force drum rack layout on push

[mduncs]

any way to force a drum rack layout instead of melodic?

i want to do this because i often route multiple midi tracks to one drum rack so that i can write polymetric beats.



the poly tracks get the correct names from each drum rack cell in the midi editor but the Push always defaults to melodic.



as far as i know adding a drum rack to the poly tracks isnt an option because it disables the "MIDI to" option on the track.....

would be nice if you could choose layouts with a button combo i.e. shift or select + layout
thanx

[Willyum]

I'm not even sure what you just said...... Polimetr-what???

Anyway... what I normaly do if I want to use the drum rack sequencer with a keyboard sound is....

Creat an empty drum rack...
right click, group it...
click the chain selector button to expose the chains...
Then drop any instrument in a chain UNDER the drum rack. (not on a drum pad)

Ta-dah
Drum rack sequencer on push with keyboard sounds.

Hope this is what you were asking.

[Willyum]

Also in the chain selector, you can set your key range's... I see you have multiple keyboard instruments loaded... you use the key ranges to separate them out by notes if you don't want them to all overlap.

[Willyum]

It should look like this... Drum rack then a bunch of instruments... Still shows as drum rack on push.

I also show two of the instruments with key ranges... also added a blend where I had the key range overlap... thats the little bar on top of the bigger bars...

[Willyum]

Another thing you can do to speed things up with the key ranges (cause I'm guessing you want different sounds on different pads)

If you want to speed up setting the different keyboards to different pads you can control/cmd select all the instruments... drag the bar over to where you want the first note to be (maybe C2) then while still selected, drag the end of the bars to where the last key should be (here 4 instruments would be up to D#2)... All your instruments will be stacked on top of each other in this small zone.... right click and hit 'Distribute Ranges equally' Now each drum pad will play a different instrument. And if you checked your tuning with the tuner and made sure you were on the proper root note... then your drum rack will be in a proper chromatic scale just with different sound for each note

[Willyum]

[Willyum]

If you really want to get crazy with it...

Once all your instruments are tuned properly...
Leave them at the full key range, instead go to the chain selector tab...
Extend all instruments to the full range, and do the 'distribute equally' thing...
Right click in the numbers area of the chain selector and assign chain selector to macro 1....
Add the M4L 'LFO Midi' device in front of the rack, on the bottom of this device, click 'Map' then click macro 1...

You should see the chain selector rapidly picking different chains. Now each drum pad will play from a different instrument randomly (change rate of lfo so it is not in sync with your tempo)

This means if you hit the same pad over and over it will sound different each time but still be in key.

[Willyum]

I think you'll really like this video... He's here in these forums. He's like an ableton God!

https://youtu.be/tcWkxwM61v4

[Stromkraft]

any way to force a drum rack layout instead of melodic?

as far as i know adding a drum rack to the poly tracks isnt an option because it disables the "MIDI to" option on the track..

You force drum rack layout by adding one.

Use "External Instrument", on a pad/chain, that let's you route MIDI per pad and send the audio back as well. The audio can go anywhere though and you can pretty much keep the instruments where you want including in the same track as the main drum rack.

[mduncs]

You force drum rack layout by adding one.

Use "External Instrument", on a pad/chain, that let's you route MIDI per pad and send the audio back as well. The audio can go anywhere though and you can pretty much keep the instruments where you want including in the same track as the main drum rack.

i can't get any drum racks or instruments to show up in the destination for external instrument devices. the set that this one is in has a drum rack and two vst plugins loaded as instruments but only effects plugins show up as destinations.

[Stromkraft]

i can't get any drum racks or instruments to show up in the destination for external instrument devices. the set that this one is in has a drum rack and two vst plugins loaded as instruments but only effects plugins show up as destinations.

That's audio sources not destinations. How have you set up Diva for its outputs?

I did have some issues of my own with External Instruments in Drum Racks together with Softube Heartbeat only. Then member login shared his setup to show it could be done. I'm so grateful. I've yet to determine how my set up, that works with everything else, is different.

It's possible then we both hit upon a bug in Live involving drum racks. If you remove the drum rack and only have External Instrument in that track, can you then see and select the outputs of Diva? Unfortunately I don't have Diva so can't try myself.

[garyboozy]

mduncs, you're only going to get more and more frustrated trying to attempt to do polyrhythms in the way you're attempting to. i've been there myself using dummy drum racks, IAC routings etc and it's just not worth the headache and cumbersome workflow.

it's much easier to go with a 3rd party solution. i highly recommend Skinnerbox's Time & Timbre pack, which has the great polyrhythmic sequencer Time, after which you can add a drum rack and fill each cell with whatever device you wish. it works fully with Push too.

https://www.ableton.com/en/packs/time-t ... kinnerbox/

[mduncs]

That's audio sources not destinations. How have you set up Diva for its outputs?

nah those are the destinations, it is under MIDI To and the audio sources only has one dropdown box, underneath what i screenshotted.

here's what an empty midi track in the same set gives me for destinations:


it lets you funnel midi from this track to any plugin or rack

^when you set it up like this going into a drum rack, Live will automatically get the names of different drum rack cells and show them in the midi editor:


so it knows that this track is sequencing another drum rack, but the Push 2 stays in melodic sequencer mode.

i'll look into the skinnerbox thing. i'd much rather just have two midi tracks in my set but maybe this works.

[garyboozy]

you can also use the MIDI Sender/Receiver devices in this free MfL pack:
https://www.ableton.com/en/packs/max-7- ... -machines/

drop a Sender device onto the Drum Rack pads in place of the External Instrument device (as you've seen, that doesn't work) and drop a Receiver device infront of the main Drum Rack.

[mduncs]

you can also use the MIDI Sender/Receiver devices in this free MfL pack:
https://www.ableton.com/en/packs/max-7- ... -machines/

drop a Sender device onto the Drum Rack pads in place of the External Instrument device (as you've seen, that doesn't work) and drop a Receiver device infront of the main Drum Rack.

this works. thanks.