live MIDI looping

chuzzlewit · Post by **chuzzlewit** » Sun Nov 18, 2007 8:32 pm

People!

Ok it's been a while, and my head is hurting from trying to remember if this is possible. Finally got to the stage where I'm using Live, well...LIVE! Using it in a full-band set-up triggering samples, loops and playing VSTs.

Lately I've been playing around with recording drum patterns in on the fly using quantisation and looping say 1-2 bars of midi repeat drum patterns I've just played in. What I really want though is to play a pattern, and have it loop, but only if I'm happy with it. I know the overdub feature allows you to build a loop, adding saying kick, then snare then hats etc. Is it possible to straight overdub all of the recorded MIDI data though??? More often than not I screw up my beat and want to start again, but obviously unless I switch to a new clip I will just keep adding MIDI notes to the loop I've already recorded...

I seem to remember this being possible, but I can't remember how and haven't been able to find any answers here apart from having a whole load of clips lined up in a track and just recording into a fresh clip when I want to record a new loop. Make sense?

Any help greatly appreciated...

Jeff Brown · Post by **Jeff Brown** » Sun Nov 18, 2007 9:47 pm

That's an interesting problem. Ctrl-Z might be your answer. Suppose you've got a loop with only snare on the 1/4 notes, and over the course of the second repeat you overdub kick onto it. If you don't like the way you did it, you can at any point press undo (Ctrl-Z) and the last loop's length to be recorded will be removed. Each further press of Ctrl-Z will undo another loop's length of recording.

Unfortunately you've got to reach for your keyboard to do this, because Ableton as yet provide no way to MIDIfy many commands, and Undo is one of them.

daniel_grieff · Post by **daniel_grieff** » Sun Nov 18, 2007 10:33 pm

Jeff Brown wrote:Unfortunately you've got to reach for your keyboard to do this, because Ableton as yet provide no way to MIDIfy many commands, and Undo is one of them.

No, but you can use bomes MIDI translator to do this. And control aids, or whatever its called on mac.

ckluxen · Post by **ckluxen** » Tue Nov 20, 2007 4:14 pm

or apple script

4.33 · Post by **4.33** » Tue Nov 20, 2007 8:52 pm

or mackie control emulation

simplemusic · Post by **simplemusic** » Wed Nov 21, 2007 2:38 am

chuzzlewit,

this is exactly the thing have spent the last few months perfrecting in my control set-up (actually it's not perfect, but I am working with it for a while before I change).

I use Bomes MidiTranslator and map favious pads from my Korg microKontol. What I end up with is the following in one of my scenes (for the 1st 10 pads):

--------------------------------------------------------
|..Copy...|............UP.........|..Clear...|....Delete...|
--------------------------------------------------------
|.LEFT.....|..Launch/Record..|.RIGHT..|.....Undo....|
--------------------------------------------------------
|.Quant..|.........DOWN........|............|................|
--------------------------------------------------------

UP/DOWN/LEFT/RIGHT Navigates the clips
Launch will trigger the currently selected, or if empty record new, hit again stops record and loops.
Copy will copy the current clip down one row and then activate that to keep playing (so you can add more and still go back to the previous)
Clear will clear the contents of the current clip
Delete will remove the clip altogether
Undo is as stated above - the most useful
Quant is also really useful - it toggles between various launch quantisations. With this you can relaunch loops you have recorded from different points in the clip giving great variations.

(I also have a button to toggle record quantisation modes between off (for keyboard parts), 1/16 (for drums), 1/4 (if I'm trying to catch pads that start from the beginning of the loop))

I play in a quasi DJ mode whereby I have 2 (A and B) tracks to play MP3 loops and tracks, where it screw with various loops and parameters to give a good base overwhich is them jam keys, drums, perc and stuff.

I keep a few template clips available if I want a pre-set 1,2 or 4 bar loop. 4 bar is better for melodic loops that need more variation.

So...
Kick in track A, loop it over an interesting section, maybe add variation with effects then...

(Launch/Record) Record a perc loop (Copy) and add variation (Copy) and add more variation. Use UP/DOWN/Launch to trigger the 3 variations

Navigate to new track (Synth), (Launch/Record) Record a loop (Copy) and add variation (Copy) and add more variation.

Use UP/DOWN/Launch to trigger the 3 variations and the 3 perc variations.

...etc, etc

It's not perfect yet as it is still quite hectic with the left hand 'driving the pads', but its a start for a live set-up.