Post your most obscure Ableton Live knowledge

Discuss music production with Ableton Live.
chapelier fou
Posts: 6002
Joined: Mon May 15, 2006 12:15 pm

Re: Post your most obscure Ableton Live knowledge

Post by chapelier fou » Sun Jan 22, 2023 8:32 pm

cazel wrote:
Sun Jan 22, 2023 9:02 am
note length + velocity ?
Well... That's interesting. When I hook up MIDI monitor, it shows the end of notes as note-offs indeed (with or without any midi effect in the track).
So it seems that Ableton uses note-offs.
I thought that 'proper' note-off messages were never used but in practice were replaced with a note-on and a velocity of 0.
MacBook Pro 13" Retina i7 2.8 GHz OS 10.13, L10.0.1, M4L.
MacStudio M1Max 32Go OS 12.3.1

reckonerv
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Joined: Mon Apr 20, 2020 11:11 am

Re: Post your most obscure Ableton Live knowledge

Post by reckonerv » Thu Mar 30, 2023 9:24 pm

Jekblad wrote:
Wed Nov 28, 2012 12:58 pm
just remembered a good one...
In large sets, removing all the unused "stop" buttons on the tracks improves CPU usage. (or removes weird hiccups in the audio when using scene launch).
Oh wow thank you so much for this! My internal laptop fans stopped spinning so much after trying this.

Fanu
Posts: 426
Joined: Sun Sep 27, 2009 7:50 pm
Location: Helsinki

Re: Post your most obscure Ableton Live knowledge

Post by Fanu » Mon Apr 17, 2023 9:57 am

Ableton protips time!
Do you want to be an Ableton ninja that can drop ill nuggets of wisdom on other users?
Crack open a classy drink and surf your web ship to Youtube to see uncle Fanu drop 10+ dope and tight Ableton tips!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hxnxJqhJW2E

Courtesy of Ableton Nordics channel (for Ableton Certified Trainers up here in the cold north)

PS: I created a new thread for this, but then realized it prob should've be more fitting in this thread.
Don't want extra attention, so mods, you can prob remove the separate thread for this!

baseinstinct
Posts: 924
Joined: Sun Feb 24, 2008 3:45 am

Re: Post your most obscure Ableton Live knowledge

Post by baseinstinct » Tue May 16, 2023 9:48 pm

reckonerv wrote:
Thu Mar 30, 2023 9:24 pm
Jekblad wrote:
Wed Nov 28, 2012 12:58 pm
just remembered a good one...
In large sets, removing all the unused "stop" buttons on the tracks improves CPU usage. (or removes weird hiccups in the audio when using scene launch).
Oh wow thank you so much for this! My internal laptop fans stopped spinning so much after trying this.
If true, looks like a bug easy to fix by Devs.

jbaylies
Posts: 17
Joined: Thu Oct 22, 2015 2:01 am
Contact:

Re: Post your most obscure Ableton Live knowledge

Post by jbaylies » Sat May 20, 2023 8:14 pm

chapelier fou wrote:
Fri Jan 20, 2023 1:11 pm
jbaylies wrote:
Wed Jan 18, 2023 6:49 am
most obscure?
midi tracks convert midi "note off" messages to "note on velocity 0" messages 8O
Can you name any instrument or software in the world that uses note-off messages ?
The Electrix Tweaker uses note off messages to turn off LEDs, which I was trying to do from Max for Live.

pottering
Posts: 1800
Joined: Sat Dec 06, 2014 4:41 am

Re: Post your most obscure Ableton Live knowledge

Post by pottering » Sun May 21, 2023 4:09 am

Madeleine Bloom posted this video about Follow Actions, where she explains "Follow Action Chain", whose existence I had completely missed!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5Iyf-iAESxU
♥♥♥

unix23
Posts: 64
Joined: Mon Nov 19, 2007 3:40 pm
Location: New York. NY

Re: Post your most obscure Ableton Live knowledge

Post by unix23 » Fri Jun 30, 2023 3:39 pm

After loads of research and testing down the sync rabbit hole, I (just last night) found that the Ableton manual is incorrect about setting up audio interfaces. I notified support through an open ticket

The error is here: https://help.ableton.com/hc/en-us/artic ... -Interface.

"5. On Mac, you can choose separate devices for both input and output, or you can choose to deactivate one of them (set to "No Device"):"

While it "works", you will never ever get stable Driver Error Compensation timing. Every time the Ableton audio engine reloads, you'll get a different offset to use in the Driver Error Compensation box.

In order to obtain Core Audio timing and synchronization with multiple audio devices, you would need to create an aggregate device with all inputs and outputs you plan to use, and use it for both the Input AND Output device.

Otherwise, your recordings will go out of sync the next time you load the audio engine. You can test it by turning Core Audio to None and then back to Core Audio and re-running the Driver Error Compensation test in Ableton Lessons. The delay time will be wrong because the I/O is decoupled. The only way for it to be coupled is to use the same device for input and output.

baseinstinct
Posts: 924
Joined: Sun Feb 24, 2008 3:45 am

Re: Post your most obscure Ableton Live knowledge

Post by baseinstinct » Wed Aug 16, 2023 1:26 am

If you are playing loops in session view while the loop in the arrangement view is set to anything less than one bar, there are some unpredictible effects on the timing for triggering loops even if these are set to start on full bars.

Might be useful near the end of party when ready for some experiments on known material.

Otherwise useful to know in case clips stop triggering on time.

nennmichwieduwillst
Posts: 89
Joined: Fri Feb 25, 2011 7:15 am

Re: Post your most obscure Ableton Live knowledge

Post by nennmichwieduwillst » Tue Nov 28, 2023 6:02 pm

not really obscure, but maybe UNKNOWN.... and helpfull...

LIVE has no intern note-pad/ Tipps-Tricks sketchboard....

But you can rightclick on each clip / arrangement-segment an text in some lines and it will store in the current projwect/version...
Thats for TEMPORALLIRALY /JUST this special song....

But you can also TXT" your DEFALUT/ Templates in EACH SCENE / EACH MARKER with special Notes.... maybe
SCENE 1
= Shortys for ZOOM and other view- Stuff

SCENE 2
=Shortys for NAVIGAITAION

Scen 14 and Marker 14
=Special OWN tipps #3....


and so on and so on...

Just reigtclick a MASTER-SNE / A MARKER and choose " Write info" (your correct translation will maybe differ from this....) and go top INFO_Field and type in... what you want
Peace. Freedom. Truth!

jezric
Posts: 19
Joined: Wed Oct 25, 2023 5:41 pm

Re: Post your most obscure Ableton Live knowledge

Post by jezric » Fri Dec 08, 2023 10:48 pm

Obscure tid-bit:
Ableton Live does not support routing multiple MIDI output channels from a single VST. Like VCV Rack2, MaschineVST, etc. It sums all of them together to a single (All channels) output. So, if you want to have a VST that is producing MIDI and output that MIDI to some other instrument channels, better be ok with only 1 channel of MIDI.

Other DAWs support this, but for some reason Live does not. :(

totallywired
Posts: 10
Joined: Thu Dec 21, 2023 4:28 am

Re: Post your most obscure Ableton Live knowledge

Post by totallywired » Thu Dec 21, 2023 4:35 am

jezric wrote:
Fri Dec 08, 2023 10:48 pm
Obscure tid-bit:
Ableton Live does not support routing multiple MIDI output channels from a single VST.
You can get round this with Blue Cat Audio Patchwork. It's a VST host that also runs as a plugin. It exposes 16 channels of MIDI to Live. That's how I've run Cardinal, the VCV Rack alternative version. Carla running as a VST plugin might do it too?

totallywired
Posts: 10
Joined: Thu Dec 21, 2023 4:28 am

Re: Post your most obscure Ableton Live knowledge

Post by totallywired » Sat Dec 23, 2023 10:10 pm

I'd probably add to my own post above, 128 notes and 128 CC's is sometimes enough. With a bit of filtering and transposing you can fit quite a lot into one channel of MIDI.

jezric
Posts: 19
Joined: Wed Oct 25, 2023 5:41 pm

Re: Post your most obscure Ableton Live knowledge

Post by jezric » Sun Dec 24, 2023 7:19 am

totallywired wrote:
Thu Dec 21, 2023 4:35 am
jezric wrote:
Fri Dec 08, 2023 10:48 pm
Obscure tid-bit:
Ableton Live does not support routing multiple MIDI output channels from a single VST.
You can get round this with Blue Cat Audio Patchwork. It's a VST host that also runs as a plugin. It exposes 16 channels of MIDI to Live. That's how I've run Cardinal, the VCV Rack alternative version. Carla running as a VST plugin might do it too?
Yep, good point! I have looked at BC patchwork.

Seems Ableton should just support this by default, other DAWs do... even free ones... (ehhhem, Cakewalk) :)

totallywired
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Joined: Thu Dec 21, 2023 4:28 am

Re: Post your most obscure Ableton Live knowledge

Post by totallywired » Wed Dec 27, 2023 10:29 pm

Just to add, I tested Cardinal running in a CarlaVST instance in Live 11 and it was crashing straight away. The Carla VST3 plugin (windows 64 bit) did not play well with Live at all, no matter which plugin it was hosting. The standalone version of Carla fares better.

totallywired
Posts: 10
Joined: Thu Dec 21, 2023 4:28 am

Re: Post your most obscure Ableton Live knowledge

Post by totallywired » Sat Dec 30, 2023 3:52 am

Most obscure Ableton Live knowledge - REX files. Does anyone still use them?

I had watched a video on Youtube a few days ago from Stranjah about cutting up breaks. He's well worth watching if you like Youtube tutorial content in my opinion. I've had an interest in looping breakbeats for 30+ years and I still learn stuff from him.

Anyway, he was using Propellerheads Recycle at one point and it reminded me how good it was. I had used it a little years ago, I knew I had a copy on a writable CD and I dug it out tonight. It's great. Chopping drum loops is so fast and intuitive. The automatic transient detection is absolutely spot on. Loops at 90bpm will go to 170bpm no problem with a little judicious use of the "stretch" and pitch controls. It's not afraid to write these changes to the RX2 file either, unlike Live which you need to coax and cajole into writing a file sometimes.

When RX2 files come into Live they work so well. The markers are always spot on and will change bpm more seamlessly than any other file you can throw in a clip slot. The work that you might have done to take your rnb loop to dnb tempos in Recycle makes the use in Live so smooth. They convert to drum racks very well, either by slicing to MIDI or throwing an RX2 straight into a Simpler on the slice setting. I just have a slice preset that I use that's default Simpler except for the output is at 0db.

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