Looper problems/ still cant seem to get it right

[The Empireal Formula]

hey guys I been on Ableton for a few months now and i still cant seem to get a successful jam w/ the Looper plugin. It seems to have a mind of its own. I'm tryin to map it to my sustain pedal to punch in and out. I got it all mapped and good to go but it doesn't seem to work properly

there's two instances that happen:

1) i got a blank session, I hit the sustain switch and it immediately starts recording my 1st loops just fine and of course Ableton defines the tempo just as its supposed to (but although sometimes it can be a little off, idk maybe its me)

2) When a song is already playing and the tempo is already set i try to punch in on a downbeat and record a loop on the fly but I notice it doesnt start recording immediately as i hit the sustain switch (and you would think that it would start recording on the next downbeat but it doesn't) It starts recording at a random time and it just throws everything out of wack.

any help would be great, i thought this was gna be easy to get the hang of because im familiar with Loop guitar pedals, but its a little tricky. but i really wanna make this work though!!!!

[Kill Paris Live]

hey guys I been on Ableton for a few months now and i still cant seem to get a successful jam w/ the Looper plugin. It seems to have a mind of its own. I'm tryin to map it to my sustain pedal to punch in and out. I got it all mapped and good to go but it doesn't seem to work properly

there's two instances that happen:

1) i got a blank session, I hit the sustain switch and it immediately starts recording my 1st loops just fine and of course Ableton defines the tempo just as its supposed to (but although sometimes it can be a little off, idk maybe its me)

2) When a song is already playing and the tempo is already set i try to punch in on a downbeat and record a loop on the fly but I notice it doesnt start recording immediately as i hit the sustain switch (and you would think that it would start recording on the next downbeat but it doesn't) It starts recording at a random time and it just throws everything out of wack.

any help would be great, i thought this was gna be easy to get the hang of because im familiar with Loop guitar pedals, but its a little tricky. but i really wanna make this work though!!!!

It could be that your launch quantization is off or on a weird interval. I've had problems too when the global launch quantization is different from the loops quantization. My advice, turn the looper to global and your global to 1 bar. I hope that works.
Kp-
http://www.soundcloud.com/killparis
http://www.youtube.com/killparispaige

[The Empireal Formula]

okay ya i noticed something else really fishy

it also messes up and switches from my previous recorded loops too. (idk!!!!!!!)


So i sat down with it (while the song was in playback mode) and tried recording the most basic of loops (a 2 bar series of quarter notes) and when i hit the sustain switch to play it back it played half of my gay quarter notes loop and then it randomly starts switching to other previous loops i recorded and i thought I cleared those already!


perhaps maybe its my Desktop CPU i notice it doesnt hack as much as it used to so im gna try it on my laptop which is new and more powerful, hopefully this solves the issue and i'll post back for info

[The Empireal Formula]

okay i think i got the hang of it, I think the trick is to map midi controls to the small (record,stop,overdub) buttons instead of the big multi purpose button.


Ca anyone clarify this?

[ciw]

I've just been trying this for the first time.

The big looper mapped to a pedal via on/off cc simply doesn't work. Like you said, it does weird things, like drop half the loop I recorded, or even clear all loops without me asking.

This guy seems to be having similar problems...

http://forum.ableton.com/viewtopic.php? ... lit=looper

Anyone got an answer?

[yur2die4]

It may come down to the duration of your CC press.

I believe it expects an on/off. instead of just ON. and then OFF.

If your button alternates between on and off for each press, it is like holding the pedal down. Which would delete your loop. If you only press it twice. It would be similar to holding the pedal down once. Since it is alternating between each press.

You might have the best luck assigning it to a midi Note# instead of a CC#.

[joaoorecchia]

Apparently Looper is quite finicky about exactly what messages it receives. I also had problems till I got a free software called Midistroke, which translates midi messages to keystrokes, which you then assign to whatever. It seems to be a lot more reliable.

But I've also noticed trying to start recording on the downbeat is tricky because when set to quantize, Looper can only start on the next quantized interval AFTER you hit the button. So I always have to hit the button just before the downbeat.

I have a hardware looper that manages to compensate for that, ie. if you hit the rec button slightly after the downbeat, it will still quantize to the downbeat. Something Ableton should be able to implement I think. (The hardware looper has a tiny CPU and memory compared to a laptop/Ableton set up).

[Sebastian]

same problems here specially with how Looper behaves every time I press the pedal


anyone find a solution?


its funny the tutorial on You Tube and the NAMM video make it all look so easy but they hardly mention the right set up

Ableton!!!?

[Sebastian]

[quote="yur2die4"]It may come down to the duration of your CC press.

I believe it expects an on/off. instead of just ON. and then OFF.

If your button alternates between on and off for each press, it is like holding the pedal down. Which would delete your loop. If you only press it twice. It would be similar to holding the pedal down once. Since it is alternating between each press.

You might have the best luck assigning it to a midi Note# instead of a CC#.[/quote]


do you mean a MIDI note on a keyboard?

[yur2die4]

Well. It should most likely be a Momentary command no matter what it is. And being Momentary, it should alternate probably between 0 and 127. Also it should never be held, only tapped.

As for the Note # assignment, yes I do mean as in a note that you would play on a keyboard. Except that the note would be assigned to your footswitch instead of a keyboard. As long as it is a note, like C-1 or something. If I'm not mistaken, the APC40 uses note date for all buttons and the footpedal instead of Control Change #'s.

[Sebastian]

yes a midi note seems to work better, I tried it. But since I used a note from my MIDI guitar, it means the Looper IS A PIECE OF SHIT for now

[ovorigin]

it certainly is a piece of shit, as for 'for now' its been useless for nearly a year now.

I bought live 8 for the looper mainly, I should have known better and got a hardware looper that is actually useable.

majorly lame ableton.

[agent314]

Are you trying to use the big button or the 4 smaller buttons?

I have 4 buttons on my LPD8 mapped to the play/record/stop/clear buttons, and it works just fine for me.

[skateboardkid]

Double tapping on the MPTB will stop the looper, and holding down the MPTB for 2 seconds will clear the recording, freeing up a loop for future use.

taken from http://rewiredforsound.blogspot.com/200 ... nopad.html

which I highly recommend watching if you want to use like 6 loopers live!!

[jdp]

Like the FCB1010, Live's looper can be infuriating until you figure it out. I use a MIDI foot controller to send a MIDI note mapped to the all-in-one button. Subsequent taps loop me through the record, overdub, and play functions. A double tap stops the loop. A held tap clears the loop.

I find it is often convenient to <play> before I record anything or even start an instance of looper running. I usually tap a tempo to start Live playing, then when I start a looper running I have a visual display of the tempo and loop length. To the extent I've had problems with looper, it's been mostly associated with letting Live guess tempo and loop length when I begin recording without Live already playing.

- Joel

Joel David Palmer
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