Dealing with multiple songs and tempos for live shows

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jasongreenberg
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Dealing with multiple songs and tempos for live shows

Post by jasongreenberg » Tue Apr 10, 2007 12:59 am

I'm trying to transfer all my audio from Logic to Live for use in my shows. I am loading multiple long stereo audio files that contain around 4-7 minute mixes that contain background tracks for all the songs played in my live shows. I have 9 different songs for my set, so 9 stereo files each one going in the arrangement view window and each on a different track, one starting after the other finishes.
All the songs are a different tempo and are contained in a single live set file.

I'm not sure the best way to do this, but I've tried a few and I pretty much have it working but not quite perfectly. I've tried using the master track to automate tempo changes between all the songs, but the problem with that is that for the second song onward I can't set a tempo amount that doesn't have decimels. So let's say the first song is 80 BPM, I can set that fine no probem. Then I drag in the second song, and it's 90 BPM I double click on the tempo automation line in the master track and I try to pull it up to 90BPM but I can only get to 89.77 or something like that. There must be a way to enter this exactly as 90 BPM.

I've also tried setting the exact tempo in the "Seg. BPM" section of the sample parameter window after I double click on the audio clip in the arrange. I still can't get the exact number, I just wish I can double click on the box and enter it, is there some key command that will do this?

I'm also wondering what the best way to deal with multiple tempo sessions like my situation. Should I be using Master/Slave modes so live doesn't mess with my original playback audio? All my playback audio was recorded to a tempo in Logic and I don't want Live stretching anything, only the percussion I'm going to be adding later. I should also mention that my playback tracks are mostly ambient non percussive tracks since I'll be playing all the percussion live in the shows, so using warp mode is not completely accurate.

Any advice would be great. I'd love to know the best way to do this.
Thanks very much.

Jason Greenberg
www.repose.mu

synnack
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Post by synnack » Tue Apr 10, 2007 2:00 am

Use scenes. Put each song as its own scene, and name the scenes as the value you want for bpm.

So if the song is at 80.3bpm, name the scene exactly that. When you trigger that scene, it will change the master tempo to that bpm.

File under tip and trick. If you name scenes XXXbpm, no spaces, it will change tempo when you trigger it.

jasongreenberg
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Post by jasongreenberg » Tue Apr 10, 2007 3:17 am

Thanks for the reply, I was hoping to make this happen in the arrange window so I wouldn't have to trigger the backup tracks for the songs. If I have to, I'll do this with scenes, but I would have thought there would be a way to do this linearly in the arrange window. That way I can use the session view window to focus on the beats and triggering on top of the background tracks that would be automatically playing from the arrange window.

Thanks again for your help, it's very much appreciated.

Jason Greenberg
www.repose.mu

synnack
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Post by synnack » Wed Apr 11, 2007 12:12 am

You use scenes to record it on to the arrangement window. Then all the tempo changes are exact and there on the arrangement screen as you want.

Think of Ableton as a live instrument, you use clips and scenes to "record" the arrangement live.

You can get exactly what you want this way.

I had the same issue when I started with live. It would be awesome if you could just double click and enter the tempo value manually but unfortunately the way I've described is the only way I've found to do this in live with accuracy.

muthafunka
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Post by muthafunka » Wed Apr 11, 2007 12:40 am

When you open the master tempo track, try making the tempo range much narrower ie not from 80-200 bpm but say a range of 10bpm around your target range. Then cmd/click as you move the envelope to get finer control. This should get you on the money.
Alternatively you could type in a master tempo value in the top left of the main window and record a couple of bars where you want the change.
First way's probably easier though.

ocp
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Post by ocp » Wed Apr 11, 2007 2:20 am

Alternatively, you can drag the master track in the arrangement to a bigger size and fine tune the tempo line to an exact value.
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jasongreenberg
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Post by jasongreenberg » Wed Apr 11, 2007 3:46 am

thanks guys, I'll give it a try

Jason Greenberg
www.repose.mu

mooncaine
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Post by mooncaine » Fri Jun 08, 2007 12:11 am

tempus3r wrote:Use scenes. Put each song as its own scene, and name the scenes as the value you want for bpm.

So if the song is at 80.3bpm, name the scene exactly that. When you trigger that scene, it will change the master tempo to that bpm.

File under tip and trick. If you name scenes XXXbpm, no spaces, it will change tempo when you trigger it.
There might be something more to this, because it ain't working for me. I named 3 successive scenes:
110bpm
100bpm
90bpm

but the tempo remains the same.

mooncaine
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Post by mooncaine » Fri Jun 08, 2007 12:16 am

Found it. The tempo changes won't have any effect unless the *scene* is triggered. I had a stack of clips, with follow actions, going. Even though every new clip was in the next scene down, the tempo wouldn't change. When I clicked a Scene, though, the tempo number was honored and the tempo changed.

Bummer, I can't assign a follow action to a Scene. I was hoping to automate a slowdown in tempo with follow actions.

mooncaine
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Post by mooncaine » Fri Jun 08, 2007 12:30 am

muthafunka wrote:When you open the master tempo track, try making the tempo range much narrower ie not from 80-200 bpm but say a range of 10bpm around your target range.
Is there a tempo range that affects stuff in Session View? I found the range settings for a Master track in Arrangement.... but I'm not using arrangement, I'm using session. I mapped tempo to a knob, but I want it to go lower than 60bpm, if possible.

Amaury
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Post by Amaury » Fri Jun 08, 2007 1:21 pm

mooncaine wrote:
muthafunka wrote:When you open the master tempo track, try making the tempo range much narrower ie not from 80-200 bpm but say a range of 10bpm around your target range.
Is there a tempo range that affects stuff in Session View? I found the range settings for a Master track in Arrangement.... but I'm not using arrangement, I'm using session. I mapped tempo to a knob, but I want it to go lower than 60bpm, if possible.
Hi,

You get to set the range while your are in mapping mode, there is a 'mapping Browser' appearing where the Browser stands, that lets you set a range. It is available for all knobs and sliders you can map! Tempo can go as low as 20.

Regards,
Amaury
Ableton Product Team

posssu
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Post by posssu » Fri Jun 08, 2007 1:24 pm

Hi!

I can't test this, since my mac is in repair now, but I think when you see some value like 89.7 in the value box when dragging the tempo in master tempo track, you can just click it once and type in an exact value. I'm quite sure it works, but if not, then I remember wrong.

Also, as mentioned before probably, you can fine-drag the tempo by holding alt (I think..).
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sebovzeoueb
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Post by sebovzeoueb » Fri Jun 08, 2007 2:21 pm

posssu wrote:Hi!

I can't test this, since my mac is in repair now, but I think when you see some value like 89.7 in the value box when dragging the tempo in master tempo track, you can just click it once and type in an exact value. I'm quite sure it works, but if not, then I remember wrong.

Also, as mentioned before probably, you can fine-drag the tempo by holding alt (I think..).
Unfortunately this is not the case. Damn, I was excited for a moment. We should feature request this.
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longjohns
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Post by longjohns » Fri Jun 08, 2007 2:30 pm

http://www.teragon.org/wiki/index.php?t ... troller.3F

And as far as the original question:

What happens on top of these backing tracks? Are you firing clips or using synced FX? Because if not then you may not even need to worry about tempo and such.

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