Using external synths and MIDI?

rlwilliams · Post by **rlwilliams** » Fri Mar 31, 2006 3:56 am

Dear Everyone,

From reading this forum, it seems most people are using soft synths for sounds instead of hardware synths. Those of you who do use hardware synths would you care to share your methods of using the MIDI features of Live, especially your methods of selecting programs/sounds.

I've been frustrated with the lack of being able to select only the program numbers, instead of the name &/or number like in other sequencers. I hope this can be an added feature in future Live releases.

Please share any tried and true tips if you will.

Thanks.

Ronnie

ILTK · Post by **ILTK** » Fri Mar 31, 2006 1:46 pm

It's simple but takes a bit of time, create a whole mess of empty clips, start the session playing and go through your hardware synths using the bank/program numbers to select patches, name each clip after the sound on the hardware, do this on a seperate track for each synth.

After you are done, go to Lives library folder and create a folder there called 'sound library' in that folder create subfolders for each synth named after the synth and maybe even create subfolders into the synth subfolders named after the sound type (Ambient, pad, lead, effect etc..)

Now drag the clips one by one into the correct folders.

After you are done you can now simply drag the clips over to a track to select your presets, if you name your clips intelligently you can also easily use Lives search feature in the Live browser, type in what you are looking for like 'pad' and voila, after a few seconds all your pad sounds shows up ready to browse.

Takes time, well worth it!

rlwilliams · Post by **rlwilliams** » Mon Apr 03, 2006 4:35 am

ILTK,

OK, I've done everything you've said. I've got clips in the Browser that says the names of the sounds.

Whenever I drag the clip from the Browser to a clip slot in Live I'm not hearing the selected sound from the hardware. I hear it after pushing the start recording button or whenever I push play and then start recording. is this right? it seems like you have to work so much harder in Live to get this done.

I just want to be able to 1) see the name and 2) hear the sample sound before starting the recording process. How do you do this so you can hear the sound you want to record before you actually start the recording?

Maybe I'm doing something wrong, but it seems easy enough from what your post says.

Anyone have any suggestions on what I may be doing wrong, or is this the only way to get this to happen in Live?

Thanks ILTK for responding to my original post.

HD1 · Post by **HD1** » Mon Apr 03, 2006 4:37 am

must be my working method, but I just select presets via the hardware. simpler then all that bullshit. that is, until my workflow necessitates selecting presets from the software.....

rlwilliams · Post by **rlwilliams** » Thu Apr 06, 2006 4:15 am

There's got to be a way to do this without having to select the sounds from the hardware. I thought that was what clips were for? Can anyone help me with something that seems so simple? Surely with other sequencers costing less money than Live being able to do this, shouldn't it be possible to do this in Live?

Any more help would be appreciated....

Thanks in advance.

rlwilliams · Post by **rlwilliams** » Fri Apr 07, 2006 2:37 pm

Anyone?

I just want to be able to audition external synths by choosing the sound from within the Live program without having to record something first, or is this the only way to do this? I don't want to have to change the patches from the synth, I want to be able to use the midi capabilties within the Live program.

Am I the only person who is trying to do this?

Thanks for your time.

ILTK · Post by **ILTK** » Fri Apr 07, 2006 3:28 pm

Yeah I'm afraid that's the way to do it, hit play, record arm the track (with OVR set to off) and drag clips in and play some notes to hear the preset.

I asked repeatedly a long time ago if there was some way to setup where the MIDI data from the browser gets routed to so I didn't have to preview MIDI clips with that godawfull plink plink sound but I got no response.

External midi support still seems like an afterthought, everything is very lacking when you use external gear, you don't even get volume/pan knobs if there is no VSTi on the track so to change volume and pan you have to go into automation envelopes which is a pain to deal with, I use 4-5 external synths and 2 external machines running as vst hosts with a couple VSTi's each so I know how tiresome it can be.

snowtires · Post by **snowtires** » Fri Apr 07, 2006 5:01 pm

usually if you read the user's manual for the synth, it'll have all of the info you need for selecting the right bank, etc. that's what i did, it was relatively painless. i have a micron, microkorg, roland sh-32 and an emu vintage pro, and they're all synced up in ableton and they work fine. one thing i found is that you have to extend the start of the midi clip by a tiny bit, so it has time to switch programs, and sometimes you have to add or subtract 1 to whatever value you have, because most synths don't start with patch 0.

ILTK · Post by **ILTK** » Fri Apr 07, 2006 5:16 pm

Yeah but that's not realy the problem, the problem is when you have synths with libraries with tons of presets, I have allmost 4000 presets for my Virus alone, 1000+ for my Microwave XT, at least that many for my Supernova and other synths, and just flicking thru them is not an option, they need to be indexed, searchable, and divided into groups and sysex handling is definately also needed.

rlwilliams · Post by **rlwilliams** » Fri Apr 07, 2006 5:21 pm

I know how to use the bank changes etc. to select the patches, I just want to be able to audition them before having to record notes to a clip. As it is now, you have to record some data into the clips, which is so time consuming.

ILTK · Post by **ILTK** » Fri Apr 07, 2006 5:26 pm

I don't need to have any data recorded to hear the sounds, just have the session playing, doubleclick and start with an empty clip, start the clip and set the track to record mode, now drag the empty clips with the program/bank changes in them in while hitting some keys and the sounds will change, just drop the clips you drag in on top of the allready playing empty clip, as long as the clip is running the sounds will change.

snowtires · Post by **snowtires** » Fri Apr 07, 2006 5:48 pm

ILTK wrote:Yeah but that's not realy the problem, the problem is when you have synths with libraries with tons of presets, I have allmost 4000 presets for my Virus alone, 1000+ for my Microwave XT, at least that many for my Supernova and other synths, and just flicking thru them is not an option, they need to be indexed, searchable, and divided into groups and sysex handling is definately also needed.

are there ANY computer programs that do that for external synths, other than the proprietary software that comes with the synth?

rnbeatz · Post by **rnbeatz** » Fri Apr 07, 2006 6:01 pm

I presently go through patches on the synth itself and after I record my first clip I set the clip to that patch. On my Motif that sits right in front of me it's ok but I have a rack module that is not easy to get to and change patches and play the keys at the same time.

I too suggested to ableton to do something with the browser to change hardware patches when version 5 just came out. Lets hope they listened in version 6.

Ableton it's past due to beef up the midi.

mikemc · Post by **mikemc** » Fri Apr 07, 2006 6:02 pm

this is interesting. it sounds like needing several capabilities to create the clips (Live does this), search annoated clips (Live does this based on the clip names, so it's limited), to associate them with a synth (can do this by creating folders)

rlwilliams · Post by **rlwilliams** » Mon May 08, 2006 4:10 am

I'm still trying to work this clip management system out.

Whenever you create an empty clip, set the bank/program numbers, etc. etc. are you supposed save the empty clip with looping off or on?

And when you save it as an empty clip with the program change information and drag it back into Live to use it, how do you get it to record as many bars/measures as you want to, or do you have to set the "Start" and "End" in the clip? I think it defaults to 2 bars.

Am I being confusing? Please help. This is kinda starting to make sense.

Thanks,

Ronnie