Anyone doing this -Live as guitar rack patcher/controller?

drbill · Post by **drbill** » Sun Sep 19, 2004 7:19 pm

Hi,

I've been looking for a tool that would allow me to maximize the flexibility of my guitar setup. I have a Powerbook and a MOTU 828II and a variety of guitar stuff. I usually just use my Roland VG-88 modeler (sometimes along with a GR-33 synth), but I would like to mix in my guitar's piezo pickups for real acoustic sounds (not to mention the nice Duncans, too) and software synths & effects from the powerbook (perhaps unloading the GR-33). I also have some outboard hardware that needs to get patched in (guitar preamps, talkbox, etc.) and want to send one mix to the board and another to my monitor. I do not use a regular guitar amp at all.

I've been browsing through the archives here and checking through the Live tutorials and manual and I think that I can:

1) set up tracks, clips and scenes with the mixes & submixes set up to route the signals the way I want

2) set up my Behringer foot controller to send MIDI notes to trigger the scenes for patch changes

OK so far? If so, then:

1) should I expect any touble with latency (1GHz powerbook)?
2) would live sound-on-sound looping be too complicated to integrate into this setup?

I'd like to know this will all work before I plunk down my $400. Thanks in advance for your input!!

madlab · Post by **madlab** » Mon Sep 20, 2004 7:18 am

Same Pbook and soundcard here : no latency problem.

Moody · Post by **Moody** » Mon Sep 20, 2004 5:17 pm

I have been looking into this as well. It is an awesome Idea that you can minimize your hrware and extend you actual effects.

drbill · Post by **drbill** » Thu Sep 23, 2004 2:54 am

Hey guys,

Can anyone confirm that this is a reasonable approach? I just want to make sure that it's doable before I buy it....

Thanks!

Pitch Black · Post by **Pitch Black** » Thu Sep 23, 2004 3:20 am

Hi drbill-

Have you downloaded the 4.03 demo and given it a good going over. Its fully functional, has no time limit or "quit after xxx minutes" feature, so you'll be able to test your system and ideas completely.

Spend a day or so trying out everything you want to do. If you run into specific problems, just ask here at the forum and someone will be able to sort you out.

The only restriction is you can't render audio to disk, or save your projects, but for a full evaluation of your setup the demo should be fine!

HTH

blargh · Post by **blargh** » Thu Sep 23, 2004 1:14 pm

Can't vouch for the laptop/audio card part of your setup, but Live 4 and the fcb1010(i assume that's what you have) definitely make a great guitar combo. The signal routing should fit all your needs, and scene changes with the fcb1010 are no problem. If you want to use Live like a hardware looper, you may find that it works quite differently: not worse, just differently. There's no audio overdub per se, so the only way to add layers is to keep adding tracks. The advantages are you can control each of those tracks exactly how you want. Of course, nothing's stopping you from pluggin a hardware looper into Live. What I'm still looking for (along with tons of others probably) is a really capable (EDP-like) VST looper plugin.

drbill wrote:Hi,

1) set up tracks, clips and scenes with the mixes & submixes set up to route the signals the way I want

2) set up my Behringer foot controller to send MIDI notes to trigger the scenes for patch changes

OK so far? If so, then:

1) should I expect any touble with latency (1GHz powerbook)?
2) would live sound-on-sound looping be too complicated to integrate into this setup?

I'd like to know this will all work before I plunk down my $400. Thanks in advance for your input!!

Machinate · Post by **Machinate** » Thu Sep 23, 2004 4:03 pm

blargh wrote: What I'm still looking for (along with tons of others probably) is a really capable (EDP-like) VST looper plugin.

What does the EDP do, that's so special? I'm not quite up to speed on hardware looping

Andreas

drbill · Post by **drbill** » Fri Sep 24, 2004 12:13 am

blargh wrote:Live 4 and the fcb1010(i assume that's what you have) definitely make a great guitar combo. The signal routing should fit all your needs, and scene changes with the fcb1010 are no problem.

Thanks! That's exactly the feedback I was hoping for. I got the demo and worked through the tutorial, but the "no saving" restriction made it hard to try what I want to do in the small bits of time I have for doing this.

Thanks again,
Bill

blargh · Post by **blargh** » Fri Sep 24, 2004 12:01 pm

Machinate wrote:
blargh wrote: What I'm still looking for (along with tons of others probably) is a really capable (EDP-like) VST looper plugin.
What does the EDP do, that's so special? I'm not quite up to speed on hardware looping
Andreas

What's different about most hardware loopers is they'll let you continually record on top of your existing loop without overwriting it: overdubbing. You can also set how slowly you'd like sounds to decay, from quickly to slowly to not at all. These things make it a little more intuitive to construct a loop, as opposed to Live where I record a loop, arm another track, record a loop, arm another track, etc. Having the loops decay in Live is also possible (I've done it with clip envelopes), but really clunky.

Machinate · Post by **Machinate** » Sat Sep 25, 2004 6:27 pm

blargh wrote:
Machinate wrote:
blargh wrote: What I'm still looking for (along with tons of others probably) is a really capable (EDP-like) VST looper plugin.
What does the EDP do, that's so special? I'm not quite up to speed on hardware looping
Andreas
What's different about most hardware loopers is they'll let you continually record on top of your existing loop without overwriting it: overdubbing. You can also set how slowly you'd like sounds to decay, from quickly to slowly to not at all. These things make it a little more intuitive to construct a loop, as opposed to Live where I record a loop, arm another track, record a loop, arm another track, etc. Having the loops decay in Live is also possible (I've done it with clip envelopes), but really clunky.

Oh I see.
Have you tried the Elottronix XL? I think it does the job quite well, and it's automatable

It's soo cool setting up a loop to be recorded at the same time everytime you play a set.
http://www.uv.es/~ruizcan/p_vst.htm

Machinate · Post by **Machinate** » Sat Sep 25, 2004 6:28 pm

blargh wrote:
Machinate wrote:
blargh wrote: What I'm still looking for (along with tons of others probably) is a really capable (EDP-like) VST looper plugin.
What does the EDP do, that's so special? I'm not quite up to speed on hardware looping
Andreas
What's different about most hardware loopers is they'll let you continually record on top of your existing loop without overwriting it: overdubbing. You can also set how slowly you'd like sounds to decay, from quickly to slowly to not at all. These things make it a little more intuitive to construct a loop, as opposed to Live where I record a loop, arm another track, record a loop, arm another track, etc. Having the loops decay in Live is also possible (I've done it with clip envelopes), but really clunky.

Oh I see.
Have you tried the Elottronix XL? I think it does the job quite well, and it's automatable

It's soo cool setting up a loop to be recorded at the same time everytime you play a set.
http://www.uv.es/~ruizcan/p_vst.htm

..Oh, and it's absolutely free! That's always a plus...

Per Boysen · Post by **Per Boysen** » Sun Sep 26, 2004 1:27 pm

Yes, the Elottronix XL is amazing. But it's not available for Mac, which is the machine drbill is using. I had some fun with Elettronix on my old music PC before it crapped out on me. Now I have gotten into using Mac instead and I'm actually doing stuff I suppose are similar to what you (drbill) is going for; ie using the powerbook as a combined effect processor and multi track live looper, with guitar audio direct input.

I aso have an EDP (the mono hardware looping device with sound-on-sound overdub layering capability as well as beat synced cutting/replacing of quantised loop slices), but I like to also keep a laptop only set-up.

For the overdub layering of sound into the same loop, it's actually possible to achieve that in Live by using either the plug-in Lexicon PSP42 or Augustus Loop. I have both and have find Augustus Loop to be best suited for my needs. Very much because it will let you change the pitch of the loops while they are running as well as the Reverse Loop function (that can give some nice unpredictable results). I'm maintaining two software set-ups for live-looping, one in Live 4 and one in Numerology, and they both rely on the Augustus Loop AU plug-in. I have chosen to work with three real-time loops because (1) three arrangement elements mostly sound good (not getting trapped into a too dense overall PA sound), (2) you are able to follow three simultaneous musical lines and react to them all by your live mixing (using the FCB1010 midi footpedal) and finally (3) when applying beat synced LFO filter cut-off you can achieve a good polyrhythmic effect from three patterns (ex: 8ths, 8ths Triads, 16ths).

My Powerbook with 1,25 MHz processor is running on 44 to 58 percent CPU usage. I have 1,25 MB RAM. Each of the three software loopers can stack an infinite number of loop layers without needing more CPU. I practically never record anything to the hard drive. Oh, I also run some drum sequencing, almost forgot (Impulse in Live and iDrum in Numerology). My machine also has to deal with five Neodynium compressors (sounding better to my ears thatn Live's compressors) as well as a lot of Live's auto-filters and the 3rd-party feeware Filterizer. The Filterizer plug-in is slapped over the tapped signal from the audio input that goes to the loopers (not the actual audio through, direct instrument signal) and prints beat-synced LFO filter cut-off patterns to the audio stream going to the three loopers on return channels (in Live4). In Live 4 I'm using a bunch of midi clips to send midi notes to the Filterizer, each clip with a different beat pattern. In Numerolgy I use step sequencers to directly manipulate the filter cut-off built into the Augustus Loop ....well, I'll stop here. It's 2 nice set-ups that took quite some time to create. The sound source mostly used for looping is my own guitar and tenor sax playing. Using PCMCIA based sound card here; either a Echo I/O or a RME Multiface (depending on the gig)

Lucid · Post by **Lucid** » Mon Sep 27, 2004 11:09 pm

ElotTronix is cool, definitely adds some "loopiness" to Live. I do miss the "Undo" feature that is on the Electrix Repeater though.

Lucid · Post by **Lucid** » Tue Sep 28, 2004 3:59 pm

So, are there any other options for VST plug-in looping in Windows XP ?

Per Boysen · Post by **Per Boysen** » Tue Sep 28, 2004 4:11 pm

Lucid wrote:So, are there any other options for VST plug-in looping in Windows XP ?

Lexicon PSP 42. Very good emulation of the legendary Lexicon delay that many user for real-time looping.
http://www.pspaudioware.com/

Anyone doing this -Live as guitar rack patcher/controller?

Anyone doing this -Live as guitar rack patcher/controller?

will this work?

Re: Anyone doing this -Live as guitar rack patcher/controlle

Re: Anyone doing this -Live as guitar rack patcher/controlle

Thanks, blargh

Re: Anyone doing this -Live as guitar rack patcher/controlle

Re: Anyone doing this -Live as guitar rack patcher/controlle

Re: Anyone doing this -Live as guitar rack patcher/controlle