The hardcore setup - any advices?

[vitalispopoff]

Hi,
I guess I'm not the the proper user of this forum, as I visit it rather seldom. That's because the most problems with Live I'm able to resolve on my own and my skill isn't enough to help other users. This time however I've come across a problem I'm not able to go thru and as I believe the discussion on this might help some other ableton users as well.

The idea behind the whole thing is probably an old and well known thing as it's been bothering me since like 5 years, but until last month i've used to constantly answer "mañana". Now the time has come to work it out. So:

I took my old good friend: Evolution UC-33e and after few hours of reading on MIDI, Enigma and Live, reprogrammed it to get three groups of presets:
presets #1, #2 for general mixer w/ aux and master channel
presets #3, #4 w/o dedicated midi channels on faders, knobs and buttons
and presets #11-18, #21-28 w/ dedicated midi channels.

The main idea is to get 8 channels (for now at least) w/ operator in each one + 3 aux channels w/ dedicated fx and a master channel.
Each channel gets it own midi channel and the machine nested in it gets full midi mapping that is accessible from presets #3/#4 (w/ chosen global midi chan) or from #11/#21, #12/#22 etc

this solution gives a great opportunity to work almost without touching either computer keyboard or mouse.

As for now everything seems great - if another instance of operator is needed in a channel - I just duplicate it and reset the parameters of the original instance, then work with it, as the duplicate loses the mapping. If some other machine is needed instad of the operator - no problemo hombre: just delete and quickly reassign knobs.

The problem starts with another idea that is the main goal: to construct a session for a real live act, but with the only one machine in each channel.
Great idea I guess: You run 8 or 12 or 16 channel session and each time the same operators generate different basslines, bass drums, pads, sound effects. Lite for the CPU and RAM, easy to manage, simple yet powerfull. You always start with the same default session and mapping. Pure fun.

But - there is always a "but" - this, as far as I know Live, won't work in session mode. Of course it is great for experimenting with different sounds and presets in arrangement mode - You write a midi clip, push "record" and just get Your hands on the knobs. When recording You may insert locator points. After stopping You may go to the exact moment of operator's parameters set You've just recorded and save it as a preset. Each point You choose this way You may save. So by just recording like 2 hours of knob-madness sound shaping session You may get countless portion of presets (made it few times with usually poor results, but the fun was great and my own preset library got significantly bigger).
The real problem begins when You try to put those in session wiev's clips, to get few different presets within one session and one instance of operator (or any other machine).

Now comes the big question - how to solve this one?


p.s. hope my ingrish isn't that bad

[regretfullySaid]

You can take snapshots using Clyphx (surprise) Snap action.

In the Session track where the operator is, I named a blank clip "[] snap dev1" (dev1 is operator)and duplicated that clip a bunch of times (so I wouldn't have to rename each clip every time)
I then clicked on different parts of the session view timeline where operator parameters were different.
(actually what I did was use a clip to tell operator to randomize all it's parameters every time I fire the clip)
Then I turned off Back to Arrangement.
Then I fired the clip to take a snapshot.
Lather Rinse Repeat.
You just have to make sure you turn off Back to Arrangement.
You'll know if it takes a snapshot because the clip text will change.
Firing back the different clips with snapshots worked!

[vitalispopoff]

Thanks shadx312.
I thought of something like this and eventually recalled that I have M4L. After browsing maxforlive.com library found this:
http://www.maxforlive.com/library/devic ... =1069#3741

as I checked the machine works even as still needs some improvements and may be easily used as a preset memory managed from the clip level.

In the meantime I've got another idea - to group it with each instrument and somehow (probably with another m4l device) map the midi control within the rack, so I won't have to map the controller each time I put the plug into the channel.

This would make the template much more flexible as it ends as an 8 track with empty midi channels having midi chan routing only.

[Vios]

You can take your song in arrangement view, chop it up into bits, and then use follow actions in session view to construct an automatic or semiautomatic live set. I think the second half of this tutorial especially may give you some ideas. Widened my eyes as to how to work between producing in the studio and performing Live.

Moving From The Studio to Live Performance For The First Time

[vitalispopoff]

Thanks for url, but that's not I'm looking for - tried this approach already a long time ago and didn't like it.

the problem btw is probably resolved w/ the m4l device I've linked above.
At the moment there is a much more difficult thing to work with: to connect somehow instant midi mapping lists for (maybe within) particular instrument rack presets to avoid the necessity of mapping each time the instrument instance is loaded to the channel or to write it easier:

you open the new live session w/ few midi tracks (each of them has already dedicated midi channel) and just put particular instrument rack, and the rack has the midi mapping already, so You don't have to ctrl-m from scratch, just start messing around with knobs straight away.