Live beat chopping?

[vincentlepes]

I've been down so many tracks for ways to do beat chopping (like MLR or MPCs), but every solution I find has to be set up in advance. I want to record tracks live using various instruments and MIDI devices and somehow be able to "juggle" (or whatever it's called) a track monome style without first having to set up a ton of stuff in advance (e.g. follow actions, RAM enabling, etc.). I'm working on a live performance workflow that does not include prerecorded sections/phrases, so that the music is built up live and then remixed live...like EOTO or STS9, for example. I'd love to be able to flip over to a screen that has my tracks on my APC40 or PadKontrol lighting up each 8th as they go by and allowing me to chop them up on the fly like a monome.

Here is what I have looked into:
Monome emulation on APC40 + MLR - can't figure out how to get audio from Live to MLR, tracks must be preloaded in MLR. Also would prefer to do it all within Live and not needing an emulator in the way.
Native Ableton workflow with follow actions - has to be set up ahead of time, can't find a way to record into pre-clipped follow tracks.
Slice to MIDI - starts out great, but the clip is in a drum rack and played via a MIDI clip so there's no feedback...wish this would simply allow me to slice a clip to 8 rows with follow actions. It's also hard when playing to smoothly transition between the MIDI being played by the clip and the drum rack, also when you hit a beat it doesn't continue like a follow action would.
Live Clip Chopper - looked promising, but again clips must be set up and RAM enabled first.
Beat Looker - pretended to be the right thing but upon inspection was something else entirely.
Using Beat Repeat - I can't find an option that has the right level of control, pad light feedback or just plain doesn't sound like crap.

Is there no way to get this on the fly clip chopping ability? It seems that there are tons of options for those who want to chop up prerecorded clips in MLR fashion, but for the live performer there's always a catch. It's really hard to find info on "live clip chopping" as the word live is in Ableton Live so I get tons of irrelevant search results.

[yur2die4]

For a little more research and inspiration, try downloading the stuff at aurexmusic.com and opening the sets, taking them apart.

Another thing I enjoy is endless feedback loops (James zabiela explains them well on some vids that promote Pioneer gear). There are a lot of tricks to playing with that, having Looper in the picture makes it much more fun! (keep the appropriate routing in mind, either through a return channel or feedback from sidechain input). I kind of like looping using delays at 100% personally. An some autopans and filter delays in a rack can give you up to 8 bar looping. ...in that case though, it is hard to chop things up, sorry to get carried away ..coffee

[vincentlepes]

Wow, don't know how I missed that one! Those apps look pretty damn cool...do you know if they totally override the APC or are like an alternate scene? I use the standard APC controls a lot but this might be even better than I was looking for. Looks like I could have the clip chopping I wanted and also get a slew of other cool effects to play with. Thanks for the link .

If there are any other great options people out there know about I'm all ears too

[towers of silence]

Is there no way to get this on the fly clip chopping ability? It seems that there are tons of options for those who want to chop up prerecorded clips in MLR fashion, but for the live performer there's always a catch. It's really hard to find info on "live clip chopping" as the word live is in Ableton Live so I get tons of irrelevant search results.

I don't really think there is anything that doesn't involve some jerry-rigging at this point. But there are a few other variations on your list-
As for using MLR with Live, I think you may be best served by changing your signal flow, rather than record into Live, then pipe audio to MLR (which you can do with something like Soundflower but this will induce some latency) then back to Live, you could record audio directly into MLR, juggle your beats and record the result into Live clips. Also, check out the Monome app Mash instead of MLR. http://docs.monome.org/doku.php?id=app:mash It's an MLR style app but designed to be used in a live looping/juggling scenario. Pretty awesome app.

For setting up Slice To MIDI and follow actions templates check out these posts, you may find them useful.
http://mothergarage.blogspot.com/2011/0 ... -live.html
http://mothergarage.blogspot.com/2011/0 ... -live.html

As far as having a setup without workarounds, I don't think it's quite possible yet. The Monome app 7up had a componant called Mind Shuffler which did pretty much what you are looking for, but it was dropped from the app due to timing instabilities.
http://vimeo.com/8131335
Not sure if this was on Live's side or on the Max/Msp side, but I think it's indicative of why you don't see any apps that do exactly what you are looking for! It seems there are some technical hurdles yet to cross to get it exactly right...

+1 on the Aurex stuff, too. The Masher looks awesome

[siliconarc]

this might be useful for you:
http://forum.ableton.com/viewtopic.php?f=4&t=153747

[vincentlepes]

Thanks for all the great replies! I've got more research to do now .

To specify on what I was saying, I don't mind workarounds or funky rigged up solutions so long as:

1. I don't have to record the audio in advance of the performance (I want it all to be live and improvised)
2. I don't have to do a lot of steps to enable during performance
3. I don't have to use the keyboard or mouse to get it running

I downloaded the Aurex JigSine set and have been poking around, so far it's hard to see how it works but I'll probably have to keep digging deeper. I may also be able to integrate it into my custom set, not sure yet. I don't mind solutions like that where the audio is recorded over into the track for juggling and the outputs switch over automatically, but there is a lot in his set I don't need as well. Someone out there has to have figured out a simple way to make it happen .

(Edit auralex = aurex...oops)

[yur2die4]

I just got this idea, but I imagine a rack with a lot of beat repeats and a lot of delays would enable you to capture sounds and recall pieces of them.

Also, on a sidenote. One of the greatest challenges with doing this in Live vs. Tractor, is that either you are dealing with a clip retriggering from the start, or, when you are rocking out with a buffer, the track continues playing in the background. One way around this is to somehow make sure that the clip is selected (harder than it sounds), and then press a button assigned to start point. If you assign ctrl+d (duplicate), you can take it a step further and use a lower quantization. Start point assign one clip at a point, then duplicate it, trigger that clip, and re-assign a new start point, etc. Now you have 4 freshly made clips with different start points to mash on.

This is really far out but, if you enjoy repitching, you can assign clip slots to keyranges on a keyboard. If a clip is duplicated onto tha spot, you can retriggering it at different crazy pitches. Also works for Channel launch, but you need to assign the appropriate scene.

Edit: thanks for getting me to think about this. I... admit, I have not actually tried it, I just made it up now. A key factor is 'select clip on launch'. Anyway, now I have to actually test this out

[AceLuby]

Sends and dummy clips... Say you have 8 tracks of audio you record into, send those into 2, 4, or 8 other audio tracks that have a bunch of different effects set up, all set to full effect. The first dummy clip will then set all of those effects to 0, meaning you'll have a completely dry signal. From there, just copy the clips and arrange them in a way that makes sense, all beat matched and have their follow actions already in place. Then, you just record like you normally would into your audio clips and then use these dummy clips to mash and effect the channels you're using in a controlled manner.

I know EOTO does this to some degree, STS9 has a laptop at nearly every station so each person is in complete control of their 'track' and any live juggling that sounds good is just practice.

[siliconarc]

i've made a track template using Muxer's Instant Sampler plugin (mac only).
8 follow action clips mapped to pads on the padkontrol means i can chop in realtime
(after 1 cycle of the 8 follow actions, so the loop is fully recorded into the plugin).
it also sends midi feedback to the padkontrol. works great, but Instant Sampler is mac only so might be useless to you.
if you're on mac though i can upload the template...

[vincentlepes]

I am indeed running on Mac, part of why I haven't gotten the MotherGarage method working yet...I'd be interested to see how it works, I've been trying to dissect the Aurex JigSine template but it's still eluding me .

[siliconarc]

ok cool. there's a windows port available too, which i hadn't noticed before,
so this might work for pc too...

first, install the plugin:
http://www.muxer.nl/instant-sampler/

then grab my template:
instantsampler.als

now drag the instantsampler.als to the empty space in the tracklist in an existing set to add it,
and midimap the 8 green clip slots (and the red one - this clears the sample buffers) to pads/keys.

now you can either drop audio clips onto the 'AUDIO TO >' track,
or, if you want to record live stuff, set that live input's track output to 'iSAMPLER' (instead of 'Master') so the plugin gets the audio.

there are a few things i still need to work out, but this should give you a start for some ideas.

[vincentlepes]

Sweet, thanks!

I'll try to dig into this tonight . Does it override the PadKontrol or is it possible to make it a new scene I can switch to?

[siliconarc]

on my pK i use scene one, but i think that's one i made years ago.
can't remember but it's simply: C1 upwards, from bottom left pad to top right pad.

[yur2die4]

Tried the InstantSampler. Amazing find!!!!!!! I like using it with the Arpeggiator. Lots of fun ways to do things quickly and wackily!!!! AHhhhhh!!! It is basically like slicing to drum rack.. at the press of a button haha

...I'd say 'now if only arpeggiator went beyond 8 steps', but I just realized that I should be able to hit two notes apart, and have it climb up super high.

[vincentlepes]

That sounds promising

I'm still curious, will it co-exist with other scenes that are just for normal drum racks, or does it "own" the Pad/Kontrol (i.e. native mode)?