Looper live session with foot controller setup

[replicant6]

Sorry if this has been asked before but I searched and I don't want to spend all night reading the forum...

My live session is going to be fairly simple. 8 tracks, each with a Looper on it.

Is there any way to set a midi foot controller to:
Pedal 1: Current track's Looper multifunction button
Pedal 2: Current track's Looper undo
Pedal 3: Current track's Looper clear
Pedal 4: Next track select, record enable
Pedal 5: Previous track select, record enable

etc...


If this is not possible, how do you guys set it up? Just use looper on the first track and record straight clips on the rest? I'd like to have other layers to create layered harmonies etc...

cheers


R6

[sgreene]

You cannot do this with ableton right now. I use some busses with 2 loopers on them.

I was thinking that max for live would solve this problem, but the button parameter is not available in the API, so it seems you still cannot.

I have however, created a max patch that lets me switch track, scenes and record clips on the current track (and undo) with a foot pedal.

[replicant6]

Thanks so much for your response!

That is so disappointing. It would be so powerful if you could do this. I think I'll get an FCB1010, and set banks 1-8 to control the tracks individually, and then set bank 9 to start/stop all the loopers for arrangement purposes. I guess that's the best I'll get for now.


cheers!


R6

[WFWS]

Sgreene- thats really great to know that M4L can do that sort of modification. Can I run this patch if I DON'T have Max? I have Live 8, but not Max.

Thanks!

WFWS

[Markemark]

You cannot do this with ableton right now. I use some busses with 2 loopers on them.

I was thinking that max for live would solve this problem, but the button parameter is not available in the API, so it seems you still cannot.

I have however, created a max patch that lets me switch track, scenes and record clips on the current track (and undo) with a foot pedal.

I'd love to check out this patch also!! By the way you can access the looper by selecting "state" in the API then you have control over, record, overdub, play, and stop. Unfortunately no undo or clear in the Looper API.

http://forum.ableton.com/viewtopic.php? ... oper+state

[throwlaserbolts]

You can eliminate the need for "record enable" with some simple routing magic. Just bring the live audio into the first track with no looper. This track will serve as the main track where your instrument's live sound is directly routed to the master track (or send or whatever)

Then, create as many tracks as you want with looper in them. Set all these tracks monitoring to "auto", their audio in from your live audio track, but in each looper, be sure to turn off the throughput of the signal coming into the looper (bottom right corner of the looper device - "Input -> Output" - Choose "never". This way, only the loop plays through after you record the passage, and your live audio will not pass through THIS track. Now, record enable all the looper tracks and leave them on! You should not hear your live audio track through them, only a looped passage. Your live audio will still be going to the master from your main audio track.

Now, you can free up the need to midi map "record enable".

I'll be happy to include some screen shots. This is the setup I use with my sax on stage. I really like having multiple loops that you can bring in and out through out piece.

PM me if you need some help!

[WFWS]

Laserbolts, good on ya for this one. I'll try it out this weekend.

I want to use a single Looper to set tempo, but after that I want to record into a clipslot since clips have functionality that looper loops don't. So I really only need say Track 1 to have a looper, and the rest can be armed to record into clipslots- is that right?

So is the monitor and record setup the same for the non-looper tracks? Or more directly, how should I set up monitor or I/O for tracks that accept audio from the Master track, but record into clipslots instead of Looper?

Most loopers play a single instrument and just want Live to do stuff that a looping pedal might do (cool enough). I want to work with another musician, loop his playing, add my own playing all as clips that I can trigger and arrange in scenes. Because I'm principally a guitar player, I need as much as possible to be hands free, so I use a FCB1010 footpedal. I'm sure it can be done, but I'm not there yet.

I appreciate your help!

WFWS

[throwlaserbolts]

To do this to record to clip slots, you must turn monitoring from "auto" to "off". Now the same thing happens - no throughput of the main track, just playback of clips after you record them.

[WFWS]

Laserbolt, YOU ROCK! This works pretty good. What I like is simplicity. I can use just one bank of the FCB1010 footpedal to control the whole thing- select the track, control the looper in the first track, select the next track and clip slot and record then play into that slot. Awesome!

How do you deal with mistakes- any way to delete via midi control, or record over a clip via midi control?

Anyway, THANKS for sharing this!

WFWS

[throwlaserbolts]

I use a footpedal that sends qwerty instead of midi (you can key map triggers same as midi map). So, my pedal has an button with a qwerty command for undo. I do not know how to do this with midi. With Bome's, you can have midi trigger a qwerty combination, but I don't know how to do it. There's also an easier to use program for Mac called "QuicKeys" that will map a midi command to a keyboard shortcut (undo).

[sgreene]

Here's my M4L patch. I've frozen it, so hopefully it will bring everything over for you. It uses several subpatchers/.maxpat files.

The midi notes are hardwired right now. I would have liked to use Live.buttons so you could map your foot control to the max device, but mapping buttons does not work right now - surprisingly it's a feature request!

As other posters said, you can do lot's of this with bome/midistroke, but I figured I'd give this a shot since I knew I'd run into something I couldn't do with a keymapper.

You'll need to change the route object that comes in after midiparse to have the note values your pedal is sending - the row with

21 22 23 24 etc.

Trace the path from each route outlet to it's destination to see what it does.

I have mine layed out like this:

top row: prev track, next track, redo, undo, arm
bottom row: prev scene, next scene, stop clips on track, nothing, fire clip

The track volume slider needs to be mapped.

The file is here: http://www.samgreene.com/drupal_samgree ... leton.amxd

I don't claim to be an expert, as I just started this in the last week, so good luck with my mess