Ableton Guitarists

[Homebelly]

I'm on a crossroad of where I want my guitar to go. Anyone please chime in and hopefully help me on one way.

The first option is to have a straight guitar setup guitar-pedals-amp and use a midi pickup to do all my crazy sounds I need.

The second option is to plug my guitar straight into ableton through a line 6 POD and go crazy with the audio effects.

So the consensus is can midi do just about anything audio can do? thanks. Any other opinions are welcome as well

I use the second option.
Live is great for sound design.
Lives reverb is one of the few i know of that has a 60 second delay on it.
This is a great feature for creating long pad like sounds.
I also love lives racks for creating complex parallel FX chains.
Max for live has also given me access to internal LFO's and a wider variety of granuler type FX.
Not all of the textures you can create in live can only be done in real time.
Pitch shifting and time stretching and complex harmonizing can only be done post recording.
If you go to my soundcloud page you can hear some examples of stuff i have done that uses guitar as the source of all the sounds, the music is horrible, but i'm quite pleased with the sound design aspects.

[kanuck]

I use the second option.
Live is great for sound design.
Lives reverb is one of the few i know of that has a 60 second delay on it.
This is a great feature for creating long pad like sounds.
I also love lives racks for creating complex parallel FX chains.
Max for live has also given me access to internal LFO's and a wider variety of granuler type FX.
Not all of the textures you can create in live can only be done in real time.
Pitch shifting and time stretching and complex harmonizing can only be done post recording.
If you go to my soundcloud page you can hear some examples of stuff i have done that uses guitar as the source of all the sounds, the music is horrible, but i'm quite pleased with the sound design aspects.

Thanks for the reply, you're right the more I think about it the more i see how great ableton is for the guitar. sigh I guess I will be sacrificing real tubes but I think it's worth it. curious though couldn't you do all the post recording stuff live if you say you looped your guitar? Loop it and add the effects manually. Thanks.

[AceLuby]

I use the second option.
Live is great for sound design.
Lives reverb is one of the few i know of that has a 60 second delay on it.
This is a great feature for creating long pad like sounds.
I also love lives racks for creating complex parallel FX chains.
Max for live has also given me access to internal LFO's and a wider variety of granuler type FX.
Not all of the textures you can create in live can only be done in real time.
Pitch shifting and time stretching and complex harmonizing can only be done post recording.
If you go to my soundcloud page you can hear some examples of stuff i have done that uses guitar as the source of all the sounds, the music is horrible, but i'm quite pleased with the sound design aspects.

Thanks for the reply, you're right the more I think about it the more i see how great ableton is for the guitar. sigh I guess I will be sacrificing real tubes but I think it's worth it. curious though couldn't you do all the post recording stuff live if you say you looped your guitar? Loop it and add the effects manually. Thanks.

Tubes? You can still have tubes:

http://www.zzounds.com/item--ZOMG92TT

[YILA]

yes

and you find you get no latency?

depends.. monitor direct, or if your playing along to the laptop and recording loops you can use the track delay to bring it forward a bit so once you play it and play it back it's in time..

I don't use any amp sim or any of that crap tho.

[Gaetano CAPUANO]

THis thread ROCKS!

I am still very new to Live, couple questions?
If I was going to prepare a set, whole band and Play the guitar parts live is it best to put the whole set on one set, correct?
Is there a way to midi map one individual pedal to send a bank down type signal to fire the next scene, or will it be individual keys for each scene?
This must be down via pedal so I hope it can be bank down scene?

[kanuck]

THis thread ROCKS!

I am still very new to Live, couple questions?
If I was going to prepare a set, whole band and Play the guitar parts live is it best to put the whole set on one set, correct?
Is there a way to midi map one individual pedal to send a bank down type signal to fire the next scene, or will it be individual keys for each scene?
This must be down via pedal so I hope it can be bank down scene?

well if you have large gaps inbetween your songs you could separate the sets but I doubt that. so yes having it all in one set is best.

if you enter midi map mode under the the scenes there should be a button that lets you go to the next scene.

[Theo Void]

I incorporate guitar into many of my tracks. I'm actually torn between music styles. I love creating electrinic music and DJ'ing live, but on the other hand I love guitar based rock music. I find myself seperating the two a lot. Although, I have been making a lot of music that was written on guitar, recorded into Ableton, processed, and then added to electronic rythym sections. I use a fast track pro and it's pretty good but I'd like to know what Sound-cards peeps are using to record guitar/vocals into Ableton.

[GORILLA]

Cool thread, I can't wait to post some of Our newer material. We've only done the internet thing, but 2011 we'll bring it to life 'live'. We're a sort of symphonic doom 2 member project with orchestrations and choirs going on. Here's a older tune Infected With Rage

[agent314]

I incorporate guitar into many of my tracks. I'm actually torn between music styles. I love creating electrinic music and DJ'ing live, but on the other hand I love guitar based rock music. I find myself seperating the two a lot. Although, I have been making a lot of music that was written on guitar, recorded into Ableton, processed, and then added to electronic rythym sections. I use a fast track pro and it's pretty good but I'd like to know what Sound-cards peeps are using to record guitar/vocals into Ableton.

If you've never listened, you should check out The Disco Biscuits. They're a live band that plays what they call trance-fusion, which is basically trance-ish beats (among others), entirely performed with a rock 4-piece (guitar, bass, keys, drums).

The guitar player Jon Gutwillig is really good, and for a lot of people he sort of invented his own style of electronic-guitar-playing.

[mooncaine]

Here's me latest opus with mandolin, electric and acoustic layers, used the partner instrument fibes drum kit too. All Live native and guitar rig plus TRacks mastering.

Aga Jari Bus Ride

I dig that, man. Far out, baby. It's got pep!

--moonie

[Pasha]

For me Ableton Live delivers as a guitarist.
However, lately I was bouncing back and forth about getting a VG99 or not,
getting M4L or not... or getting a Volume Pedal and get peace of mind.
This thread exposes how good is Live in sound shaping and from my direct experience
I can say that by using only Live FX I was able to create some paddish sounds with my
Guitar and absolutely no Volume pedal or post recording mastery. All happens in real time.
I added Zebrify for synth like solos and it seems I have reached a good sonic point.
Tested M4L and frankly initially overwhelming but there are good out of the box things to start
with like the Buffer Shuffler and some Pitch modifiers for Octavers and possibly some harmonizers (mono). Programming sound FX can be challenging especially having Zebrify for all filter/LFO stuff. So far MIDI came to my mind but I decided not to go that route because of stability issues of the gear I have tested, however VG99 attracts me for it's sonic qualities and chances of exploration (Pads, GR300, Swells) without MIDI.
What path would you follow in my place? My keyboard knowledge is a constraint for me when composing because I do not know all the chords which I know on my guitar. I could use controllers like Launchpad to have a chord grid but it's different IMHO than playing a chord expressively. With M4l and some MIDI programming I could transform the Launchpad into a ChordPad with relative ease. But I'm confused. VG99 seems so a good way but means I will lose the ability to change sounds later in the process because today all FX are applied in Live.
What do you think?

- Best
- Pasha

[kanuck]

For me Ableton Live delivers as a guitarist.
However, lately I was bouncing back and forth about getting a VG99 or not,
getting M4L or not... or getting a Volume Pedal and get peace of mind.
This thread exposes how good is Live in sound shaping and from my direct experience
I can say that by using only Live FX I was able to create some paddish sounds with my
Guitar and absolutely no Volume pedal or post recording mastery. All happens in real time.
I added Zebrify for synth like solos and it seems I have reached a good sonic point.
Tested M4L and frankly initially overwhelming but there are good out of the box things to start
with like the Buffer Shuffler and some Pitch modifiers for Octavers and possibly some harmonizers (mono). Programming sound FX can be challenging especially having Zebrify for all filter/LFO stuff. So far MIDI came to my mind but I decided not to go that route because of stability issues of the gear I have tested, however VG99 attracts me for it's sonic qualities and chances of exploration (Pads, GR300, Swells) without MIDI.
What path would you follow in my place? My keyboard knowledge is a constraint for me when composing because I do not know all the chords which I know on my guitar. I could use controllers like Launchpad to have a chord grid but it's different IMHO than playing a chord expressively. With M4l and some MIDI programming I could transform the Launchpad into a ChordPad with relative ease. But I'm confused. VG99 seems so a good way but means I will lose the ability to change sounds later in the process because today all FX are applied in Live.
What do you think?

- Best
- Pasha

I'm not too sure what you mean by the fact you won't be able to change sounds afterwards. Does the VG-99 output midi or audio? couldn't you manipulate your tone through the vg-99 then process it further through ableton? Personally I'm going to go for both in a way. I'm going to purchase max for live and just play around with it. For it's capabilities I think it's pretty cheap. I'm also going to pick up a roland gr-30 and use it's external midi to play the instruments on ableton.

btw a cheat I've found for play piano on ableton. i myself am not too great at keys as well. What I did was setup the scale midi effect and just transpose the key of C to whatever i want. So if i'm playing in the Key of D i'll transpose it +2 semitones. This way I can play the key of c for any song out there. And key of c is so simple because all I ever have to push are the white keys.

[Sage]

Frantone bass suite? I will ahve to check it out. I was under the impression FuzzKeys uses no preamp, just dry into all the FX and such?

Bassweet - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BZTJfsmgrPk
Woolly Mammoth - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xrWkHnMlj1w

Bit of a tool, but you get the idea.

[Pasha]

For me Ableton Live delivers as a guitarist.
However, lately I was bouncing back and forth about getting a VG99 or not,
getting M4L or not... or getting a Volume Pedal and get peace of mind.
This thread exposes how good is Live in sound shaping and from my direct experience
I can say that by using only Live FX I was able to create some paddish sounds with my
Guitar and absolutely no Volume pedal or post recording mastery. All happens in real time.
I added Zebrify for synth like solos and it seems I have reached a good sonic point.
Tested M4L and frankly initially overwhelming but there are good out of the box things to start
with like the Buffer Shuffler and some Pitch modifiers for Octavers and possibly some harmonizers (mono). Programming sound FX can be challenging especially having Zebrify for all filter/LFO stuff. So far MIDI came to my mind but I decided not to go that route because of stability issues of the gear I have tested, however VG99 attracts me for it's sonic qualities and chances of exploration (Pads, GR300, Swells) without MIDI.
What path would you follow in my place? My keyboard knowledge is a constraint for me when composing because I do not know all the chords which I know on my guitar. I could use controllers like Launchpad to have a chord grid but it's different IMHO than playing a chord expressively. With M4l and some MIDI programming I could transform the Launchpad into a ChordPad with relative ease. But I'm confused. VG99 seems so a good way but means I will lose the ability to change sounds later in the process because today all FX are applied in Live.
What do you think?

- Best
- Pasha

I'm not too sure what you mean by the fact you won't be able to change sounds afterwards. Does the VG-99 output midi or audio? couldn't you manipulate your tone through the vg-99 then process it further through ableton? Personally I'm going to go for both in a way. I'm going to purchase max for live and just play around with it. For it's capabilities I think it's pretty cheap. I'm also going to pick up a roland gr-30 and use it's external midi to play the instruments on ableton.

btw a cheat I've found for play piano on ableton. i myself am not too great at keys as well. What I did was setup the scale midi effect and just transpose the key of C to whatever i want. So if i'm playing in the Key of D i'll transpose it +2 semitones. This way I can play the key of c for any song out there. And key of c is so simple because all I ever have to push are the white keys.

Thanks for reply.
VG99 mainly outputs audio.
It has a USB interface for both audio & MIDI. It doubles as a MIDI interface with no sounds. The audio output is the result of the FX and COSM Modeling component which is part of the Fx chain. So if you record a modeled Guitar you will not be able to change it afterward. I should record it dry and use VG99 as an external effect but due to the need of Hex Pickup (GK3) to use COSM Modeling it can't be used that way but only as a typical guitar effects chain (OD, COMP, CHorus,REV, Delay...). I also use transpose because C Key is so simple but even with that I do not know all the beefy jazz chords I know on my guitar...

- Best
- Pasha

[kanuck]

Thanks for reply.
VG99 mainly outputs audio.
It has a USB interface for both audio & MIDI. It doubles as a MIDI interface with no sounds. The audio output is the result of the FX and COSM Modeling component which is part of the Fx chain. So if you record a modeled Guitar you will not be able to change it afterward. I should record it dry and use VG99 as an external effect but due to the need of Hex Pickup (GK3) to use COSM Modeling it can't be used that way but only as a typical guitar effects chain (OD, COMP, CHorus,REV, Delay...). I also use transpose because C Key is so simple but even with that I do not know all the beefy jazz chords I know on my guitar...

- Best
- Pasha

hmm, interesting. yeah sorry i don't have much experience with the VG99 so can't give input there. Ahh, this is true I always just experiment as chords would be say 3rd, 5th, 7th, and 9th of a root then i'd find those notes and it being all white keys it's easy to count 3, 5, 7, and 9 all I'm doing guitar effects wise is doing all my post gain effects in ableton so delays, reverbs, tremolo whatever. And all my pregain effects through stompboxes so overdrive pedals and pitch effects.