assigning plug-in effects to clips

dr.wackler · Post by **dr.wackler** » Thu Sep 07, 2006 1:44 pm

I'll make an attempt to explain in more detail...

Clip Effects would be before the track effects in the signal chain, and they would belong solely to the one clip they are assigned to.
They woud not be visible in the Track View, but in the Clip View, alongside the Sample Display and the Envelope Editor.

You could have for example a Grain Delay on the track, have an Autofilter on clip1 on that track, have a Saturator on clip2 on that track, and so on.
Clip1 then plays through its Autofilter and the Grain Delay, while clip2 plays through its Saturator and the Grain Delay, etc.
Sure you can accomplish similar things by more or less complex routings, groups, or mute/unmute automations, but with effects assigned directly to clips you'll save a lot of time, and you will be much more flexible by simply dragging around clips. For example just move clip1 to another track that has a Beat Repeat on it, then clip one will play through its Autofilter and the Beat Repeat.

Try to see it like this (an anology):
You wouldn't want to miss the possibility to have individual volume clip envelopes, but also have the track's volume. The volume clip envelope processes volume before the track volume fader. Same with Clip Effects and Track Effects.

Soma · Post by **Soma** » Thu Sep 07, 2006 2:36 pm

Nor will live sound the same as your performance if you record dragging an effect from on channel to another in the middle of a set, or replacing an instrument with another for a small portion, or etc...
Yes you can go in and edit to do stuff like this but LIVE CANNOT RECORD THIS STUFF. yet

hoffman2k · Post by **hoffman2k** » Thu Sep 07, 2006 3:22 pm

It all works. But indeed, you'll have to do some work.

Currently i'm building a set that runs all the operators i use for percussion from 1 track.
All the kick drums have their own impulse instance and effects, also all in 1 track...

I guess it boils down to what you prefer. If you cant do it racks, then good luck. Because i doubt this feature will ever make it in Live.
It would be a pain in the arse if live clips would start overwriting effects. Or having 100 clips with different effects. Which means you'll have a tabbed effect view withing a tabbed view...

All the stuff you guys describe can be done in Live (except CC recording straight to clips).
I see 3 ways to do it.

- Clip automation
- Dummy clips
- Or the chain selector in Live 6

3 very easy solutions....

Soma · Post by **Soma** » Thu Sep 07, 2006 6:09 pm

hoffman2k wrote:It all works. But indeed, you'll have to do some work.

Currently I'm building a set that runs all the operators i use for percussion from 1 track.
All the kick drums have their own impulse instance and effects, also all in 1 track...

I guess it boils down to what you prefer. If you cant do it racks, then good luck. Because i doubt this feature will ever make it in Live.
It would be a pain in the arse if live clips would start overwriting effects. Or having 100 clips with different effects. Which means you'll have a tabbed effect view withing a tabbed view...

All the stuff you guys describe can be done in Live (except CC recording straight to clips).
I see 3 ways to do it.

- Clip automation
- Dummy clips
- Or the chain selector in Live 6

3 very easy solutions....

It can be done if you know what you want to do before hand and have the time to set it up and make a switch, but really (don't argue) you can't record a spontaneous switch of an instrument or a move of an effect form one track to another. Yes, you can set up the same effect on two channels and if you are lucky enough to have a midi controller and a few spare buttons you can turn one off and an another on at the same time, but this really is a completely different process and although the same effect not the same workflow, and not Nealy as performance oriented or whimsically done.
It's like me telling you that you can record CC's right to a clip because if you record a clip playing and some cc movement to the arrangement and then drag that clip back to the session you have a clip with cc's... Come on! Don't pretend. Yes this works but it's not the work flow you (or I) need. (Don't get me started on how much I need/hate using dummy clips).

Yes Racks are GREAT! but that's not what we are talking about here. And really I wrote ableton a few years ago when I first demo'ed with this request and they wrote back saying that they were thinking of ways to do this already... many other hosts have this (Tracktion, XT2, samplitude...). It wouldn't say it not worth requesting.

hoffman2k · Post by **hoffman2k** » Thu Sep 07, 2006 6:23 pm

Yeah. I guess i'll have to agree to disagree.

I don't see how it is difficult to make a multi fx mixing rack for clips on 1 track with different effects.

Are you aware of "the chain selector" in Live 6?
Racks contain tracks

And you can crossfade between them. Add/delete effects on the fly.
It's far more flexible then what you are suggesting.
But then again. I might be missing the point.

You want to move a clip with effects to another track? Copy the rack to a new track. Drag the clip. Voila....

How much more real-time can it get?

Soma · Post by **Soma** » Thu Sep 07, 2006 6:58 pm

hoffman2k wrote:...Are you aware of "the chain selector" in Live 6?
Racks contain tracks
And you can crossfade between them. Add/delete effects on the fly.
It's far more flexible then what you are suggesting.
But then again. I might be missing the point.

You want to move a clip with effects to another track? Copy the rack to a new track. Drag the clip. Voila....

How much more real-time can it get?

I'll have to wait to try live 6, but I really doubt it will play back me dragging an effect from the drums to the lead halfway in a song (and only effecting half the song; that is taking it off of one track and turning it on on another at the same time in the middle of the recording.)

hoffman2k · Post by **hoffman2k** » Thu Sep 07, 2006 7:03 pm

Soma wrote:
hoffman2k wrote:...Are you aware of "the chain selector" in Live 6?
Racks contain tracks
And you can crossfade between them. Add/delete effects on the fly.
It's far more flexible then what you are suggesting.
But then again. I might be missing the point.

You want to move a clip with effects to another track? Copy the rack to a new track. Drag the clip. Voila....

How much more real-time can it get?
I'll have to wait to try live 6, but I really doubt it will play back me dragging an effect from the drums to the lead halfway in a song (and only effecting half the song; that is taking it off of one track and turning it on on another at the same time in the middle of the recording.)

Yeah that wont work

But you don't need to drag an effect from on track to the other, just copy it to another track. That way you can also copy automated clips. And record all that stuff into the arrangement...

While you're dragging or copying you effect to another track. You can just fade the effect away with a knob. Instead of turning it off, which sound like crap in a mix anyway.

Soma · Post by **Soma** » Fri Sep 08, 2006 12:31 am

Yeah but....

sorry, last post on this for a while I promise...

I want to take it OFF of one track and ON TO another AT THE SAME TIME. Personally not too concerned with what automation I have done already as I am thinking about what can be created on the fly, but yes you are right you could probably reuse some automation your way.

Let's just agree to disagree.

Teedub · Post by **Teedub** » Fri Sep 08, 2006 12:52 am

Hold on there. Am I to understand that if I drag a clip from a track with effects on it into the browser, then the clip that I've made in the browser now contains track fx info which will be propagated into any empty track I drag it out to from the browser, say, in a new set??

I gotta try this.

longjohns · Post by **longjohns** » Fri Sep 08, 2006 3:03 am

yes, it's true. it's kind of confusing because this file type is called a "live clip" (.alc) - as opposed to a normal, umm... live clip

Teedub · Post by **Teedub** » Fri Sep 08, 2006 3:33 am

Sweet! How? I tried this out but couldn't get it to work. When I drag the clip (by its top bar) over into Live's workspace/browser area, I couldn't seem to get the cursor to give me anything but the "no dropping it here" circle-with-a-slash-through-it.

I thought the failure of the experiment might be because I was trying to do it with VST effects in the chain, so I got rid of those. Then I thought maybe it needs to be an audio clip and not MIDI, so I tried it with an audio clip. I ended up eventually getting distracted and working on a pretty cool song, but I haven't had any luck making an alc happen.

Is there a particular place you need to drag it or do you need to grab it a certain way or something? I'm using 5.2.1 if that means anything.

Teedub · Post by **Teedub** » Fri Sep 08, 2006 3:41 am

Ooh! I just figured it out!
You have to drag from the Session View for some reason. Arrangement View won't do it, I wonder why that is.

And Holey Moley it works with VSTs!!!

Sweet mercy, I'm cackling with glee. This is the coolest.

dr.wackler · Post by **dr.wackler** » Fri Sep 08, 2006 8:58 am

hoffman2k wrote:It all works. But indeed, you'll have to do some work.

Bob Moog: "Hey, let's build a Minimoog."
Man2ooo: "What for? You can do all this on the Moog Modular."

Not really meant as sarcasm - I just think it illustrates quite good that we are kind of talking about two different things: Clip Effects are about simplicity, not about complexity.
Clip Effects are not meant to replace or mirror any of the things you can do with Live Clips, automation, or possibly Racks. The main idea of Clip Effects is that the effect becomes an integral part of the sound/loop/sample, absolutely bound to that one clip.
For example, in situations where you would normaly re-record a loop through a processing chain, Clip Effects would make that obsolete (with the added convenience that you can edit the sound at any time, which you could not with a re-recorded loop).

hoffman2k wrote:Currently i'm building a set that runs all the operators i use for percussion from 1 track.
All the kick drums have their own impulse instance and effects, also all in 1 track...

That's very nice indeed (and I am looking forward to SoundWrecks Vol.2), but has nothing to do with the purpose of Clip Effects. Like I said above, Clip Effects are about simplicity, not about complexity.

hoffman2k wrote:I guess it boils down to what you prefer. If you cant do it racks, then good luck. Because i doubt this feature will ever make it in Live.

I guess you are refering to Soma's request here, and I have to agree on the doubt that this feature will ever make it into Live. Please note, that Clip Effects in the first place have nothing to do with what Soma is requesting.

hoffman2k wrote:It would be a pain in the arse if live clips would start overwriting effects. Or having 100 clips with different effects. Which means you'll have a tabbed effect view withing a tabbed view...

Clip Effects will not overwrite anything, as they are integral part of the clip, being processed right after the clip's signal output and before the signal input of the track and the Track Effects respectively. They will not reside in Track View, but in Clip View.

"Having 100 clips with different effects" is not "a pain in the arse", but is exactly the purpose of Clip Effects. If I have 100 clips, where each clip needs just a little bit different EQing, I'd rather consider it "a pain in the arse" to create either 100 tracks for that or to create 100 chains in a Rack or to draw envelopes just for that.
Set the EQ for a clip with Clip Effects, and then just forget about them. If you need to adjust the EQ, you know where to go.

Another anology: Imagine you wouldn't have the Transposition envelope or the Sample Offset envelope in the Clip View, but instead you would have to realize the same functionality by plugins in the track. You wouldn't want that. Why? Because the transposition and the sample rearrangment are integral part of the clip here. They belong to that one clip, no matter where you move or copy it.

hoffman2k wrote:All the stuff you guys describe can be done in Live (except CC recording straight to clips).
I see 3 ways to do it.

- Clip automation
- Dummy clips
- Or the chain selector in Live 6

3 very easy solutions....

I hope my remarks above made a little bit more clear why they are not appropriate solutions (well, maybe for what Soma wants, but that's a different story). The idea behind and the porpose of Clip Effects is just something else.

However, I find it astonoshing, that such a simple thing needs so much explanation, as for me it seems like a matter of course - but that's just me I guess. Maybe you should indeed have a look at Kyma or Tracktion to see how simple it is. Clips/Regions are not just audio files, but they are each an individual process.

hoffman2k · Post by **hoffman2k** » Fri Sep 08, 2006 3:35 pm

So basically you want live clips with their own effects "welded" to a clip.

One use would be for an example with Soundwrecks: Being able to run 4 loops from different .als files on 1 track. So that they have their own effects.

This is what i meant when i said "I doubt that Ableton will ever implement this feature".

I'm not saying that i don't like the idea. But i'm saying that i think about this too

I guess it would come in handy to simplify things. But there are so many complications....

Basically you're asking for tracks within tracks. Thats basically what racks are.
I'm still getting my head around it and i've discovered things that i cant even describe...

I guess live lacks one thing to make your request work. The ability to drag a clip with effects and all in one drag.
And make it create a subtrack in a exsisting track.
Which equals to the feature request of "grouped tracks"

So anyway. I understand what you're asking for. And it's a reasonable request.
But to me it seems near impossible when you look at how Live really works.
But hey, Ableton can make everything work if they really set their mind to it

assigning plug-in effects to clips

Dragging Clips from Effected Tracks into The Browser