Ableton Live and VDMX connected by Ableton Link
Today we are extremely excited to announce that VDMX now has native support for Ableton Link, a new technology developed by Ableton that synchronizes musical beat, tempo, and phase across multiple applications running on multiple devices. By using Ableton Link musicians and visual artists who perform together can easily keep all elements of a show in sync.
When using Ableton Link any application on devices connected to a local network discover each other automatically and form a musical session in which each participant can perform independently: anyone can start or stop while still staying on the beat and in tempo. Anyone can change the tempo, the others will follow. Anyone can join or leave without disrupting the session. Ableton Link compensates for network latencies and requires almost no setup to get working.
To get started with using Ableton Link in VDMX just install the latest update and look for the enable button in the Clock options panel. Once enabled the clock in VDMX will automatically update its BPM and measure position to match any already active sessions on your network. Now anything in your video setup that is set to run off the clock will be in sync with the music. If you change the BPM in VDMX the new tempo will be broadcast to all other software on the network to match your settings. It is that simple!
For additional in depth tips and tricks for designing an a/v performance check out the new tutorial on using Ableton Link enabled software with VDMX.
We'd also like to thank the team at Ableton for making this project possible and sharing it as an open source project that makes it easy for other software like VDMX to support. We are also big fans of the development of open protocols and standards that allow artists to work across multiple platforms to achieve their creative goals. Read our own statement on open source for more information and links to projects we support.