Some questions before switching from RC-50 to Live 8/Laptop

[booksofbokonon]

Hey Itsallsticky!

I started a few years ago with the RC-20, moving on to the RC-50, and finally about a year ago moved to ableton live on a macbook.

It was the best decision I have made in a long time!

I loop guitar, cello, kaossilator, and all sorts of soft synths to a total of 5 instances of looper. 3 set to record then play, 1 set to record then overdub, and 1 to record then reverse. I can always add others but have yet to really need to. You can assign a tempo for each scene, and create one midi clip that spans the entire length of the song. With this midi clip you can have the looper start and stop exactly when you want, change effects parameters, and turn on and off different sound sources. This allows me to automate all of my looping, so all I have to do is pick up my guitar and play at a certain point and ableton will loop it.

Essentially, if you have an idea, ableton will facilitate it.

I also have a midi foot pedal with control over "undo" and "record loop" for each looper. This allows me to redo a loop live when I mess up or to add to a pre written song spontaneously.

All of this works with a live drummer (that ableton feeds a click) and a bassist. You can download our album for free here: http://www.jamendo.com/en/album/48213
All of it is performed live in ableton!

If you have specific questions, feel free to send me a message or reply here!

[mojofunk]

Hi again! If you look closely, the setup idea I mentioned isn't about using returns, but grouped tracks - the beauty of it is that you can separate the input signal from the looped signal, enabling you to apply Live's effects to your loops without effecting (affecting?) your input signal. It also prevents volume problems and makes it easy to add additional loops to the group using lots of different tones on the input (clean, distortion, etc) and various fx on the loops, discretely. Give it a try, I think you will see what I mean (and the vast creative potential it suggests)! When that concept becomes clear, then throw in some return tracks with fx, and, well . . . my head exploded! In a good way!

[Lazos]

Hey mojofunk: Interesting ideas But it seems you could do the same with returns. In another thread, I explained how to do it with returns by properly setting up Looper's monitoring parameters to prevent volume problems and you can also put effects after the Loopers in the return tracks like the grouped tracks.

I guess it's just another way of doing it. Very cool that there are a number of ways to make Live into a multi-track Looper. Good thread

[Gaetano CAPUANO]

Yeah I am still learning this software but I plan on doing some serious looping and such live. Great thread!

[taaloopa]

Hey Jon,

Thanks for the info. It's funny, I've actually watched some vids of you before when I was trying to find guys that did this sort of thing, very cool. Just wanted to ask, have you been live looping in Ableton Live since before the Looper effect came out? i.e. are you using the Looper effect when you perform or simply using clip slots from audio tracks?

Yes, I've been using Live for looping since Live 5, so well before looper. At the moment I'm running Live 6.5 as it's been very stable for me for some time.

Thinking of moving to L8 now though - how are people finding it for live looping? - with or without the looper tool?
Be interested to hear what's changed in Live 8 that is particularly useful ( or problematic) for live looping.

As you can see from the threads so far, the flexibility of Live is one of it's strongest points - everyone seems to find their own preferred method of setting it up for what they do & how they work.

Great thread & good to start hearing more from live loopers here.

[ItsAllSticky]

I'm so pumped that everyone's beginning to chime in! Something I've been thinking about lately is the difficulty involved when searching for info about Live Looping with Ableton, whether it be searching the forum or youtube. I think it's because 1)Live is the name of the program, so that pops up along with "live" in the sense of playing live, and 2) "Looping" is one of the primary functions of Live (let's not do the "Live is clip-based, not loop-based" thing), y'all know what I mean. So searching "live looping" brings up a bunch of stuff about using loops in Ableton live and not "Live Looping" in the sense that we're using it here. Ahhhhhhh.....

Anyway, I've tried both the returns based approach suggested by Lazos and the Group-based approach suggested by mojofunk and both have worked well. As stated, the real issue is turning off Looper's Input->Output setting to "Never" to prevent volume ganging, was that the word that was used?

For myself, I really appreciate the graphical side of Looper over the RC-50, so you can see where you are. I'm so excited I just mapped my pedal to send both Multifunction looper control and track select at the same time so every time I start a loop, it shows me which one I'm recording into! Yay!

Ordered my Roland FC-300 today and can't wait to get going. This sustain pedal "RC-2" style bulls**t is for the birds! (but awesome if you've never looped before or only need the one looper, no offense to the one pedal guys )

booksofbokonon: nice sounding album, i listened to the first track and decided to download it so I can listen on the way to a gig tonight in FL (2 hour drive). It seems we took the same route, RC-20...RC-50...Live, and I'm also excited about integrating it with my band as well, we already use a click with the RC-50

Oh yeah, just wanna say thanks to everyone here for being so helpful and friendly. I'm not a big forum guy, especially at 5'7", more of a searcher than a poster, but I'll be around here for a good while. I sincerely look forward to sharing ideas and getting to the point where I can offer some knowledge instead of just taking it!

-Ian

[mojofunk]

Right on! This place is greatly useful, inspiring, entertaining, and at times odd.

Speaking of which - booksofbokonon, I love your music! Where can I catch a show?

[booksofbokonon]

@ItsAllSticky: Right on man, glad you dig our stuff. Send me a link when you guys record. I'd like to hear it!

@mojofunk: I think my setup is similar to yours. I run individual instrument tracks through return clips, into a Group of loopers. Groups also tend to tidy up everything so I can see what I need to on this little 13' screen. And to answer your question, we play at least once a month around Louisville KY. No touring in the current plans. We might try some weekend tours in the summer. Know of any good venues up north?

[ItsAllSticky]

Hey guys, I decided to rename and start a new thread to include other live loopers in the hopes of keeping this discussion going and incorporating others. Come join me and anyone else that shows up here:

http://forum.ableton.com/viewtopic.php? ... 9#p1236089

And thanks again for all the help so far!

[angrymonkey2]

[quote="booksofbokonon"]

I also have a midi foot pedal with control over "undo" and "record loop" for each looper. This allows me to redo a loop live when I mess up or to add to a pre written song spontaneously.


Hi Booksofbokonon,

Just wondering how you setup the undo/redo. Did you have to use a third party mapping software?

Kindest Regards,

[taaloopa]

I also have a midi foot pedal with control over "undo" and "record loop" for each looper.

I'd be interested to know how to set up the undo/redo too - anyone?

[booksofbokonon]

@taaloopa and angrymonkey2

I use the fcb1010 footpedal and midi map the undo/redo button. It's real simple. There is a button in the top right hand corner that says midi. Click it and everything that you can control with a midi device glows blue. You click on the item you want to control (in this case the undo button in the looper device) then touch the midi device you want to use (in this case the specific foot pedal on the pedal board.)

Ableton is super easy, but the fcb was kind of a pain in the but. I found a software on mac called ifcb for $20. Its really a great graphical programer for the fcb. The guy that wrote it is really helpful and answered all my questions (even the dumb ones.)

Sorry it took so long for me to reply, I rarely get on here.

[taaloopa]

Thanks booksofbokonon,

I don't use the looper device though - I use full multitrack looping.

Anyone know if it's possible to midi map the undo in this case? ie. standard undo ( control-Z) in Ableton rather than just in the looper device.

[booksofbokonon]

taaloopa,

Bome's midi translator shuld be able to do this:
http://www.bome.com/products/miditransl ... erview/osx

Their mac version isn't as robust as their pc version, but a simple undo command should be no problem.

Just curious, if you have Live 8 why don't you use multiple looper devices? I'm asking because I'm always curious about another way to do what I'm doing!

[taaloopa]

booksofbokonon - Thanks for the Bome's link. I have looked into that before, but a long time ago - will give it another try.

Re not using looper - could be just habit - I've been looping with live since a few years before the looper device was added. Only recently upgraded to Live 8 & just haven't got round to changing or even trying the looper.

I could be missing something, but at a glance it looks like going back to the sound on sound overdub method that caused me to switch from the loopstation to Live in the first place.

Also, I like to be able to record into several scenes within a track & be able to switch between them in performance. I assumed ( perhaps wrongly) that using the looper wouldn't give me that option ( assuming sound on sound looping within each track)

If I am wrong, please let me know - I'm also curious about other ways of working...

cheers