekordbox do not appear to attempt to sync within the bar at all, that is left to you to cue)

But otherwise still experiencing that the latency amount is not stable, either when changing tempos, or when using Transport.

Thanks for the Link Test Plan link - I'll check that out.

Perhaps we need our own test for Tidal x Link, e.g. a .tidal file with a bunch of different types tempo changes (including continuous changes as in https://tidalcycles.org/docs/reference/tempo/#cps), and then a means of recording and analysing the pulse.

[jarmitage]

Based on the Link Test Plan, I seem to be struggling with:

• TEMPO-1: Tempo changes should be transmitted between connected apps.
• AUDIOENGINE-1: Correct alignment of app audio with shared session

[Zalastax]

The tests sound like a good idea!

Here is LinkHut which they mention in the Test Plan, since it's a bit hard to find: https://github.com/Ableton/link/tree/master/examples/linkhut

[jarmitage]

(while on my mind): it would be great to have getLinkClients that would display some information about current connected clients.

This could be used for status monitoring, see e.g. #1040