A couple of HOW TO questions

[Aldanor]

Hello all,

I'm kind of new to Live, was previously (and actively) using FL Studio - so I've gotta couple of newbiesh 'how to <..> in Live' questions. Just to mention, I'm focusing on progtrance and idm music.

1) What I was usually doing in FL - load up a dozen of drum samples in sequencer, apply effects where necessary, start creating patterns - say, several kick patterns, several for hats, some for claps etc. In 10 minutes or so I can have twenty fully stuffed and fxed patterns and I go to song editor and use them as building blocks to lay out the drum track structure, takes 1 minute.

What is the fastest way to do it this way in Live (drum track from a scratch in 10 minutes)? Use Impulse / racked Simpler / Battery / whatever else and start drawing midi in session view?

What do you usually do to lay out drum tracks and do you record em in arr. or sess. views?

2) Session vs Arrangement: in FL everything is clear, song is made of patterns and audio clips apart, patterns (and only patterns) are stuffed with midi, that's it. What confuses me in Live: strange relationship between sess/arr views. Say, I made 20 midi clips in session view, grouped them into scenes. Now I record the structure into arrangement view - and then I realize I made a mistake in one clip and I want to tweak a single note in it, however session/arr clips seem to be not connected at all.. so I have to go through all recorded clips in arr view and change that note manually? Is there a way to 'link clips' in arr. view - so that all linked clips change if I edit one? It makes sense if I do manual gating / enveloping.

What is your usual sequence of actions when you wanna sketch your idea from a scratch quickly?

P.S. I am not a big fan of using ANY kind of loops (only use them for heavy granulizing or for slicing up to grab a sample), so I usually mess with one-shot libraries.

[Michael-SW]

I always do my thinking and experimenting in Session view. Inset drum machine of your choice on a track, double klick to get a clip and use the pen tool.

If you are using Impulse and "fold" the midi clip, you will get the names of the sample slots displayed by the midi notes.

Then copy the clip, do some variation etc. Insert effects/compressors/eq, add sends.

Then start on (eg) a bass track. Work as above. Trigger the bass together with the drums. Listen. Add a lead track (whatever). Jam with your various clips until you get the sound you want.

Then drag the clips over to Arrangement and start arranging. Do variations, tweak the sounds, work on the automation.

This way of working suits me perfectly. It is soo easy to experiemnt and be creative in Session view.

[Aldanor]

Thanks for reply.

Well, I get a drum machine, then use a pen tool - to lay notes out?

For IDM stuff there should be a great variety of drum sounds and patterns from the very beginning - most likely no single bar will repeat twice during the whole song. That's why I was used to create different patterns for single drums / drum groups to start combining them later on, in FL. Seems I have to use dummy midi channels to route into drum machine - since I am not allowed to trigger clips of the same channel in session view?

And, what about 'linked' clips btw?

[Meef Chaloin]

you can load up more than one drum machine on one track with racks, Covert Operators did one with 128 pads! Then you only need one track & one clip.

[Michael-SW]

Thanks for reply.

Well, I get a drum machine, then use a pen tool - to lay notes out?

Yeah, the pen tool is what you draw notes with. Create as many tracks as you want with a separate drumkit for each track. Impulse is super light on the CPU. That will allow you to layer many different rythmic patterns on top of each other and also to easily control the layering when in arrange view.

[tylenol]

It makes sense if I do manual gating / enveloping.

It may or may not help for what you have in mind, but you should investigate dummy clips, which allow you to dissasociate the gating from a particular clip.

Live doesn't do linked or "ghost" clips (see the recent feature requests thread on this), and I think it would help with a many of the workflow issues you raise. I really hope they add this at some point.