Realtime Looping ESSENTIAL CONFIG

[Nightrider]

Yeah i was vert dissapointed i bought live before i found out live couldnt do sound on sound looping

i feel for ya buddy

same sadness here

cry cry cry

sound on sound looping is totally possible 1st a few instances of mda's looplex and 2ndly Phatconductors live looping.als

There you have it live sound on sound looping.

[mooncaine]

Why not? Because I didn't know till you suggested it -- but I'm gonna try it. Thanks!

If I understand you correctly, those numbers you used for Pedal 3 thru Pedal 7 are MIDI CC numbers, right? What value do you send with those... 127?

Or are those MIDI note numbers, too?

I'll have to send 'em on a different channel because the guitar synth I use wants six channels and it's easiest for me to keep it all straight if I put the guitar synth on channel 1. So far I've been using channel 10 for sending control from my Trigger Finger, since that channel seems to be used by some folks for drums, just to help me remember. I set my FCB to use channel 15 for everything but notes, and to send notes on 16. I hope that habit will keep me from accidentally triggering automated stuff when I'm playing music, or playing notes when I stomp a footswitch to trigger automated stuff.

[mooncaine]

OMG! It's actually working. Thanks so much! I'm going to search some more, to find out the answers to a few remaining mysteries, but you just found something that is 99.9% of what I was after! I was able to do a live looping test where I started looping in cell 1/track 1, then moved over to cell 1/track 2 and started looping in that, and so on for 4 tracks of sound-on-sound.

When I wanted to move down to scene 2, though, I was stumped a bit: what do I want to do next? I think I want to start recording in a cell in scene 2, so I can build a B section for a song, but scene 1 is still playing. What I might need is a way to start recording and stop whatever's already playing, on the beat, with one footstomp. Hmm.

That'll take some experimenting on my part. Right now I'm toying with setting the default Launch mode to Toggle.

Remaining mysteries, in no particular order:

• 1. Is it possible to have all this happen on MIDI channel 15, or whatever channel, instead of 1?
  
  2. Is there a list somewhere of what other functions are triggered by which other MIDI note numbers?
  
  3. Is one of those functions "stop the currently selected clip"? That way I wouldn't have to set Launch mode to Toggle just to stop clips and restart 'em.
  
  4. Is it possible to find the file where this Mackie Control preset stuff was saved, open it in a text editor, and maybe learn from it, or even create my own variation?

Whew! I spent the last hour making goofy Kid Beyond-ish music in my kitchen with my MBP. Thanks! I feel like a great cloud has lifted and I can see for miles.

[xrayfish]

If I understand you correctly, those numbers you used for Pedal 3 thru Pedal 7 are MIDI CC numbers, right? What value do you send with those... 127?

Or are those MIDI note numbers, too

They were midi note numbers (as you probably worked out by now)

Remaining mysteries, in no particular order:
1. Is it possible to have all this happen on MIDI channel 15, or whatever channel, instead of 1?

Probably not (though i'm no expert), i think the Mackie emulation requires it to be Ch1. You could use something like Midipipe to take the input of the BCR (on ch 15) and change it to Ch 1 before it goes into Live (in which case your Mackie control surface would be the midipipe output rather than the Midiport you specified before. But be warned it takes some head scratching to work it out, although it works very well there appears to be no documentation for it at all, you just have to figure it out by trial and error. Using midimonitor is a big help here to see what's actually being transmitted at any one time.

I'd like to do something similar to control Line 6 gearbox so I'll give it a go when I've got time, that also wants messages on Ch1 (but mostly CC rather than midi notes AFAIK)

2. Is there a list somewhere of what other functions are triggered by which other MIDI note numbers?

Yes there's plenty of posts on this forum that spell it out.

also see here

http://members.aol.com/mhigrules/MCMap.htm

3. Is one of those functions "stop the currently selected clip"? That way I wouldn't have to set Launch mode to Toggle just to stop clips and restart 'em.

Possibly.

But if you just want to start a new clip, as soon as you begin recording on that track it stops the clip that was previously playing. The rest of the tracks carry on regardless unless you pressed 'play scene' instead in which case they all record together.

Incidentally, the 'stop' button just stops playback, it doesn't 'stop all clips', so when you start anything again the clips carry on playing. However there's nothing to prevent you mapping that same button to 'stop all clips' at the same time. To get this to work you need to switch reomte ON for the midi input you're using (in live's prefs). Then midimap that footswitch to the stop all clips button

4. Is it possible to find the file where this Mackie Control preset stuff was saved, open it in a text editor, and maybe learn from it, or even create my own variation?

Sorry, that's beyond me. As i understand it Live is expecting the mackie commands and when it gets them it behaves accordingly. Your list of presets is the Mackie list, I don't think you can alter it. But you can translate non-mackie commands into mackie ones using midipipe if you know what you're doing.

Anyway, glad it works for you, hope you get the other 0.1% figured

[xrayfish]

Here's a few more mackie commands you might find useful

Midi
Note Action

95 record (arrangement)
77 browse
86 loop
76 undo
75 vst/clip
74 tab
78 hide clip/vst
88 follow
86 loop
80 ret to arrangement
82 mark
84 prev marker
85 next marker
94 play
91 rew
92 FF


You could also try this:

Get a midi keyboard
Set it to Ch 1
Define it as a mackie control in Live prefs in the same way you did the footpedal (track sync remote all OFF)

Press each note one at a time right through the scale and see what effect it has on Live. This is how I finally figured it all out

you could do the same for CCs sent out by faders/knobs if you have 'em (change the CC value of the knob and see what it does)
I haven't done this yet though

Cheers

[mooncaine]

xrayfish, you have given me much that is helpful. Thanks loads! I'll research Mackie Control on this board, to flesh out a complete list. The key is what Ableton Live does in response to a given MIDI command when it thinks it's connected to a Mackie Control -- these commands you've told me about haven't appeared in Ableton Live documentation, AFAIK, and aren't accessible directly by just mapping MIDI commands to the controls that Ableton actually told us about in the manual. I just found a reference in the Live 6 manual to a Live Lesson about Control Surfaces, checked it out, and it also says nothing about the hidden commands in Live that are accessible via MIDI.

You cracked open a safe, and the secrets are dripping out like ... yummy secret stuff.

[Tone Deft]

bump because this is super cool, makes a hands free recording setup sooo much easier. thanks mother wherever you went!!!

[mooncaine]

Yes, indeed.

I tried to save it to PDF, but the %#@$! forum has so many options disabled, I can't make it show the whole thread at once, and it's up to 5 "pages".

Anyway, it's my goal to preserve all info related to this, so if this thread ever disappears, keep my username. PM me. I'll repost.

[Tone Deft]

with this I got my first max/msp plug in to work. I thought I had to hack it because I overlooked track arming, this made it all soooo much easier.

1 button to do recording on ANY number of tracks (use a stomp switch for hands free). press the button, it records and automatically goes into play mode, press it again, it does the same for the next track, when you get to the last track it advances the scene and starts over again. I wanna play with it a bit more before I post the files but it seems to work. Anyway, I think I saved myself $150 for an FCB1010 (I'll get one eventually).

[kosovopascal]

with this I got my first max/msp plug in to work. I thought I had to hack it because I overlooked track arming, this made it all soooo much easier.

1 button to do recording on ANY number of tracks (use a stomp switch for hands free). press the button, it records and automatically goes into play mode, press it again, it does the same for the next track, when you get to the last track it advances the scene and starts over again. I wanna play with it a bit more before I post the files but it seems to work. Anyway, I think I saved myself $150 for an FCB1010 (I'll get one eventually).

I could totally use that!!

[amcnally336]

Hey Tone,
You have a pad kontrol, don't you? Check out beatwise.proboards80.com or type in stray411 on youtube. We have been working on a looping config using the padkontrol and the pedal. We could use your knowledge and input, but the basic idea is that we use the PK scene changes to arm a track, and then use the pedal to start/stop recording on that slot. No real need for an fcb1010 anymore. It works really well. Check it out! Note-all credit on this set-up goes to Stray! He is really open to collaboration, however...great guy!

[Tone Deft]

no, not a PK user, sorry.

I'll give the max patch a look over tonight, I just need to add some instructions and speed it up a bit.

the idea is that you tell the max patch how many tracks you want, call it X

everytime you press a button the patch spits out a note, waits a second then spits that note out again. then it does that for X+1 notes, the last being to bump down a scene.

you assign those notes to the 'launch current clip' buttons at the bottom of each track, the ones that only show up in midi assign mode. you can do the assign from the patch, same for next scene.

I also worked in a 'learn mode' so the patch learns your button.

it's my first patch, so it might not look pretty.

[Tone Deft]

1 button to do recording on ANY number of tracks (use a stomp switch for hands free). press the button, it records and automatically goes into play mode, press it again, it does the same for the next track, when you get to the last track it advances the scene and starts over again. I wanna play with it a bit more before I post the files but it seems to work. Anyway, I think I saved myself $150 for an FCB1010 (I'll get one eventually).

I could totally use that!!

I finally followed up on this
http://www.ableton.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=70559
works great!! I'm very happy with it.

[booxtenue]

Thank to you for the help me!
Now I have no problems

Sammy

_________________________________________________________
ideas to earn money

[meeble]

Hello,

I'm looking to use a setup like this with my FCB1010. Currently, everything works well when I trigger recording with the mouse in a cell.

But, how should I setup my FCB1010 to make ONE foot-switch start recording on the first available cell on a track? i.e. I hit a foot-switch to record a loop in the first cell on a track - but the first attempt to loop my bass may not go so well, so I hit the same FCB switch again to start recording on the next scene down on the same track. I want to be able to do this again and again until I like the loop performance. any ideas?

thx
meeble