[SOLVED] Out of Sync - Recording Resolume Output when triggerd by Midi in DAW

[whoobs]

Hi Forums,

I am using Reaper DAW (http://www.reaper.fm/) + LoopBe1 (http://www.nerds.de/en/loopbe1.html) + Resolume Arena 4 to sequence midi to control media inside of Arena.

The details of the setup:

In Reaper go to Midi devices and make sure LoopBe1 is enabled as output device (and is enabled to send time clock).
Make a new track in Reaper arm it to your midi controller, select the midi output and choose LoopBe1.

Inside Resolume, go to Properties Midi and choose LoopBe1 as the input (and leave timeclock on). Now look at the Composition mapping and map your Resolume clips to the keys you want.

What I did was set C0 to the "Record" function. And place a C0 item at the very beginning of my timeline in Reaper, then I trigger various clips along with the beat and at the end trigger C0 again to stop the recording.

When I hit play in Reaper, the clips get triggered perfectly everything hits right as it should (or so close that I don't notice).

I then take the rendered audio out of Reaper and the .mov file "Arena captured output" and go into Premiere.

What is happening:
The video STARTS in sync with the audio. But slowly overtime the video gets ahead of the audio (and it carries through this way to the end.
I've checked that each midi note triggering a clip is perfectly on the beat. (I am in piano mode anyway so it should only go to black not trigger to early). . .

Anyone out there have any suggestions I'm looking through the manual... don't see why this shouldn't work... this workflow has got me so psyched! But this is causing me to go nutters.

THIS IS A GOOD PLACE TO START:
viewtopic.php?t=11714

[SOLVED]
The fix is to buy an external recorder.

Thanks for the look,
Whoobs

[Zoltán]

just a thought,
try enabling the Record Audio in preferences, maybe having an audio stream in the recorded file would help the programs to keep sync.(even if no audio is playing in resolume)

how is your fps when recording?

[whoobs]

I will certainly try this as soon as I get home.

I'm not sure how exactly I'll route the audio out of my DAW and then into Resolume, but hopefully playing with my soundcard or some freeware i'll figure it out.

The other thought I had was to put the rendered audio into a clip in resolume, and trigger that along with the "record" at C0.

FPS to the naked eye appeared fine, I'll report back on where the actual value was hovering around [i'm using fairly low resoution clips with no FX].

EDIT:
So i found the option in question under general settings and I turned audio recording on.
The FPS i'm at is 55-60 during recording/playback...
This didn't solve the issue... though the audio card may be part of the issue (it can't be used by both my DAW and Resolume at the same time)... I don't know if that causes issues...

EDIT #2:
I created another test project in Reaper (much simpler) only one instrument going between two notes. I copied the midi from the instrument to the channel sending to Resolume. I get the same issue, so its a configuration issue somewhere not an issue particular with my original project.

[whoobs]

Is there really nobody out there triggering Resolume with Midi from their daw, and capturing the output? Is anyone else running into this issue or figured out a work around.

The last things I can think to do are:
1) Make sure i'm writing the output from Resolume to my SSD drive (and not the same drive it's being read from?)
2) Capture the output in realtime with a different program something like Camtasia and see if there is a difference...

Best,
Whoobs

[Zoltán]

recording with another program would be the way I would go next.
on mac Open Broadcaster Studio can record from syphon so you can feed resolume output directly to it.
add https://rogueamoeba.com/loopback/ for audio loopback and you can record/broadcast audio+video without additional hardware.

[whoobs]

Thanks for encouraging looking at a workaround, rather than inside resolume. I was feeling like I might be missing a configuration step... but then again I wasn't finding it...

Edit:
Well I went with the work around... soon as the screen capture software starts, my FPS gets killed it's down to like 15... I'm on PC thanks for those recommendations though

Appreciate the look!!

[Joris]

The video recorder's primary function is a sampler. It is meant to quickly record a snippet of the output and re-import that into Resolume, during performance. For this reason, recording is done at a low priority, so it doesn't interfere with the actual output.

When Resolume can't render the frames fast enough for the desired framerate, it will start writing frames at a variable frame rate. Although supported in Quictkime, most editing programs don't know what to do with files with variable frame rates. This is the reason you lose sync when combining audio and video again.

The record button wasn't meant as a production tool originally, just like Resolume wasn't meant as a production tool, originally. Over the years, people have started using it like that, which is awesome. Adapting to these new types of usage is fun and what makes software development so exciting. It also takes time, and sometimes it's hard to decide on which features to put the focus. So far, the recording feature hasn't gotten much love.

So for the time being, I agree that you're best of using another recording method (preferably one that has been updated in the last eight years )

[Zoltán]

Although supported in Quictkime, most editing programs don't know what to do with files with variable frame rates. This is the reason you lose sync when combining audio and video again.

Which editing program supports these variable frame rate files?
If we can get it, that could be another solution.

[whoobs]

Wow thanks for the reply Joris! That makes sense (i.e. that Arena was intended for performance > production). But aaaaggghh! I love the performance so much I want to capture it hah...

I am going to try:
1. To convert these variable framerate .mov files captured in resolume to constant frame rate files (see if that fixes it). [https://handbrake.fr/]
2. Try putting the audio/video back together in a Quicktime Editor or something (if that is even a thing).

Any ideas what I could use to capture the output that wouldn't at the same time make my FPS in Resolume drop below useable?

Thanks so much for the input!

[Empyfree]

Ave you got the scope/budget to consider any of the external recorder options? We use Blackmagic Hyperdeck units, and we also have an Atamos Samauri recorder. Both will take a full HD source and record it fully uncompressed. Just be ready for scary file sizes!