Imitating the Peavey Grabber, etc.

Dustin Zahn · Post by **Dustin Zahn** » Mon Jul 17, 2006 8:10 pm

Anybody have good tips to imitate the Peavey Grabber or similar devices? The machine I am talking about is pictured below:

So far, I've found a ghetto way by sending the audio from Track 2 to Track 2 and putting a beat repeater on track 2. I would then hit the arm button and have the audio come through the beat repeater on track 2 but it's very difficult and kind of "ghetto" to pull off. Anybody have other good ideas? I'm looking to do it as a send/return thing like on a DJ mixer.

DeadlyKungFu · Post by **DeadlyKungFu** » Tue Jul 18, 2006 12:42 am

I can't really tell what it does by looking at it, what's the actions you want to pull off?

dCross · Post by **dCross** » Tue Jul 18, 2006 2:29 am

Have you played with the [loop] [position set] and [length set] buttons in the clip view?

Set those three functions to keys, hit [position set] to start a loop, and [position length] to stop a loop. [Loop] gets you out of that loop.

Provided your songs are properly warped, all your loops are perfectly cut.

Now, this isn't exactly Cycloops-style looping, because you have to hit the stop button. If you play around with the quantization setings, though, you can get pretty close.

Set quantization to 2 bars, then hit [position set] and [position length] quickly in succession. You should have an instant 8-beat loop. 1 bar is 4 beats, 1/2 is 2 beats, etc etc etc

Play around with it a bit - I think it's close to what you're looking for.

Dustin Zahn · Post by **Dustin Zahn** » Tue Jul 18, 2006 2:38 am

I actually figured out a pretty legit method after rethinking. I ran some audio from Track 1 into Send A. At send A I set up a beat repeater. At first it didn't work but I realized you have to do this first:

1. Turn the vol of send A down to zero.
2. Turn the send A all the way up on Track 1.
3. Then turn on the beat repeater in Send A.
4. Slowly mix out track 1 into Send A with the vol knobs.

That seems to do the trick. Thanks for the tips. If you get any cool ideas, just let me know! Thanks.

Clearscreen · Post by **Clearscreen** » Tue Jul 18, 2006 10:35 am

maybe try the "magic send" method nolus came up with alongside what you described in your last post (search the forum for "magic send"). it'll let you use the sends themselves as crossfades (kind of...)

Put a Utility set to phase invert on the "A Return" track.
Put an effect (100% wet) on "B Return" (try a ping pong delay to get a feel for it)
On the A Return track turn up Send B to maximum and set the gain to 0db
Make sure that both sends are set to post

You can now use send A on any track to xfade between 100% dry and 100% effect. great for dub delays where you want to drop out the original sound but still here the delayed version - for example.

Send B will bring in the effect in the normal way.

You can set up several effects in this way to create a kind of dub pallette, and spontaneously apply any combination of effects to any track (ok, this is obvious Wink ), shifting the whole mix from 100% dry to 100% effects just by tweeaking a few sends

Arguably the 180 degree phase shift might affect the sound of the dry/wet mix with some effects, but another phase inverter placed before the effect would fix it. In practice it doesn't appear to make much of a difference with most effects.

I originally posted this idea on another thread (http://www.ableton.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=27362) under general, but thought it was worth posting here as well.

n