open any clip in step sequencer or note mode without add-ons

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neuromodulator
Posts: 85
Joined: Mon Dec 07, 2009 6:05 am

open any clip in step sequencer or note mode without add-ons

Post by neuromodulator » Sun May 19, 2013 11:58 pm

So I think I just figured out how to do something complicated. It's possible that people already knew this, of course, but my understanding of solutions presented previously is that they would let you "trick" Live into opening a non-step sequencer clip with a step sequencer, but not switch between them, and I appear to have just figured out how to switch between them at will. Now, I am using the beta, and haven't confirmed with the release version.

I also think this is kinda hard to explain, but maybe as I type it, it will become clear.

What I was doing was making a little Max patch to scale the aftertouch from Push, because I find it too sensitive. And I decided what I would do, instead of putting this device on every track, was to put it one track and make all my other tracks get their MIDI input from there. And that's when I discovered the trick at the crux of this whole topic: when a track does not get its input directly from Push, the track select buttons behave differently.

Under normal functionality (your tracks get their MIDI input from Push directly), selecting a track immediately causes it to arm. If your track does NOT get its input from Push directly, the track select buttons select tracks only, with a second tap arming the selected track. This small change allows what I've been trying (unsuccessfully) to hack the Push script to do.

So here's the setup. The track order is not important, but I think you'd want to lay it out so that your drum rack tracks and your "note" tracks are early in your set layout, because the other stuff is for routing only and you never want to select/look at it. All tracks are MIDI tracks.

1 - the "note" track (by note I mean "non-step sequencer note mode" for Push)
MIDI from track 3
Monitor In
No Output

2 - the "drum rack"
MIDI from Ableton Live Push Port
Monitor Auto
Audio Output irrelevant
put a drum rack on it, duh

3 - the "fake out" track. This track exists just to break the direct connection between Push and track 1, allowing track 1 to be selected from Push without arming it.
MIDI from Ableton Live Push Port
Monitor In
No Output

4 - the "instrument" track
MIDI from 2 Drum Rack Post FX
Monitor In
Output to instrument (either external MIDI or on the track)

5 - the "feedback". This bounces the drum track output to track 1, so that you get visual feedback on step sequencer notes when looking at the Push Controller in note mode.
MIDI from 2 Drum Rack Post FX
Monitor In
Output to 1 MIDI Track in

Now, with these tracks set up, you can double tap track 2 to select and then arm it, and then use the select buttons again to flip between track 1 (looking at note mode) and track 2 (looking at step sequencer mode). Just leave track 2 armed (i.e. don't double tap anything again or you risk arming track 1 and you don't really want track 1 to record anything).

You could duplicate as necessary for more instruments (you don't need to duplicate track 3, only the others). A reminder again that you probably want all your note and drum rack tracks at the front of your set.

The cons right now are this: the double-tapping is an extra step, and it could get confusing with multiple instruments if you select an improper pairing (e.g. arm the drum rack for instrument X and select the note track for instrument Y - I think I can work around this with some max selected_track monitoring, but I'm trying to keep this solution add-on free). Also, since the note tracks are effectively empty containers, you need to do all your double/new business over on your drum rack tracks.

But other than that this works exactly as I wanted Push to. I'm not sure if the crux-trick mentioned above will be perceived by Ableton as a bug, though, so it's entirely possible this trick will be patched away.

Have fun! Let me know if you run into problems.
Last edited by neuromodulator on Mon May 20, 2013 12:05 am, edited 1 time in total.

neuromodulator
Posts: 85
Joined: Mon Dec 07, 2009 6:05 am

Re: open any clip in step sequencer or note mode without add-ons

Post by neuromodulator » Mon May 20, 2013 12:04 am

Oh, I guess another issue is that your instrument is moved to another track, so you don't really have access to it and your note modes at the same time. I use external instruments so I wasn't really using Push for parameter control, but I suppose if you do that's another "con". You might be able to modify this setup I guess by removing the instrument track and placing the instrument after the drum rack on track 2.

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