Help me solve this MIDI riddle

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jonahmo
Posts: 45
Joined: Tue May 21, 2013 7:52 pm

Help me solve this MIDI riddle

Post by jonahmo » Fri Jan 05, 2018 11:17 pm

What I'm trying to do is come up with a processor-light way of doing this: For live performances I want to be able to quickly change the sample that is triggered by a single button on a MIDI controller. (The controller is a Nintendo Donkey Kong game controller which is converted to USB, then MIDI via a USB-to-MIDI program).

So far the only way I can figure out how to do it is to have the button trigger all the different samples at the same time, with mute on/off automation used to make it so only certain samples are heard depending on the point in the timeline. But I'm guessing that, even though the tracks are muted, triggering a dozen different samples at once is going to require needlessly heavy processing power. (Not sure if it matters, but maybe I should mention that the mute on/off automation is not on the actual tracks on which the samples are, but on tracks they are bussed to, because the automation is disabled on a track as soon as a sample is triggered on that track.)

It would be nice if I could figure out a way to click one or two buttons on the laptop keypad or other MIDI controller to switch the samples that the Nintendo controller triggers.

Alternatively, I could quickly load different mapping presets in the USB-to-MIDI software, but this program (Junxion Lite) is a little buggy and sometimes crashes when I try to do that, or doesn't work at all.

By the way I'm using a mid-2014 Macbook Pro with 2.5 Ghz processor; memory is 16 GB 1600 MHz DDR3. Any suggestions would be much appreciated. Thanks!

UPDATE: I think I figured out that I should trigger samples in Simpler instead of on an audio track. But now the problem is getting "launch quantization" on the samples. I found a Max For Live patch (http://www.maxforlive.com/library/device.php?id=196) that does this, but I think maybe I'm using it wrong, or maybe it just doesn't work right. Compared to triggering on an audio track I'm missing a lot of beats, especially when I hit the button quickly. I tried putting the Max patch on the same track as Simpler, and then I tried putting the controller and patch on their own track which is routed to the Simpler track but that made no difference. Also adjusting the interval on the patch doesn't solve the issue. Then I found another patch - http://www.maxforlive.com/library/devic ... i-quantize - but I can't seem to make that work at all. (I don't know what's meant by "clip slot/select direct" and clicking the "quantize" button, turning it from green to pink, has no effect.)

McAnix
Posts: 415
Joined: Mon Jan 14, 2013 7:42 pm

Re: Help me solve this MIDI riddle

Post by McAnix » Sat Jan 06, 2018 7:56 am

This might help for putting multiple samples on one pad:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8TO3z8L ... hqhDX5eZ2Z

As for playing samples quantized, maybe launch them as clips? You would need to figure out a way of how to navigate the clips from your controller but it certainly is possible. When in MIDI map mode in session view there are all the mappable navigation controls under the stop button on the master track.

Maybe some of this info will help.

jonahmo
Posts: 45
Joined: Tue May 21, 2013 7:52 pm

Re: Help me solve this MIDI riddle

Post by jonahmo » Sun Jan 07, 2018 2:40 am

Thank you so much! I think this solves my problem for the most part. Now I'm just trying to figure out a way to automate the macro knob on a Drum Rack. I'd like the knob to be at certain positions depending on where I am in the arrangement timeline. I can write the automation for this, but then when I trigger a clip in the track where the Drum Rack is, it disables the automation. Is there a way around this?

McAnix
Posts: 415
Joined: Mon Jan 14, 2013 7:42 pm

Re: Help me solve this MIDI riddle

Post by McAnix » Sun Jan 07, 2018 7:55 am

Yup, you can place automation in a clip in session view. If you search "dummy clip automation" you should find some cool videos explaining clip automation. You won't be using blank clips which what a dummy clip is but you should find the info helpful for automation. Tom Cosm has a bunch of cool videos on the topic.

McAnix
Posts: 415
Joined: Mon Jan 14, 2013 7:42 pm

Re: Help me solve this MIDI riddle

Post by McAnix » Sun Jan 07, 2018 7:58 am

Also search "clip follow actions". This helps putting an arrangement into session view.

stoter
Posts: 14
Joined: Mon Jan 01, 2018 4:36 pm

Re: Help me solve this MIDI riddle

Post by stoter » Sun Jan 07, 2018 3:26 pm

Seems you're already on the right path, so this is perhaps a useless suggestion.. but you triggered my thoughts with this:
It would be nice if I could figure out a way to click one or two buttons on the laptop keypad or other MIDI controller to switch the samples that the Nintendo controller triggers.
You can spread out the different samples to different notes in one multi-sample patch, then trigger it with one note (the Nintendo controller) and switch samples using "Pitch" from the MIDI-effects, with a key bound to the pitch itself, like this:

https://imgur.com/a/mD7uH

Pressing "1", in my example, will make the pitch alternate between 0 and 1 (and thus select the different samples). Up the max (right column), and you can add more.

Only downside is, that you can only rotate through the samples in one way (0 1 2, 0 1 2, etc).. couldn't find a way to bind two keys to one parameter, alas (one for up, one for down)..

jonahmo
Posts: 45
Joined: Tue May 21, 2013 7:52 pm

Re: Help me solve this MIDI riddle

Post by jonahmo » Fri Feb 16, 2018 7:09 am

McAnix wrote:Yup, you can place automation in a clip in session view. If you search "dummy clip automation" you should find some cool videos explaining clip automation. You won't be using blank clips which what a dummy clip is but you should find the info helpful for automation. Tom Cosm has a bunch of cool videos on the topic.
I don't think this will help my issue, right? Because the automation I want would be based on what time I'm at in the timeline, not which clip I'm triggering. I want to be triggering the same clip at different points, but have that clip/that track be playing a different Sampler selection value depending where I am in the timeline. I really can't figure out any workaround for this and it's bumming me out.

McAnix
Posts: 415
Joined: Mon Jan 14, 2013 7:42 pm

Re: Help me solve this MIDI riddle

Post by McAnix » Fri Feb 16, 2018 7:17 am

Mmmm, it's a tricky one, the only other thing I can think of, if your arrangement is set and not improvised you could setup a really long clip that contains clip automation but not knowing your specific needs it's hard to say what will work.

Have you tried contacting Ableton support? You can send them a detailed video of your setup and they should understand your project needs much better. I've contacted them for most trivial stuff and they've always helped.

All the best.

jonahmo
Posts: 45
Joined: Tue May 21, 2013 7:52 pm

Re: Help me solve this MIDI riddle

Post by jonahmo » Sat Feb 17, 2018 5:24 am

Okay, maybe I'll contact them, unless this idea of a long clip with automation could work.. My arrangement is set in that the backing tracks are laid out in an audio track on the timeline, but I won't simply be playing from 0:00 to the end - I'll be jumping around in the timeline, so the song order can be chosen on the fly. So for this really long clip, I assume I would put it onto the Drum Rack track in the Arrangement, and the automation in the clip will be able to control the Sampler value numbers, even if that same track has had clips triggered in the Session view?

McAnix
Posts: 415
Joined: Mon Jan 14, 2013 7:42 pm

Re: Help me solve this MIDI riddle

Post by McAnix » Sat Feb 17, 2018 6:24 am

Mmmm, no playing 2 clips at the same time on one track won't work. What about putting the drum racks into an instrument rack, then controlling the chains with a macro mapped to a MIDI controller?

jonahmo
Posts: 45
Joined: Tue May 21, 2013 7:52 pm

Re: Help me solve this MIDI riddle

Post by jonahmo » Sat Feb 17, 2018 7:24 pm

I don't see what an Instrument Rack would allow me to do that the Drum Rack doesn't (automated muting of different drum racks in the Instrument Rack vs. automated selection of different values in the Drum Racks' Zone Editor).

But either way, I see now that I can trigger the different samples using a MIDI keyboard without screwing up the automation but the default mode seems to trigger samples without quantization in gate mode. In most cases I want to play the samples in trigger mode and/or with quantization. Is there a way to do that??

EDIT: Is it possible that this Max For Live device could help me with this? I don't really understand it.. https://www.ableton.com/answers/midi-du ... idi-tracks

McAnix
Posts: 415
Joined: Mon Jan 14, 2013 7:42 pm

Re: Help me solve this MIDI riddle

Post by McAnix » Sat Feb 17, 2018 7:47 pm

Sorry, this is actually a really difficult one for me, don't think I have any good answers, and then there's still the issue of the automation turning off when you change views. There was a post on the forum recently about a similar issue with automation turning off with view changing, maybe give it a search.

What I would do to play samples with or without quantize would be to have record quantize on, then record a MIDI clip in session view, then have the loop with the MIDI notes quantized playing back the samples, this might not work in your setup as I assume you only have one shot at having certain samples play perfectly on time.

Is there absolutely no way that you can set up your set to have certain samples played as clips in session view?

Honestly, my live setup is based solely on session view and writing solely in arrange view, and I know some people who do it the other way around, so I can't really think of a solution since my setup is different.

Hope someone with more experience can give some advice?

jonahmo
Posts: 45
Joined: Tue May 21, 2013 7:52 pm

Re: Help me solve this MIDI riddle

Post by jonahmo » Sat Feb 17, 2018 9:46 pm

Thank you. I'll try contacting Ableton support. The idea is to play these elements live rather than having them pre-programmed or looped. I'm guessing that there may be some solution via Max For Live. Otherwise I'm thinking of just adding a bunch of extra tracks, sends/returns and mute automation, hoping that the extra CPU processing won't be too much.

McAnix
Posts: 415
Joined: Mon Jan 14, 2013 7:42 pm

Re: Help me solve this MIDI riddle

Post by McAnix » Sun Feb 18, 2018 6:38 am

https://isotonikstudios.com/product/follow/

Check this out, I think some guys use it in arrange view as well.

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