Triggering Clips without activating sequencer "play"

[modernman1]

Is there a way to trigger any give audio clip in Ableton Live LE without playback being initiated? I understand this might be contrary to the core function of Ableton.

Just setup an Akai MPK49 and assigned several of its pads to various audio clips in Ableton Live LE (Session View). Also use the MPK49's keyboard to play a midi instrument (Omnisphere). This works for me on stage in playing various Omnsiphere sounds, while also being able to launch an audio clip (via an assigned MPK49 pad) at will. But, launching any given audio clip causes the playback to launch as well. In order to stop Ableton's playback, I hit the space bar. Then hit it twice to bring playback back to the beginning. If I don't do this, and trigger a different (or the same) audio clip, there's a delay before I hear it. In a live performance, this obviously won't work.

If you believe Ableton Live LE isn't suitable for my objectives described above, are you aware of any other setups (i.e., other software, or setup solutions) that would better lend itself for this particular task?

Thanks!

[adessmith]

I believe I have a similar issue.
Our band uses live LE for some backing tracks and loops. I'm trying to setup some pads to use between songs to fill dead air.
I figured out how to use the "remove stop button" so that the pad will continue playing when a new scene is launched.
However, I have found that if I stop playback, then launch a pad, it will also launch the last played scene at the same time. I decided the easiest way to handle this for now, is to put each pad sound in its own scene, and launch the scene instead of the clip, but this means I cant launch the pad until the scene which is playing has stopped.

I have also found that, when I stop playback, there is a button to the right of the play button (not sure what it is called) which has turned red. If I click on it, it turns white again. After this, I can launch a clip (pad sound) without the last scene playing.

I'm not sure that I understand what is going on here. When playback has stopped, whey does launching a clip cause anything else to play other than that clip?
There are times where we play two songs in the same key, and I would like to kick the pad in towards the end of the first song, have it continue while I change guitars or whatever, and start the next song, then fade it out with my midi expression pedal. However, I dont want to risk the chance that at some point I will ever launch the pad while playback is stopped (doing a song that has no backing tracks or loops), and it will kick off a scene.

[pepezabala]

hitting spacebar stops the transport, but all active clips stay active. There is a "stop all clips" button on the right side above the master-fader, use that to, err, stop all clips.

One can argue if this behaviour is good or bad. If hitting spacebar would deactivate all clips, then one could run into situations where it is not possible to continue with your mix after hitting stop for a moment, because one would just not remember which clips were active before.

So, in your live-performance, in order to stop playback either use the stop all clips button, or trigger an empty scene.

[wiffbi]

Live has to be in play-mode to actually trigger any clips in Session View – this is essential, because else the Launch-Quantization would not work.

And concerning your delay when triggering a new clip: set Launch-Quantization to None (either on each clip or globally). Then it will immediately trigger.

[modernman1]

Thank you for the responses! -cj

[auditory canvas]

How about putting your clips into simpler and assigning them to different keys? You can then trigger them without global playback commencing.

[invol]

Looper can play audio without the transport main engaging.

[agent314]

How about putting your clips into simpler and assigning them to different keys? You can then trigger them without global playback commencing.

The problem with this is warping - if you change tempo at all, your clips will stay at their original bpm and shit gets all out of whack, fast

[PaulF707]

I realise this is an older post, but I'd like to revive it to see if anyone has any new ideas on this?

I'm looking at triggering midi clips from electronic drum pads, but I don't want to play to a constant click or backing track.
I can set the scenes to trigger immediately (no quantise), but the tap tempo still links back to the main transport. And this mysterious 'single tap' on tap tempo that tries to line up the downbeat (and temporarily 'fast forwards' the midi playback to 'catch up' is extremely frustrating!
viewtopic.php?f=1&t=34274&hilit=+tap+tempo+single+click

I've been looking at some workarounds. Using dummy clips and midi loopback I can create a scene that will stop the main transport playback. If I could find a way to create a 'follow on' scene I could (in theory) get the transport to stop after each clip. (This wouldn't be ideal, but at least I could then tap tempo in between clips to set the tempo - as long as I avoid the '4 click to start playback' feature).
However, as it seems you can't create follow on 'scenes', only follow on clips, I'm back to square one.

Is there any way to have individual clips (in the same column on session view) sending midi data out of different outputs? (I assume not, but that might be yet another workaround that may help).

Overall this is very frustrating, and seems to be a huge amount of effort to overcome 1 or 2 'features' of the software (which, if they could be adjusted / disabled via some kind of settings or preferences, would make the software far more flexible).

By the way, I'm running v8.2, so if any of these 'features' are fixed or improved in v9 please do let do let me know.

Thanks,
Paul.

[oblique strategies]

Max for Live:

http://www.maxforlive.com/library/devic ... -follow-le
"This device allows the user to have a follow action performed automatically at clip end... In addition to playing the clip below you can also choose to trigger the following scene thus bringing follow actions to scenes"


Don't know if this is of help, but check it out:
http://www.maxforlive.com/library/devic ... eqscene-rv
"Make sequence of scenes (or clips on a specific track) using midi clips."

[PaulF707]

Thanks very much oblique.....

I've just looked at the FollowLE script, and on initial testing that might be very helpful.

This is the first time I've looked at MaxForLive scripts, so I'm not 100% sure I'm using them correctly.
I've had to add it to a separate column in Live (because if I add it to one of the midi columns, it prevents that midi clip from outputting midi). I've had to put in a copy of one of the midi clips into the 'FollowLE control column) as the function only seems to work with a clip in there - is that correct? Do I need to make sure this 'dummy' clip is the same length as the longest clip in that scene?

Thanks again, this gets me a little closer to my 'ideal' solution. I'll look at the other link you posted to see how that helps....
Cheers!

[S4racen]

Hi Paul,

If you're using the Follow device for triggering Scenes we suggest it's best used on a click track separate from any audio or midi producing tracks... The reason it blocks the MIDI is cause it's been designed to run on an audio track...

In answer to your question yes, the clip on the track needs to be of the correct length to match when you want the next scene to be triggered, when a scene is triggered it will observe any tempo or time signatures written into the scene name...

We've done lots of work with bands who use the device in exactly this way...

The full version of Follow also offers the option of cueing up scenes and clips to play at clip end as well for when you come to the natural end of a song and want to manually trigger the next song, along with being able to automate Live's Metronome on and off...

Any questions get in touch at isotonik@isotonikstudios.com or have a look at the Modular Series manual which you can download from http://isotonikstudios.com/modular_max4live/


Cheers
D

[PaulF707]

Thanks for the confirmation S4racen - much appreciated.