How to combine multiple tracks onto one?

graceslick · Post by **graceslick** » Sat Dec 01, 2007 6:01 am

I've only got Live Lite at this point, and will be needing to upgrade soon as 4 midi and 4 audio tracks are not enough, but before I can afford to upgrade, can anyone tell me how to put say 3 midi tracks onto 1 single track to free up those midi tracks so I can record more things?

I assume this is what the master track is for, but I got confused reading the manual, as it seemed that once you put tracks on this master track, you can't edit or play it back again.

I've tried combining all different tracks into one normal track by clicking & dragging, but it loses all but one of the tracks, so that doesn't work. Obviously it also doesn't work by putting the tracks after one another, as I need them all playing at once (or overlapping at some point anyway).

What I want is...

1. Record various tracks
2. Combine them onto one track to get more free tracks to record more
3. Combine those further recordings on the same single track again
4. Being able to keep doing this for as long as I need to
5. Play it back as one complete track, with nothing left on the other tracks. Everything is just on that one master track, which I can edit, etc.

Is this even possible or should I just get Ableton 6 or 7, with more tracks? (incidentally, how many tracks do these have? 36? I'd be happy with even 20 tracks)

Thanks!

DannyDJ · Post by **DannyDJ** » Sun Dec 02, 2007 11:21 pm

graceslick wrote:I assume this is what the master track is for, but I got confused reading the manual, as it seemed that once you put tracks on this master track, you can't edit or play it back again.

Wait a minute: you say you actually can put tracks onto the the master track? EvilEvilEvilEvilEvilEvilEvilEvilEvilEvilEvil? Is this you?

graceslick · Post by **graceslick** » Mon Dec 03, 2007 7:57 am

What the? Who's Evil? I know nobody called Evil.

I just genuinely want to know how to "bounce down" multiple tracks onto one editable track so I can free up the other tracks to keep recording, that's all.

djgroovy · Post by **djgroovy** » Mon Dec 03, 2007 12:55 pm

You need to set an audio track's "audio from" to resample, record enable it, and play the tracks you want to bounce. Then you have it as audio, delete the other tracks.

Then get the money for the upgrade.

j2j · Post by **j2j** » Mon Dec 03, 2007 1:03 pm

the upgrade is not so bad, it is very cheap with live lite.

good luck

TroyP · Post by **TroyP** » Mon Dec 03, 2007 7:04 pm

To expand a bit on the good advice above, you could create 4 submixes, one in each audio channel. The process could be like this:

Sequence MIDI stuff into the 4 tracks.
Record all 4 MIDI tracks into one Audio track.
Repeat until all 4 Audio tracks are full.
Record those into Arrangement view.
Take the resulting clip back to sesson view and put it in one of the audio tracks.
Repeat as many times as you can.

At all steps, save the clips, in case you don't like the mix a couple of bounces down the path.

A few times of doing this and you'll definitely be motivated to save the money for the upgrade...but at least it CAN be done.

Troy

graceslick · Post by **graceslick** » Tue Dec 04, 2007 6:29 am

THANK YOU SO MUCH!!!! Especially Troy, with your more detailed advice.

*eternally grateful*