1st note being cut off when looping live MIDI recordings

dave_house · Post by **dave_house** » Fri Jun 22, 2007 7:31 pm

Hi,

This may be down to poor technique, but I thought I'd put it out there anyway!

So I'm doing some live looping using MIDI tracks. I have a foot pedal set up to start the recording, then stop the recording and loop the phrase. Quantize is set to 1 bar. When I get to the end of the phrase and hit the pedal to stop the recording / start it looping, the 1st note is nearly always absent from the 1st looped play of the phrase. It's definitely there and it plays on additional loops, but not the 1st one.

This doesn't happen so much if I use 1/4 or 1/8 quantize, but this isn't always practical for other things I'm doing in the live set. I suspect it's something to do with when I'm hitting the foot pedal? Ie, my timing could be better? Perhaps I'm playing the 1st note fractionally before I start the phrase recording? But then why would it not play the 1st note on the 1st pass, but play it on subsequent ones?!

Anyway, thoughts and suggestions most welcome...

Cheers,

Dave

dave_house · Post by **dave_house** » Fri Jun 22, 2007 7:36 pm

oh, and if it is bad timing and I am starting playing before the recording has kicked in, is there any way of 'trimming' the note to the first beat, or something similar?

mikemc · Post by **mikemc** » Fri Jun 22, 2007 8:34 pm

how many beats in your loop, sure you have all four [edit] and that it is starting on the right beat? I know you say it's in your subsequent plays, but it might be starting on the wrong beat.

dancerchris · Post by **dancerchris** » Fri Jun 22, 2007 8:42 pm

It might be that your midi program changes start on beat 1 too. So your VSTi setting etc get set at the same time the first note on beat 1 is played ergo you don't hear it because it is not programmed. Subsequent playing has the VSTi "primed" and you hear it.

Just a guess.

kidbeyond · Post by **kidbeyond** » Fri Jun 22, 2007 10:42 pm

This sounds suspiciously like a problem I've been having with looping live audio:

L6: Dropout upon first play of loop after recording

I've been back and forth with Abe engineers on it for over a year; no fix has appeared yet. Sigh.

Ironically, this is a problem that appeared only in Live 6; things worked peachily in L5 and earlier.

Feel free to whip up momentum around it... I've tried my best.

-- Kid B

koneko · Post by **koneko** » Sat Jun 23, 2007 1:54 am

to me it sounds more like "bad timing". you play the first note too early. its not a mistake or anything, but a loop has to start somewhere, and if you play before it starts, the note will be there without being played, and you will have to either quantize it, or push it to the "right place" (select it and one right arrow click to do that).
is it the case?

Bassic Dave · Post by **Bassic Dave** » Sat Jun 23, 2007 2:23 am

I believe this has to do with your playing and quanitze. You might be playing the first note a little early when you lay it down, then it loops but by the time quantize kicks in the first note has already been skipped since it was quantized to the first beat after the beat already passed. You can check this by recording loops with no quantize and seeing if you record the first note too early. I think ableton quantizes the loop after its been recorded, not as the midi notes are played. By the time it comes to the second loop the quantize is already done so is plays quantized.

Kid B, i think your issue is something different, and that sucks for the awesome type of show you do. That must frustrate you to all hell. I will pray for a fix for you as i lay me down to sleep tonight

Bassic D.

bigbadotis · Post by **bigbadotis** » Sat Jun 23, 2007 2:58 am

If what Bassic Dave said is true this should be filed as a bug. The quantize should take place in time so that this doesn't occur.

"Bad timing" in this situation just means playing slightly ahead of the beat instead of slightly behind.

koneko · Post by **koneko** » Sat Jun 23, 2007 4:28 am

dave, is quantization turned on ???

rbmonosylabik · Post by **rbmonosylabik** » Sat Jun 23, 2007 4:33 am

This has been an issue for quite a while. Input quantize should help, or you can select the not sounding notes and hit the right arrow once.

bigbadotis · Post by **bigbadotis** » Sat Jun 23, 2007 5:47 am

Input quantize should help, or you can select the not sounding notes and hit the right arrow once.

Input quantize (that's the same as record quantize, right?) doesn't help with this. The problem is the input is not quantized in time for the first note of the first loop playback, so even with input quantization turned on you still miss that first note. In subsequent playbacks everything is heard correctly. As Bassic Dave said, it appears that quantization does not occur until after the loop is completely finished recording... or at least that seems to make the most sense given the problem.

And selecting the notes and hitting the right arrow doesn't help either... the problem only happens the -first time through the loop-. After that everything is OK, so unless you can select the bad notes and move them before the first repeat of the loop... :)

On page 188 of the manual it says that if you are overdub recording while in Clip View mode the record quantization changes are applied immediately... maybe this will help? So, assuming you know beforehand how long you want your loop to be, you can create your midi clip before hand, enter clip view mode and then start recording into it. It's not ideal, but maybe it will work around the problem.

I have definitely had this problem before as well; I just assumed it was something weird and wasn't worried enough about missing one kick drum hit to start a thread. But it would be nice to have this working correctly.

longjohns · Post by **longjohns** » Sat Jun 23, 2007 5:58 am

I have certainly noticed similar on audio clips - that the first time it loops I'll get a little glitch at the start.

I had been chalking it up to the shift between monitoring and playback. I can't recall whether this was present in v.5 or not. Worth a test.

I think the problem which I had posted about on the thread K.B. linked above was different - a longer audio dropout, not immediately at the beginning of a clip.

eyeknow · Post by **eyeknow** » Sat Jun 23, 2007 9:03 am

I wouldn't even know where to begin......so many odd midi clip problems.

dave_house · Post by **dave_house** » Mon Jun 25, 2007 8:12 am

cheers for the replies people, shame ive only just got a chance to check the forum!

Well I'm glad other people have been having the same problem and its not just me! It sounds like the point at which Live quantizes the loop is the problem and I agree, this should be filed as a bug (I'll get on the case). The fact that the problem occurs less frequently if quantize is set to 1/4 or 1/8 supports this. I'm going to experiment with recording an audio loop to see if I get the same problem (and to see if it's the same one as Kid Beyond describes).

I realise that dragging the 'dodgy' note into place once its recorded will sort the problem, but this isn't practical during a live set. And if I'm recording, say, a synth phrase with long sweeping notes, it totally sucks to play the loop live and establish the phrase in the track, only for it to suddenly drop out for a bit on the first repetition. Placing dummy midi clips would probably work, but it lessens the opportunity for spontineity and improvisation.

I've been trying to start my loops slightly later once the recording has been triggered, but this is somewhat counter-intuitive as it's all about being in beat isn't it!!

dave_house · Post by **dave_house** » Fri Jul 06, 2007 11:39 am

Hi folks,

if the above issue is of concern to anyone else, perhaps you could inform Ableton via the thread I've made in the Bugs forum?

http://www.ableton.com/forum/viewtopic. ... highlight=

cheers,

dave