Sequence Your Live Looping (No Pedals Necessary)

Seyser Koze · Post by **Seyser Koze** » Wed Feb 14, 2007 11:22 am

I think I understand the implications of this and like what I read.

One question: is there anything I need beyond Live and my mac to make this work.

Being a bit of a "midiot"

what is iac, why is it necessary etc. etc.

fatrabbit · Post by **fatrabbit** » Wed Feb 14, 2007 11:59 am

The IAC buss is great, but it does cause CPU spikes (300-400% for a second) on my Macbook Pro! It figured it was the MIDI loop that's causing this, and narrowed it down - therefore i'm a bit cautious of using the IAC live!

fatrabbit · Post by **fatrabbit** » Wed Feb 14, 2007 12:00 pm

Seyser Koze wrote:I think I understand the implications of this and like what I read.

One question: is there anything I need beyond Live and my mac to make this work.

Being a bit of a "midiot" what is iac, why is it necessary etc. etc.

It's just a virtual Buss on your Mac that you can send midi notes/cc to, as a way of routing it back into Live. At least, that's one way of using it.

electropoet · Post by **electropoet** » Wed Feb 14, 2007 8:21 pm

Hey man...I'm still using a poor old 15 inch G4 powerbook (1.33GHZ), which I find to be reliable enough for my live shows...with a couple caveat's. Firstly, Live 6 is unusable...don't know why, but it is simply too much for my powerbook. Secondly, I do not use any midi sequencing whatsoever other than the IAC midi files (sequencer player piano rolls-i call it that because again, it simply holds the patterns which tells the different slots when to record, when to stop, and when to play). I have live synced to a Korg triton, which handles all my midi duties, as well as backing tracks and samples...which isn't much because I use live to record all my real instruments...drums, bass, guitars, vocals, percussion, etc. For synth and piano, to give the illusion I am looping what I play, I simply play the part once live once, and then have the korg's sequencer play a pre-programmed part that is the same when I'm ready to switch instruments. This set-up is working very well. Live just focuses on the task of recording and playing back loops. Truth be told, I don't want or need a lot of the new features, and would just as soon switch to a version older than 5 to lessen CPU usage, but I'd lose the midi-capability needed to use the IAC trick.

Regarding equipment needed. I have a yamaha footcontroller...it is good when I want to jam and come up with grooves really fast, but to answer you question...no, I don't think you need anything else computer-wise...of course I have an outboard mixer for all the mic'd instruments I records, and the routing of the click I need to stay in time, but other than that...a footpedal is not required or needed when I perform live.

Be advised, this type of sequencing does take out some of live's improv capabilities...but that is not an issue for what I am trying to do. I don't care, if the song's have the same structure night to night...what is important is what I actually end up playing...and everything, minus the synth parts are played live...so those things change depending on how I play them. So again, think if it if having to ability to play in a band, but your the only dude. I you were in a rock band that play rock songs night after night...they'd pretty much be played/sequenced the same way everytime. I only bring it up because it took me a while to commit one way or the other in terms of what I wanted to do.

On the one hand you have the 'Quandry' style of very flexible jamming, and on the other you the 'Good Listeners' style were everything is very precise and loops have to played right the first time...just like if you were in a real band. That is what I have been looking for for a long time, and this tip gives you that capability.

Just my 2 cents.

Idonotlikebroccoli · Post by **Idonotlikebroccoli** » Wed Feb 14, 2007 8:46 pm

How do I do step 1? I'm on winxp and I suck at setting up midi stuff.

mdifazio · Post by **mdifazio** » Wed Feb 14, 2007 8:57 pm

electropoet wrote:...For synth and piano, to give the illusion I am looping what I play, I simply play the part once live once, and then have the korg's sequencer play a pre-programmed part that is the same when I'm ready to switch instruments.....

It is kind of like lip sync-ing but with loops.

That being said, I am guilty of doing this as well. You can crossfade between what is being played live and what is in the can.

electropoet · Post by **electropoet** » Wed Feb 14, 2007 11:17 pm

mdifazio wrote:
electropoet wrote:...For synth and piano, to give the illusion I am looping what I play, I simply play the part once live once, and then have the korg's sequencer play a pre-programmed part that is the same when I'm ready to switch instruments.....
It is kind of like lip sync-ing but with loops.

That being said, I am guilty of doing this as well. You can crossfade between what is being played live and what is in the can.

Well, you could look at it like that, but I think there is a grey area there. A majority of what I play is played live once, and once that loop is planted, I can have my sequencer loop retrigger that loop at any time. That is the trick...it takes a lot of clever sequencing, but is awesomely effective. With midi, since the triton does not work the same way as live (and why would it, it would be very inefficent) the only 2 options are to loop midi clips live in ableton, or to play them live once, and then have the same sequnence pre-programmed which will come on when you need it. The effect is the same...every loop was played live at least once.

Their was a great editorial article in the back of Sound on Sound a few months back in which the author used the metaphor of musician being like a magician. Think about it...most people have absolutely no idea all the technical issues that are behind what they are listening to...and moreover, what they are seeing (in terms of a live performance). The comparison perfectly captures (to my mind at least) what I'm trying to do live. People typically can't comprehend that 1 or 2 musicians can be a full band. The trick is pulling it off convincingly...not that it is a con, but with live you can show that you are actually playing each part, the audience sees it, and knows that these are not prerecorded loops...you are not lip-syncing, and you are not playing a long to karaoke...you have a real opportunity to demontrate real musicianship...that is the key.

This is not a new concept obviously...many have jammed along with midi clips, or grooveboxes, or pre-recorded cd's, and even echoplex's...but this feature with live realizes what I've been wanting to do for some time...check out The Good Listeners for an idea of how particular the looping can become. It's fascinating. And i'll come back to the concept of being a magician. The trick is in the illusion...the music must be good, but the payoff here one dude bringing a world of sound...and not by cueing a record, or starting a computer a bunch of prerecorded loops on it.

This is a godsend for multi-instrumentalist musicians as well as dj's.

electropoet · Post by **electropoet** » Wed Feb 14, 2007 11:20 pm

and by the way...i've always found Live's midi capability to be pretty poor...hard to sync with external synths, quirky looping, no patch changes, latency, etc...except for the IAC looping trick...midi in live is not important as far as I'm concerned.

Nightrider · Post by **Nightrider** » Fri Feb 23, 2007 9:08 am

Just upgraded to Live 6

Now I am having trouble with my midi clips that are triggering the clip to start recording.

The problem is it starts recording ok but when the second midi signal goes through to tell it to stop and to start playing I have an insanely big cpu spike and the audio cuts out for a second. I am running a PowerBook PC 1.5phz with 1.5gb ram.

Can anyone shed some light on this?? Because it was working fine in Live 5!

Soup Dragon · Post by **Soup Dragon** » Fri Feb 23, 2007 12:27 pm

I have been trying to figure the best way of doing this - And I must say what a great idea.

chapelier fou · Post by **chapelier fou** » Fri Feb 23, 2007 12:51 pm

I was just thinking that it would be great if it was possible to select "remote" as output of a MIDI track.

Soup Dragon · Post by **Soup Dragon** » Fri Feb 23, 2007 3:13 pm

I tried this - not exactly as per post:

Set up a Midi clip playing notes to trigger record button and then notes to stop and start clip and finally a note to stop record.

Set the midiout channel to the correct one to trigger the notes and record button.

Tried it - It worked and recorded a 4 bar loop and then turned record off.

Problem was that it started endless triggering itself again after 1 bar.

Not sure what the fucks going on - But thought perhaps the clip might contain a midi note that was retriggering it again - I have looked at most possible causes of the problem.

Anyone ideas - I got tantillisingly close to realy making a breakthrough in using Abelton in a live situation ?

Best Richard

The Phat Conductor · Post by **The Phat Conductor** » Fri Feb 23, 2007 9:14 pm

glad you cats are getting some use out of this one.

Nightrider · Post by **Nightrider** » Sat Feb 24, 2007 11:12 am

Nightrider wrote:Just upgraded to Live 6

Now I am having trouble with my midi clips that are triggering the clip to start recording.

The problem is it starts recording ok but when the second midi signal goes through to tell it to stop and to start playing I have an insanely big cpu spike and the audio cuts out for a second. I am running a PowerBook PC 1.5phz with 1.5gb ram.

Can anyone shed some light on this?? Because it was working fine in Live 5!

Anyone??

The Phat Conductor · Post by **The Phat Conductor** » Sat Feb 24, 2007 6:11 pm

i haven't run into that problem i'm afraid.

Sequence Your Live Looping (No Pedals Necessary)

Looping - What a great Idea

Problems