weird recording sync problem...

I could not find any straight answer to this anywhere, so here I go:

I have tried syncing my mpc to both logic 6 and ableton live 5 (not at the same time) and the same strange thing happens.

When I hit play in my daw, the mpc starts playing as it should. but the timing is a little off, but only for about 3 or 4 bars!!!
After that the timing seems stable and I can finetune the midiclock to perfect sync.

Is this normal?? Has it something to do with the midiclock being less stable than SMPTE (or that it's called...?)

I can live with this, (I'll just wait 4 bars before recording or something like that.) but I'm doing something wrong I'd like to know...

Thanks

I'm not sure how much I can help, since I dont use Logic or Ableton. I doubt the problem is whith the MPC. There's a few of us here that have ours synced perfectly to Nuendo, Cubase and other sequencers. I'm thinking it may have something to do with your MIDI interface. What are you using?

I'm on an iBook G4 1ghz with 768 mb ram and the M-audio "Audiophile USB"

It's the same deal in both Logic and Live. Like the mpc make a slightly slower start but "catches" up after 3-4 bars and everything's great...

Is your timing on any tracks on the MPC set to SHIFT: Earlier?

make an empty/blank 4-bar sequence on your mpc. Add it to the beginning of your song, and re-record as you usually do.

This gives the computer time to catch up with the mpc.

Try this, see if it works to fix your problem. You can then go back into the tracks in your software and trim off the silent part at the beginning, when you're all finished.

This problem is common -especially when using USB. Many of us record a number of blank bars at the beginning of a tune. I typically leave 4 bars free....

the Program is trying to catch up!!, I believe it could be your sound card, or midi device causing the problem. I had this with LIVE 4 and 5.02 before i adjusted the latancy settings and it seemed to work ok (with 5.01) but the others it didnt seem to go away...keep fiddling till u see a change.

Thanks for the replies.

I'm gonna go for the "empty-4-bars-at-the-beginning"-solution. (which I kinda allready did.)

Nice to know that this is common and my gear is not f*cked up.