help with backing tracks

[otto]

Hi guys I have searched this topic and found bits and pieces. But hoping there may be help with my specific situation.

Firstly I am a total noob to Ableton(1 week). I have a very basic understanding of how it works. I am trying feverishly to build backing tracks for gigs I have booked (after the collapse of our band) but not getting anywhere. I dont want to spend too much time recording if it is not going to be the right approach for my end needs. I have set about trying to learn first what I need to do and try to get it at least half right from the start.

Our new band is going to consist of myself on guitar and vocals and a drummer. I intend to try to limit each song to about 4 tracks to begin with as this is the same number of out puts I have in my mbox2pro. Though I may run a couple of sounds out the same out put. to boost my tracks.
Here is what I want to do.
Track 1 Drum sounds - making my own beats I have a reasonable understanding of this.
Track 2 Bass - recording bass lines using audio and midi
Track 3 Keys - Synth sounds , keys, piano
Track 4 Backing vocals - oohs an Ahs

I am thinking if it is possible to save 12 songs in the same project and have them able to be broken up into several parts (clips) ie intro vs chorus middle 8 ending.

1. Is this the best way? Is this possible and if so is it possible to have each song stop after its ending clip has played using launch commands then have the cursor ready to play the next song when manuallly triggered?using FCB 1010 footcontroller.

I'm guessing if I go down this road I will be committed to playing the song set as it is loaded. One thought is If I saved each song as a its own live set. Because they would be so small load up times would not be a hassle. Though stopping to tweek a computer between songs could bea drag. (I feel a wage cut... I mean new band member coming on)

2. I am trying to work on learning what I need to know first to achieve the above goals. So tweaking LFO's and stuff is maybe not highest on my to do list just now. Can anyone recomend any reading/vids that might help specifically with this sort of thing. I am not doing a DJ style show as such. Which many tutorials seem to address. Though I'm into blending electronic sounds with the songs we do. I guess what I'm saying is Twisting sound is not high on my to do list yet. More basics I think.

As you can see I'm one confused desperate individual. So any advice help is much appreciated

[otto]

I'm gonna bump myself here only because if there is anyone in here dumber than me (I doubt but it's possible) They may benifet from my journey into the unknown. To be honest I dont mind coming off looking like a dick if I can learn something along the way. Ok so here is what I have learnt.

Yes the videos are helpful on the site of particular interest to me where the basic ones ie recording audio-improvising with loops- live 6 for players and composers-aand - making music with live - dont forget to right click and "save to" them they took a while to dl but are worth keeping. I find as I learn more there is less time where what is being said is flying over my head.

As I understand it session view is where I will be doing most of my recording. This is like a pallet of sounds that I can record an arrangement of in the "arrangement view". Tonights breakthrough was that I realised I can record a long clip and then select the portion I want played in the clip using loop selectors. I imagine if there was a particularly tricky part I could use the drop in/ out to fix though I haven't tried this. I also realised that I could have clips of diferant lengths playing in the same scene (duh-too easy).

I colour coded my clips for my first song and renamed them.
I added and tweaked a few effects and I have been studying warping though havent tried it yet.
I am still in the dark as to how to put together a show. I'm thinking that there is no point to arranging anything as I want the flexibility to change arrangements on the fly. My arrangements are going to be pretty simple compared to say a dj set. Maybe I can record a simple arrangemnt that can be triggered/altered using fcb1010. perhaps memory locators??
Tonight I will be scouring the forum and trying to find some info on this.

To anyone else out there that feels as stupid as I do chime in hopefully we will stumble forward together. I will say it's all starting to make sense and I am really excited about using this program and as I say sharing my experience.

[otto]

I found a few suggestions on ways to do this on other forums. One guy suggested creating a live set. Recording /arranging song. Then rendering the final mix. Do this for all my songs. Then open a new live set and import songs. chop them up into their various parts and lay them out in session view so as each part of each song can be triggered. The down side of this is that I lose mixing capabilities for each sound ie bass, drum etc as they have been bounced to a stereo track.

Any ideas... Anyone... Pleeeeease.