Humusprivate beta

Ableton Link (play in time with everything)

The Link button on the transport bar (next to Click) joins an Ableton Link session: every Link-enabled app on your network - DAWs, DJ software, phone apps, another Humus - agrees on tempo and bar phase, instantly and in both directions. The label shows how many peers are connected ("2 Link").

What it does while enabled:

  • Tempo is shared. Drag Humus's tempo and everyone follows; change it in Live and Humus follows. Loading a patch while you're alone in the session proposes the patch's tempo; with peers present, the running session wins.
  • Bars line up. Humus locks its bar phase to the session grid: pressing play lands on the shared grid (the playhead may shift by up to half a bar to get there), and while playing a gentle correction (never more than ±1% of tempo) keeps it there. Synced delays, LFOs, sequencers and automation all ride the same clock, so they stay in phase with the rest of the room.
  • MIDI Sync stands down. Link outranks Chase MIDI Sync and any Deck set as tempo master while it's on. Generate MIDI Sync still works - you can bridge Link tempo out to MIDI-clock-only hardware.

Link carries no audio - see the routing recipes below for that. The setting persists across launches (link.enabled).

Start/stop sync (optional)

Off by default, like in Live - tempo and phase always sync, but pressing play or stop stays local until you opt in on both ends:

  • Humus: right-click the Link button ▸ Sync start/stop with peers.
  • Live: Preferences ▸ Link/Tempo/MIDI ▸ Start Stop Sync.

If either side leaves it off, transports run independently (that's the common DJ setup: shared grid, independent decks).

Recipe: Humus as an FX send

Goal: route a track from another application through a Humus patch and back, in time.

  1. Install a loopback audio driver (there are free ones for every platform), or build an aggregate device with your interface.
  2. In Humus: audio device = your interface; add AudioIn reading the loopback channels, wire it into your FX chain, and end at SoundOut. Enable Link on both sides.
  3. In the other application: put an external-insert device on the track, send it to the loopback channels, and return it from your Humus output. Dial its latency compensation to match the round trip - roughly two buffers, about 5-6 ms at 128 samples and 48 kHz.

Latency budget: one buffer out, one buffer back. That is well under a beat even at fast tempos, so it is inaudible on a send. For parallel (dry + wet) processing, adjust the compensation until a drum loop stops phasing.

A DJ application with no external insert needs the loop in hardware instead: take a mixer's send/return into your interface, through Humus, and back. That is the classic patcher-in-the-send-loop live rig, now beat-locked over Link.

Self-test with two Humus instances

Two Humus instances on one machine (or two machines on one LAN), Link on in both: each shows "1 Link", dragging tempo in one moves the other, and with the metronome on in both the clicks line up. No other software needed.

Notes

  • Link uses UDP multicast on your local network (port 20808). Peers find each other automatically; there is nothing to configure.
  • Headless and offline renders never join a session.
  • Following the session never marks your patch edited - Link is a live condition, not a document change.