my favoritest Live 5 trick as of late

Share your favorite Ableton Live tips, tricks, and techniques.
mikemc
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my favoritest Live 5 trick as of late

Post by mikemc » Mon Nov 07, 2005 5:25 pm

Create an empty midi clip in a midi track, for example #5. Draw in a "stack" of notes. Do not place an instrument in this track, but place:

Arpeggiator
Scale
Random (deactivated)

this track becomes your "source track". You're not making any noise just yet.

Pick a few synths you like, put these in other tracks, as destination tracks.
Use the Chords midi effect on one of these as your "rhythm" track, where that synth is an electric piano or something similar. Use the Pitch effect on another track, where it is transposed down -12. You can narrow the st value, so it does not play the entire range, for more 'incidental' bass. All of these are getting midi input from track 5.

Place Beat Repeat into an audio track. Also maybe something like supatrigga or Live Cut. Add Phaser (deactivated) This is your drum track. (sure, you could also use impulse/midi clip in a midi track with the same effects)

Set up some effects in a return track, ping pong, grain delay, auto filter, your various favorites.

Auditory stimulation occurs now: drop in a drum loop into the audio track.
Let it ride for a while, it will auto-morph. Open up the wav in clip envelope view, scrub it a little, or draw a varying transpose envelope if you want.

Now, arm the bass synth track, then your 'rhythm' track, then others. Go to track 5 "source" midi, and remove/add notes, or stretch them, mess with the Arp options. Turn on the Random effect for a change up. Drop Velocity effects in the destination synth tracks. Throw some stuff over to the returns, turn on an audio track for resample. Or just sit back and grin.


it's not only good, it's good for you. :)
UTENZIL a tool... of the muse.

starving student
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Post by starving student » Mon Nov 07, 2005 9:32 pm

good shit :!:

keep'em comin mike, we got you on radar

Sinjin
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Post by Sinjin » Fri Nov 11, 2005 10:51 am

holy shit.

i dont know what more i can say....

i did all this over the top of a skinny puppy drum loop....holy shit. instant 80's industrial. wow. i am thoroughy impressed. not to mention inspired.
"I shoulda done the hat dance..."
http://www.myspace.com/ibsinjin - Where I posts my tunes

Nightrider
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Post by Nightrider » Sat Nov 12, 2005 10:35 am

got anymore tricks like this? that one was hot

RobStrobe
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Post by RobStrobe » Sat Nov 12, 2005 11:28 am

you ROCK!!!

=)
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Silence
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Post by Silence » Sun Nov 13, 2005 1:55 am

hate to be dense but i cant make it work really...im extreamly new to this, any pics or an als file? :D

it seems cool but im not down with live yet! :)

peace!

kabuki
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Post by kabuki » Sun Nov 13, 2005 2:24 am

Got a file to post? Sounds fun (but complicated)
15" PB 2.5 Ghz, 4 Gig RAM, 750 GB HD, Live 9 still no cue points or program change messages?!?. Doesn't do shit.

mikemc
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Post by mikemc » Sun Nov 13, 2005 2:26 am

Silence wrote:hate to be dense but i cant make it work really...im extreamly new to this, any pics or an als file? :D

it seems cool but im not down with live yet! :)

peace!
I will do some screenshots next week, and/or post an .als somewhere where people can get to it.

Nightrider, The other things I've been messing with involve FLStudio 5 (see "ARPAGEDDON..." this forum) and also Plogue Bidule. There are some variations on this method, for example, recording clips in the "destination" tracks (say the one playing chords), and then moving that into the "source" track, feeding it back around. Another other variation that I haven't set up yet is to more or less autogenerate and randomize through midi triggering keystrokes to do clip recording/moving.
UTENZIL a tool... of the muse.

mikemc
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Post by mikemc » Fri Nov 18, 2005 8:20 pm

Here is a very simple example Live 5 set, using instances of Operator.

http://utenzil.com/livesets/asian_flayvor.zip

Also, a variation on the methodology, creating samples on the fly,
dropping them into simpler. This was also posted in the General forum.

It uses this effect

http://www.utenzil.com/vst/XYMultiMunger-ns.dll

a VST I did for fun, it is a little 'dangerous' but am having some fun with it so I'm passing it along. This is less for live use and more for coming up with interesting sound samples and textures. Here's how I've used it:

sample live set:
http://www.utenzil.com/livesets/xymunge_sample.zip

The sample has the VST on a return track.
Operator (no preset, use the 'factory default' sine tone) in a MIDI track.
Run one or two notes (say a fifth apart) into the midi track, creating a simple loop.
Run that into the return track, mess with some of the buttons. The waveform settings will add some nice resonance.
When you get an interesting sound, route the return into an audio track and record it.
Drop that into simpler (in the midi track next to the Operator) and save as a preset for later use if you want. The Simpler is set up with an arp to pulse along with the 'drone'. Drop in beats, etc as you like.

So you mess with the settings while letting the loop run. It can get some nice phat resonant/distorted sounds from that simple sin setting.

The 'dangerous' parts are:

When you turn the LFOs on, you can get some peaks, but also some interesting pulsing.

Slight adjustments, particularly to waveforms, result in a large change.

You can get some static-y noise on some settings and when moving the xy ball around and on some adjustments. In general, 'unpretty' noises can result.

Along with the delays and flange, it uses waveforms, filters, rectifiers and peak followers.
UTENZIL a tool... of the muse.

Silence
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Post by Silence » Sun Nov 20, 2005 12:29 am

thanx man, i´ll give it a try tomorrow!! super duper thanx man! *urkle chuckle*

Johnisfaster
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Post by Johnisfaster » Tue Nov 22, 2005 2:51 am

the file of yours peeked my cpu out like crazyyyyyyyyyyyy. I had to disable so many fx just to get it to work. not sure why as my computer can usually handle alot of work like that.

I'm kinda missing the point of only using one midi track to control others? couldn't you just cut and paste the midi clip into each track? or is this so that you can have the same arp and random and velocity adjustments (from the midi fx) happening on each track in unison?
It was as if someone shook up a 6 foot can of blood soda and suddenly popped the top.

M. Bréqs
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Post by M. Bréqs » Tue Nov 22, 2005 4:30 am

Johnisfaster wrote:the file of yours peeked my cpu out like crazyyyyyyyyyyyy. I had to disable so many fx just to get it to work. not sure why as my computer can usually handle alot of work like that.
Because you're using a powerbook G4 dude, and most sets made on a computer with an Athlon 64 3400+, well... Lets just say that in order to make a set that would work on your notebook the original composition would have to use less than maybe 10 or 15% of the Athlon 64's processing power.

Check out the benchmark tests for the G4s...

mikemc
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Post by mikemc » Tue Nov 22, 2005 6:29 am

Johnisfaster wrote:the file of yours peeked my cpu out like crazyyyyyyyyyyyy. I had to disable so many fx just to get it to work. not sure why as my computer can usually handle alot of work like that.

I'm kinda missing the point of only using one midi track to control others? couldn't you just cut and paste the midi clip into each track? or is this so that you can have the same arp and random and velocity adjustments (from the midi fx) happening on each track in unison?

Right, the unison and not-quite-unison thing is what makes it interesting. Using the pitch in a limited tone range creates incidental notes, using the chords (or not) and random (or not) and scales (or not) allows you to evolve the patterns across tracks by clicking effects on and off as opposed to moving around clips. Yeh, and depending on the number ofsimultaneous notes in the midi tracks it is maybe a more cpu intensive methodology.
UTENZIL a tool... of the muse.

kabelton
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Post by kabelton » Tue Nov 22, 2005 11:35 pm

hey, thanks a lot!!! :lol:

DeadlyKungFu
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Post by DeadlyKungFu » Wed Nov 23, 2005 6:56 am

I've done something similar to this...

In short, start with a long midi loop, have that feed a slow arpeggiator, which in turn feeds a slightly more active arp, which feeds a more active arp and so on and so on... As the arps upstream change, the ones downstream follow them. It follows traditional band techniques, the bass player keeps a groove in a key, the rhythm player plays chords, the lead player goes off but follows the chords, but they all follow the same lead chart.

Here's a very basic layout.

4 MIDI tracks (Leaving out a drum track of your choice, put it on track 5).

Track 1
- Set the 'Input Type' to 'No Input' so it follows the MIDI clip
- Put notes at the start of measures 1 and 2, lasting 1 measure each (stretch the notes out). Such as C-E-G (C major chord) at measure 1 and A-C-E (A minor chord) at meaure 2, or whatever, just space them out. C to Am is a nice, simple chord progression.

Track 2
- Set 'Monitoring' to 'In' (do this for all the remaining MIDI tracks)
- Input Type = Track 1
- insert a pad

Track 3
- Set 'Monitoring' to 'In'
- Source = Track 2
- insert an arpeggiator, rate = 1/8 or 1/4... bass note length
- insert a bass patch

Track 4
- Set 'Monitoring' to 'In'
- Source = Track 3
- insert an arpeggiator, rate = 1/8 or 1/16 or... lead note length, you get the point...
- insert a lead patch

So now one feeds another, good fun, it's a jam.

Then assign a mod wheel to an 'interesting' parameter for each soft/hard synths (click the triangular button above a plug in's window in Live to show its MIDI assignable bling bling).

Now take track 1 and set its 'Monitoring' to your MIDI keyboard and all 4 parts follow your fingers. 8O Oooh to be an octopus...

Just remember to keep RECORD running and splice together the good bits.

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