midi/key mapping, this may be impossible but....

[jord peck]

Say for instance you've set up plugins/levels for a particular song, we'll call this song "song A", and then another set of plug ins for song b. You are performing live and would like to switch from song a to b and then to c etcetera. Is there a way to do this by just clicking one button? For instance- click once you have song A settings, click again song A settings turn off and song B settings turn on, click again and song b settings turn off and C turn on. Also, Is it possible to map it out so if your pressed the A key it would turn on the A plugins and turn off all other plugins, press the B key it would turn on song b and turn off all other active plugins etc. I feel like I've seen an external program out there that could do this but I can't find it. Any help would be greatly appreciated! Thanks.

Jord Peck
myspace.com/jordpeck

[chapelier fou]

I am not sure of what you mean.
Are your "songs" in the same "set" ?
If yes, then it could depend on your midi controler, if you have presets on it.

[delicioso]

Look into chains inside a rack. You can map the chain selector position to different midi buttons for example.

[chapelier fou]

right !

[jord peck]

Phenomenal! THANK YOU THANK YOU THANK YOU : ) This will improve my performance flow so much! I am curious if it is possible to assign a specific key to each song that will turn on that songs plug ins and turn off all others so I can jump around a bit if need be instead of having to stick to a rigid set list. Also is it possible to assign a key that will move backwards on the ruler instead of just forward?

I posted this on electro-music.com as well and someone asked why I don't just use "A/B settings". I tried searching but couldn't figure out what that meant. Still waiting for a reply.

Thanks again!

[jord peck]

I just encountered a problem. I realized that when I go from one chain zone to the next it does mute previous chains but it does not turn off thier plug ins and I'm running far to many plug ins to have them all on at the same time!!!! ouch. Solutions???

[chapelier fou]

If you only have two chains, you could map the device on/off to the same knob as the chain selector. For more chains, I am not sure.

[jord peck]

Yeah, I'm running several chains... It's just nuts! Seems like there should be some way to do this easy. This is "live" after all. Lol. Thanks.

[djgroovy]

Maybe keymap all your "song a" plugins on/off to a keystroke like shift-a or so?
That way you can turn them all off after you finish that song.

Also you can use different midi channels for controling each song.

[crumhorn]

If I recall correctly it makes no difference from a CPU point of view if a plug in is turned on or off. Live automatically stops processing on chains that can't be heard.

[djgroovy]

If I recall correctly it makes no difference from a CPU point of view if a plug in is turned on or off. Live automatically stops processing on chains that can't be heard.

No, just some of the native ableton devices do that, not all.
And certainly not 3rd party plugins.

[crumhorn]

^^^

Well, I'm not saying this is absolutely true in all circumstances, but VST plugins run as subroutines called from the host. The host calls the plugin's "process" function passing it a bunch of samples to process (dependent on the plugin buffer size setting). The Plugin returns having calculated the resultant output. If the host doesn't call the process function the plugin it can't use any CPU. It can still occupy memory, but that is also true when the plugin is turned off. AUs may be a bit different, don't really know.

The only exception to this would be if the plugin created it's own execution threads for whatever reason (probably to manage disk I/O), but I would guess that is quite rare.

[djgroovy]

I don't really know the technicalities behind it, so i'll shut up now.

[crumhorn]

I don't really know the technicalities behind it, so i'll shut up now.

Well I'd be lying if I said I was totally certain of all this, so I'd probably best shut up as well.

Perhaps someone from Ableton will provide the definitive answer?

[jord peck]

Maybe keymap all your "song a" plugins on/off to a keystroke like shift-a or so?
That way you can turn them all off after you finish that song.

Also you can use different midi channels for controling each song.

What possibilities are there in using different midi channels?

I run three midi keyboards but also vocal mic, guitar, and drum mics.

I've been mapping all the songs to key strokes, 1,2,3, etc. It'd just improve the flow of my show so much if I didn't have to look over at my computer after every song click a button to turn off the current song and then click another to turn on the next. It really interrupts the fluidity of performance. If I mess up and accidently turn on two mic chains at the same time feed back is insane so I have to make sure I don't accidentally do that which takes away from what I should be doing- playing music. Also clicking one off and then briefly losing audio while I click the other is annoying and uncommon for an audience to hear, especially if I'm saying something in between songs. It works but it would be so much better if I could find a way to fix it so I just have to stomp once or click once.

No, just some of the native ableton devices do that, not all.
And certainly not 3rd party plugins.

Unfortunately most of my plugins are 3rd party NI stuff : (