triggering multiple scenes with unwarped/unlooped clips

Beta Two Agonist · Post by **Beta Two Agonist** » Wed Apr 09, 2008 2:20 pm

Hello there,

I'm a first-timer on this forum and I hope someone can point me in the right direction.
I do ambient/atmospheric type music and I've been trying to find the best way to translate my music to a live situation using ableton.

Using follow actions and legato is excellent when it comes to loops, but I use a lot of complex sounds including piano/pad/guitar-based atmospheres that obviously sound awful when warped.
I've split my songs into say eight tracks and control effects via midi on send tracks for each track.

When triggering whole scenes of unwarped/unlooped clips (which comprise one complete song) I haven't found a simple way of triggering other scenes without interrupting the preceding scene. So I can mix/blend multiple scenes.

Is there a way to do this without using warping/looping my clips?
I would be very thankful for some some advice.

Ian

forge · Post by **forge** » Wed Apr 09, 2008 2:49 pm

if you select an empty clip slot and press ctrl/cmd + E it will remove the stop button - that will mean you can trigger a scene without affecting the tracks with no stop buttons if you leave the slots empty

Beta Two Agonist · Post by **Beta Two Agonist** » Wed Apr 09, 2008 3:10 pm

i've been looking for that in the manual but must've missed it.

excellent...I wish I figured this out a long time ago...and thanks for the lightning fast reply!

cheers ian

Beta Two Agonist · Post by **Beta Two Agonist** » Wed Apr 09, 2008 3:20 pm

i am so happy i feel like singing "I feel pretty", like in the movie anger management

forge · Post by **forge** » Wed Apr 09, 2008 3:28 pm

well feel free to record and post it for our amusment!

laird · Post by **laird** » Wed Apr 09, 2008 8:08 pm

I assume you can't add a dummy clip that'd automatically fade out the volumes of the tracks you are trying to not interrupt....

Also, OP: are you a beta2 adrenergic agonist? There are a number of "beta 2" receptors.

longjohns · Post by **longjohns** » Thu Apr 10, 2008 1:02 am

laird wrote:I assume you can't add a dummy clip that'd automatically fade out the volumes of the tracks you are trying to not interrupt....

I think it would be easier in this case to just copy the clip into the next scene, set to legato, and draw the fade envelope on that one...

longjohns · Post by **longjohns** » Thu Apr 10, 2008 1:08 am

Beta two -

you should consider the "trick" (Angstrom has a well-explained thread on this) of setting the clip tempo to match the set tempo. That will allow you to keep warp ON without any of the nasties, and opens up many possibilites as far as clip manipulation

assuming you don't need to have the set _changing_ tempos...

Beta Two Agonist · Post by **Beta Two Agonist** » Thu Apr 10, 2008 9:35 am

Thanks for the replies guys.

I do agree that warping and the possibilities for clip manipulation is the thing that sets live apart from other apps. Although I think that warping , depending on the material, can sound really awful, especially on more realistic or string-type instruments. I think i found a thread about this.

Longjohns - i will look into the thread by Angstrom, interesting stuff. The problem is that i have material that comes from other sets with a lot of different tempos as it's quite abstract stuff. But definitely worth experimenting with.

Laird - you're right, thats adrenergic, asthma patients use inhalers that act on the receptors in the bronchiary muscles, that's were the name comes from. And I'm going to look up about dummy clips too, that's new to me.

cheers

forge · Post by **forge** » Thu Apr 10, 2008 10:44 am

Beta Two Agonist wrote: Longjohns - i will look into the thread by Angstrom, interesting stuff. The problem is that i have material that comes from other sets with a lot of different tempos as it's quite abstract stuff. But definitely worth experimenting with.

it was basically about 'tricking' Live into thinking that the original tempo of the clip is the same as the project tempo so it doesnt warp

longjohns · Post by **longjohns** » Thu Apr 10, 2008 1:55 pm

^^^exactly

it does not matter what tempo the clip is,

all that matters is what tempo Live thinks it is

which is 100% under your control

ubermnd · Post by **ubermnd** » Sun Apr 13, 2008 7:21 pm

Using follow actions and legato is excellent when it comes to loops, but I use a lot of complex sounds including piano/pad/guitar-based atmospheres that obviously sound awful when warped.

Might be a silly question but have you tried changing the time-stretching algorithm on your clips? It is set to 'beats' by default and that will sound bloody terrible on textured sounds. Try changing it to 'tone' or 'texture' or even 'complex' and it should allow you to warp your samples without any real loss of quality.

Obviously if you do this and drastically change the tempo artifacts will begin to appear in the sound but if the variations are small then it should sound fine.