Switching Tracks Using Buttons Or Pads On M-Audio Axiom?

[suntower]

Hi again,

I'm trying to figure out if I can use Live Lite 8 for what I want to do with a MIDI keyboard (M-Audio Axiom)

Basically I want to have a few regular audio tracks that play the entire song from beginning to end.

And at the same time, I want to have about a dozen MIDI tracks which are loaded with VSTis that I can switch back and forth between during the song to play various parts live. So each MIDI track is simply a -sound-... no patterns or loops.

Now here's the trick I need: I need to be able to switch back and forth between these tracks with either a button or a pad on my M-Audio Axiom. IOW: I want to press button '8' on the Axiom and it instantly switches to MIDI Track 8 in the Live Set. Or perhaps there is a 'Next Track' or 'Previous Track' function?

Is this possible? If so, I'm there.

TIA,

---JC

[towers of silence]

Yes-there are a couple ways you can do this-

You can use the arrow keys on your QWERTY keyboard to move back and forth from track to track, and you can also MIDI Map the buttons and Pads on your Axiom to select a specific track. Open the MIDI Mapping screen and click on the name of the track to map a button/pad to it.

In my opinion, I think your best bet would be to set up your 12 (or whatever) Instrument tracks with each track receiving MIDI on a different channel- for instance, channel 1 receives MIDI on channel 1, channel 2 receives MIDI on channel 2, etc. Now when you want to change between instruments you can simply change the Global MIDI channel on your controller and you will be playing whatever instrument you have on that given track.

This may not sound as convenient as mapping a button to a track, but think of it like this- in order to hear the MIDI instrument you'll either need to set the monitoring to IN or select the track for recording, which means you'd either have to map yet another button to turn the Monitor On (or Record Arm) button on and off, so you'd not only be using up a lot of your available buttons to control this function as well as actually selecting the track, but it will be more work for you to do when you want to play a particular instrument. You can map the same button to select the track and turn the Monitor On on, but you'll have to press it again to turn the Monitor On button off before you play another track- if you don't do this and you haven't set up each MIDI instrument on a different channel you'll end up playing both instruments, and that's probably not what you want to do, so that leads back to my suggestion above- no selecting tracks or monitor confusion. Plus you get 16 channels to work with, whereas my Axiom only has 9 mappable buttons (not counting the transport, that is)

EDIT- after I typed this out I realized you said Live Lite. I think this is all still applicable but I'm not going to say that for certain, I'm not sure what Live Lite's limitations are....

[suntower]

I love this idea. So I get on stage. Open the Live Set... which has 12 instrument tracks... each one armed. I then hit 'play' for the pre-recorded stuff and then all I gotta do is figure out how to switch tracks with my M-Audio buttons. Brilliant. I was thinking of it 180 degrees in the other direction.

THANKS!

Back when I get to the next step.

---JC

Yes-there are a couple ways you can do this-

You can use the arrow keys on your QWERTY keyboard to move back and forth from track to track, and you can also MIDI Map the buttons and Pads on your Axiom to select a specific track. Open the MIDI Mapping screen and click on the name of the track to map a button/pad to it.

In my opinion, I think your best bet would be to set up your 12 (or whatever) Instrument tracks with each track receiving MIDI on a different channel- for instance, channel 1 receives MIDI on channel 1, channel 2 receives MIDI on channel 2, etc. Now when you want to change between instruments you can simply change the Global MIDI channel on your controller and you will be playing whatever instrument you have on that given track.

This may not sound as convenient as mapping a button to a track, but think of it like this- in order to hear the MIDI instrument you'll either need to set the monitoring to IN or select the track for recording, which means you'd either have to map yet another button to turn the Monitor On (or Record Arm) button on and off, so you'd not only be using up a lot of your available buttons to control this function as well as actually selecting the track, but it will be more work for you to do when you want to play a particular instrument. You can map the same button to select the track and turn the Monitor On on, but you'll have to press it again to turn the Monitor On button off before you play another track- if you don't do this and you haven't set up each MIDI instrument on a different channel you'll end up playing both instruments, and that's probably not what you want to do, so that leads back to my suggestion above- no selecting tracks or monitor confusion. Plus you get 16 channels to work with, whereas my Axiom only has 9 mappable buttons (not counting the transport, that is)

EDIT- after I typed this out I realized you said Live Lite. I think this is all still applicable but I'm not going to say that for certain, I'm not sure what Live Lite's limitations are....

[towers of silence]

Right. Your Axiom should have a "Glob Chan" button- that's the one.

Good luck