Pre-define the length of a clip using a MIDI controller

[Paladino]

Hi everyone!

This is my NUMBER ONE wish, and I hope that it's at leat a good idea for others of us, so if you think it is, please check the poll, so we can see it on Ableton Live 9

THE "PROBLEM"
What I really miss is the ability to set the length of a new clips (audio or MIDI) BEFORE I record them (or by double click) in any empty place for clips in session view using either an APC, LP, mouse or my PC's keyboard.
Having to hit the clip again to set the end, so the clip can start looping itself, isn't an ease thing to do while recording a piano, for example, because you're using BOTH hands, or while making beats, again, using BOTH hands.
Nowadays I can't really make music "on the fly", without the use of "tricks"...

THE "SOLUTION"

We could have a button to chose how many bars a new clip should have, just like the "Global Quantization" we already have. In my mind, the options could be something like this:
"NONE, 1 Bars, 2 Bars, 4 Bars, 8 Bars" or even options like "3 Bars" (for Waltz for example)"16 Bars" and so on...

The new clip could be created in many ways, for example, by:
*Pressing the record clip button (the normal way)
*Or by double click (which already creates a new clip but ALWAYS with 1 bar of length, so this length could be set using the control as it is in the picture below)

Just an example of how it could be:



And as almost anything in Ableton Live, we could map this new button too:







You might that think this is not necessay, but think about how time consuming is to set a clip length and then start recording or launching a clip via MIDI, but with the need to hit it again, so the clip can start looping, it's not just time consuming, but the workflow could be just AMAZING(IMHO) if we could set the length of new clips BEFORE we create them in any way... and it could be PERFECT if we could control this option by MIDI...

(PS:I know that there are similar topics, but I guess this one has some different things, and I'm sorry for any mistake with english and for the large post )

PLEASE ABLETON!!!
Thanks to everyone!!!

[mode:masters]

Well I can think of 2 ways to get this done.

1 : (the HARD way) - Buy and learn Max4Live, you could make a custom Max patch that did this for you.

2 : (the EASY way) - Learn to utilise track GROUPS. You could make a MIDI track group that contains a track for each loop length you want (i.e. one for 8 bars, one for 4 bars etc etc). Then, populate those tracks with lots of EMPTY clips of the required length. Then as you are jamming out on the keyboard you only have to press one clip button on your APC40 or Launchpad. Because they are in a group all the clips send their MIDI to the same device.

[Paladino]

Well I can think of 2 ways to get this done.

1 : (the HARD way) - Buy and learn Max4Live, you could make a custom Max patch that did this for you.

2 : (the EASY way) - Learn to utilise track GROUPS. You could make a MIDI track group that contains a track for each loop length you want (i.e. one for 8 bars, one for 4 bars etc etc). Then, populate those tracks with lots of EMPTY clips of the required length. Then as you are jamming out on the keyboard you only have to press one clip button on your APC40 or Launchpad. Because they are in a group all the clips send their MIDI to the same device.

Yeah, I was thinking if with M4L I could build a device to do that for me (with all those options), it's really nice to know that, but I guess that this is more a lack of option than a extra option IMHO to make with M4L, because using an APC you can get really mouselles tweaking when you have prepared the session, but while recording ideas in the studio (my main purpose), it isn't the same effortless workflow...

Do you know if such device would be very difficult to build by a person like me that doesn't know nothing about Max (of course I would study it lol)?

[mode:masters]

I would have to say yes, it would be quite difficult. I only juts purchased M4L last week and am having trouble getting my brain around parts of it.

What did you think of the other suggestion though, grouping tracks with blank clips? Seems like it would do what you're after.

[Paladino]

I would have to say yes, it would be quite difficult. I only juts purchased M4L last week and am having trouble getting my brain around parts of it.

What did you think of the other suggestion though, grouping tracks with blank clips? Seems like it would do what you're after.

Yeah, about grouping tracks, it would work, but I feel that it's a "so important" thing (for music creation), that we should have as part of the program...
And I even thought sometime ago about saving a template with lots of clips (with 8 bars, because I use this lenght a lot) and some channels, but it would be a little hard to navigate through the session, cause I wouldn't know which clip contains notes, you know... and just having the clip created in session view when I press the record button I would know that all the clips that were created contains notes...

[mode:masters]

Ok that's a fair call. I seem to remember finding a Max4Live patch that someone created not long after the beta version came out that changed the colour of clips on-the-fly, so you could tell which ones had been launched and which ones hadn't. Maybe you could tweak that patch to suit your needs, that way you'd know which ones have notes in them etc.

Might be a bit easier than programming a Max patch from scratch...

[8O]

Why don't you just use the built-in Looper device?

[Paladino]

Looper is nice device, but I need not just to record "on the fly", but make some adjustments, so I need to keep things in MIDI...

[ljd2002]

Hi

Appreciate this discussion has been around a while, but it just occured to me that this was something I'd find very useful.
Im not at my Ableton PC now, so can't try to figure a workaround.
But does anyone know a way of pre-defining the length of all clips, say to something standard like 4 bars.
I did see mode:masters's response, just wondered if there was another way as well...
L.

[Paladino]

Hi

Appreciate this discussion has been around a while, but it just occured to me that this was something I'd find very useful.
Im not at my Ableton PC now, so can't try to figure a workaround.
But does anyone know a way of pre-defining the length of all clips, say to something standard like 4 bars.
I did see mode:masters's response, just wondered if there was another way as well...
L.

Yeah this is such a basic necessary workflow, mainly because Ableton Live with session view claims to be a very good and instinctive way to capture ideas... but having to press a button on TIME to begin the loop of what you recorded is not a good thing... it is impossible to do it if you are using both hands to play...

We should be able to define pre-define how many bars we want the clips to be before start recording...

Hope there is something like this on Live 9

[ljd2002]

agree 100 % Paladino. Hopefully there will be something like that in Live 9. But at the moment I am thinking about Max 4 Live...sounds like the learning curve is steep though...

[Muzik 4 Machines]

i usually set the quantize to the lenght i need, then "double click" to start and cue the stop at say 8 bars, worked well for me since the start, but i could too save 1 click

[ljd2002]

Just purchased LPC - Live and working on learning it. It's an impressive bit of software and well worth it if you have Launchpad.

[ChiefNugget]

Looks like this thread was dug up from the grave, but I have a suggestion for the feature request. Why not have a MIDI assignable command to "stop all clips recording and launch clips"? This could be mapped to a foot pedal or something.

You could then begin recording into a specific clip by initiating it with the a Launchpad, play some stuff on a keyboard or whatever, then start it looping without reaching back over to the Launchpad. Maybe even take it a step further and have that same command "launch new clip in record armed tracks" if no clip is currently being recorded, with the exception of overdub recording if that's switched on. This could then basically be like a MIDI version of Looper (but without the tempo detection).

[eyeknow]

^^^^^^

I'm not sure how to do this yet, but that sounds really promising.