Making a guitar rack with Live

[doom_Oo7]

Hello,
I am currently building a guitar rack inside Live (to use live with my guitars).
It has :
volume -> TSE808 -> amp sims -> cab sims -> comp -> delay

My main concern is preset switching, from a MIDI pedalboard.
Is there any way to handle this gracefully with live, with the following requirements :

• No duplication of plugins (these mofos eat a shitload of CPU and I don't want crackles during my gigs)
• No "setting all the parameters to their correct value in an silent audio clip and trigger that clip" nasty hack

Thanks !

[Jekblad]

Take a look at dummy clips. They can do complex switching with the press of a button.
Or of course macro's will work too if you want to do stompbox style.

[doom_Oo7]

Yes, but that's my point 2 xD
I'm not a big fan of dummy clips for this for two reasons :

• It is a hassle to setup when a preset change involves the change of about 15 - 20 parameters
• It is another hassle to have the dummy clip effects overlap / stay. Here I would control my rack with my POD X3 Live so I can press "Stomp" to enable the stompbox, "Delay" to enable the delay (but the stomp stays); while with dummy clips, if on my track I enable "Delay", "Stomp" gets disabled, so I would have to make like 4 / 5 tracks in serial, which I do not want to prevent cluttering of my sets.

And macro works for the case I mentioned above, but it doesn't work if for instance I have four different guitar sounds (clean, crunch, rythm, and lead) with transitions from one sound to another not relying on the same parameters automation.

For instance:

• clean to crunch would increase the drive on the TSE808
• crunch to rhythm would change the channel on the amp sims
• rhythm to lead would increase the drive on the TSE808 and enable the delay

So here there is a problem when you want to go clean -> crunch -> rythm -> lead (with only one button press on the pedalboard) because I want clean -> crunch to increase drive on the TS808, but I don't on clean -> rythm.
So if I press the "crunch" button, and then the "rhythm" button, on my pedalboard, I won't get the good parameter for the drive on the TSE808.

[Jekblad]

I'm sorry it's a hassle for you to get what you want?

There is no simple way to do what you are asking in Live. I understand wanting to reduce clutter, but you really have to try it before you decide it's hurting your set. I would make dummy clips for each of your base sounds, then straight midi map to your stomp and delay so they could act independently. This might result in a duplicated delay if you want a delay as part of your lead tone, but at the end of the day that's going to have very little negative impact.

Not using dummy clips would result in you needing duplications of the the amp/cab sims which are going to eat a lot more cpu.

I have made many guitar setups within Live, at some point you just have go with what's possible regardless of the way you want to think about it.

The true alternative is taking multiple guitar amps and cabs around with you, so just keep that in mind in the hassle department.

[theophilus]

there are some m4l devices which purport to support 'presets' for racks. i haven't gotten to actually try any of them out yet though.

[doom_Oo7]

Yay!
http://chippanfire.com/software/m4l-dev ... t-manager/

This seems to do exactly what I want, I'll test the demo tonight.

[doom_Oo7]

I'm sorry it's a hassle for you to get what you want?

There is no simple way to do what you are asking in Live.

This is what I wanted to know! Thanks!

[doom_Oo7]

woohoo! I managed to do my stuff with this wonderful little M4L plug.

If some people are interested, here is my rack.
The only paying required plugs are Nebula and the M4L device mentioned earlier in this thread. Others are freebies available on the interwebs.

https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B-YSI- ... sp=sharing

[Jekblad]

that device looks cool, def checking it out. At least now you don't need additional channels right? sweet

[theophilus]

what's the preset switching delay like?

[doom_Oo7]

@Jekblad : yep, everything on a single channel.
@theophilus : I have to measure it, I think it is in the 10 - 20 ms range (it's audible).
However, a "feature" is that automation for the preset changes gets recorded, so when I have all the presets change sorted out for my songs, I can just remove the M4L device and have everything run with the automation recorded by live, which can be readjusted easily if it's a bit off.
It's also faster than the MIDI preset switching on my pod X3 live (even with MIDI being output from my multiface II, so pci-express speed).

[doom_Oo7]

Mhhh, looks like latency is a tad too high to use Live for critical stuff.

On my system it is roughly between 15 and 200 ms.
I'll send a mail to the maker to know if there is anybody to do to reduce it.

For instance on this pic the preset change automation is on the last automation line (Recall[1]) and some of the resulting changes are visible in the upper automation lines.

to provide reference, the preset change is at 1:36:000 and the latest change, Chaîne | TSE_X50 happens at 1:36:123

[theophilus]

thanks for the info. 200ms isn't great but is comparable with a lot of hw effects, i think.

[Jekblad]

can you go in and fix the automation and then have it do the switching for you live?

[doom_Oo7]

It's doable, but for a 10 minute song with something like 15 - 25 preset changes it's quite a pain in the ass when there are 7 / 8 parameters automated. However something interesting would be to be able to record the automation changes inside clips that I would then be able to apply to the signal.