Having more than 1 MIDI note to record enable a track?

Discuss music production with Ableton Live.
delfs
Posts: 17
Joined: Sat Oct 25, 2008 5:11 pm

Having more than 1 MIDI note to record enable a track?

Post by delfs » Wed Oct 29, 2008 8:12 pm

Hi -

Say I have a set with 3 tracks: 1 w/ an instance of Drum Rack, and two - each w/ a soft synth.
I then have a pad controller that I want to use to switch between instruments. I've mapped the first pad to record enable track 1+2 - but how do I get the second to record enable both track 1+3?

Thanks in advance!

Jonas

Tone Deft
Posts: 24152
Joined: Mon Oct 02, 2006 5:19 pm

Post by Tone Deft » Wed Oct 29, 2008 8:45 pm

use them to launch scenes to get recording going. in each clip that you don't want to record into, remove the clip's 'stop clip' button (ctrl-e or right click on it).

hth
In my life
Why do I smile
At people who I'd much rather kick in the eye?
-Moz

delfs
Posts: 17
Joined: Sat Oct 25, 2008 5:11 pm

Post by delfs » Wed Oct 29, 2008 9:08 pm

You're misunderstanding what I want to do.
It's part of my live setup, and I want to record enable the instruments that I want to play via a MIDI keyboard in a given section of a song.

For now, I have two copies of track 1 to be able to have that and track 2 listening for MIDI in, say, verse, and that and track 3 listening in the chorus.

Is it clear what I want to do?

FrancodeLeon88
Posts: 110
Joined: Wed Aug 09, 2006 7:29 pm
Location: Chicago
Contact:

Post by FrancodeLeon88 » Thu Oct 30, 2008 2:35 am

I also need that function, of assigning either two different Midi CC#s, or two Alpha Numeric Symbols, or Two Midi Notes, to one control.

I don't think its possible.

However, you achieve the same results with Dummy Clips.

Its a lot more work though, and its really annoying.

DJ Franco de Leon
www.FRANCODELEON.com

LouisC
Posts: 99
Joined: Wed Apr 05, 2006 11:15 pm

Post by LouisC » Thu Oct 30, 2008 2:40 am

maybe stick all three into a instrument rack device, each with their own chain, then map the chain selecter to your midi controller, so then you can choose which one you want to play at that moment?

FrancodeLeon88
Posts: 110
Joined: Wed Aug 09, 2006 7:29 pm
Location: Chicago
Contact:

Post by FrancodeLeon88 » Thu Oct 30, 2008 2:43 am

Your suggestion is definitely a work around solution.

While it can certainly be done that way, in terms of live performance, I think dummy clips work way faster for me.

DJ Franco de Leon
www.FRANCODELEON.com

friend_kami
Posts: 2255
Joined: Mon May 29, 2006 10:10 pm

Post by friend_kami » Thu Oct 30, 2008 4:18 am

FrancodeLeon88 wrote:I also need that function, of assigning either two different Midi CC#s, or two Alpha Numeric Symbols, or Two Midi Notes, to one control.

I don't think its possible.

However, you achieve the same results with Dummy Clips.

Its a lot more work though, and its really annoying.

DJ Franco de Leon
www.FRANCODELEON.com
i need this function aswell, especially if you can have both values relative to each other so that you could for example have one knob for rough tweaks and another knob for finetunes.

LouisC
Posts: 99
Joined: Wed Apr 05, 2006 11:15 pm

Post by LouisC » Thu Oct 30, 2008 4:18 am

i dunno.
really i think it's a pretty effective way of running things like that.
easy, twist a knob, select your patch and off you play.

you did say your dummy clip workaround was very annoying and requires a lot of work, so i dunno how you think it's better

FrancodeLeon88
Posts: 110
Joined: Wed Aug 09, 2006 7:29 pm
Location: Chicago
Contact:

Post by FrancodeLeon88 » Thu Oct 30, 2008 6:32 am

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nF1u-5cFTq8

You can see how I use dummy clips - some times automating the action within a song is a lot easier than manually triggering record on/offs. I just run out of hands and time sometimes.

Regards,

DJ Franco de Leon
www.FRANCODELEON.com

Crash
Posts: 805
Joined: Fri Sep 19, 2008 4:06 pm
Location: Nowhereland

Re: Having more than 1 MIDI note to record enable a track?

Post by Crash » Thu Oct 30, 2008 7:57 am

delfs wrote:Say I have a set with 3 tracks: 1 w/ an instance of Drum Rack, and two - each w/ a soft synth.
I then have a pad controller that I want to use to switch between instruments. I've mapped the first pad to record enable track 1+2 - but how do I get the second to record enable both track 1+3?
You can either use a more sophisticated Midi controller that allows you to program chains of Midi commands (like two CC/notes being output on one button push) or use a translator software in between that turns the one CC/note coming from your Midi controller into a chain of commands (like MidiOx on PC, Bome's Midi Translator on PC/Mac, MidiPipe on Mac).

delfs
Posts: 17
Joined: Sat Oct 25, 2008 5:11 pm

Re: Having more than 1 MIDI note to record enable a track?

Post by delfs » Thu Oct 30, 2008 11:15 am

Crash wrote:
delfs wrote:Say I have a set with 3 tracks: 1 w/ an instance of Drum Rack, and two - each w/ a soft synth.
I then have a pad controller that I want to use to switch between instruments. I've mapped the first pad to record enable track 1+2 - but how do I get the second to record enable both track 1+3?
[snip] use a translator software in between that turns the one CC/note coming from your Midi controller into a chain of commands (like MidiOx on PC, Bome's Midi Translator on PC/Mac, MidiPipe on Mac).
That's interesting. As I'm on Mac and Bome's is only available in a Beta which is time limited to "end of october", I've gone for MidiPipe.
MidiPipe has a tool called "Key Mapper" that can route, say, C 4 to D 4, but not route C 4 to both C 4 and D 4... I might have missed something, but how should this be possible using MidiPipe?

Best regards, Jonas

crumhorn
Posts: 2503
Joined: Fri Sep 26, 2008 6:04 pm

Post by crumhorn » Thu Oct 30, 2008 11:22 am

This is coming straight off of the top of my head, but could you achieve something like this by using a combination of chord plugins in a MIDI rack and then routing the output back into live via a virtual/physical midi connection? - might be fun.

Crash
Posts: 805
Joined: Fri Sep 19, 2008 4:06 pm
Location: Nowhereland

Post by Crash » Thu Oct 30, 2008 11:22 am

Sorry, I might be wrong with MidiPipe. I'm not a Mac user myself (yet) and we are using Bome's Beta on my bandmate's onstage Macbook for keypress related things only (you can also use the free Midi Keystroke for that, but Bome is cross-platform).

In the end all these workarounds are just necessary because of Live's or your controller's lacking Midi features. I own a FC-300 foot-controller that allows me to send virtually limitless streams of Midi controls by pushing only a single button.

Additionally we programed our own Multi-Controller using a Korg padKontrol and Remote SL/Nocturn. Our first implementation used a combination of PK squared and Reaktor 5, now implemented everything into a single Max patch. This allows us to use the 8-16 knobs of the Remote/Nocturn for changing parameters while using the 16 pads of the padKontrol to chose which tracks/effects are affected when turning the knobs on the Novations.

But that's major mojo, for your needs you only need some software that translates a single CC/note to multiple outputs. If you own Reaktor or Max you can program that yourself.

siliconarc
Posts: 2872
Joined: Mon Jul 16, 2007 12:27 pm
Location: UK
Contact:

Post by siliconarc » Thu Oct 30, 2008 12:23 pm

LouisC wrote:maybe stick all three into a instrument rack device, each with their own chain, then map the chain selecter to your midi controller, so then you can choose which one you want to play at that moment?
agreed!
set the rack's chain selector to a note span from your controller. hold down lower note, while pressing a higher note to set the span. make sure the pad controller is outputting notes chromatically for it to work though.

delfs
Posts: 17
Joined: Sat Oct 25, 2008 5:11 pm

Post by delfs » Thu Oct 30, 2008 12:30 pm

crumhorn wrote:This is coming straight off of the top of my head, but could you achieve something like this by using a combination of chord plugins in a MIDI rack and then routing the output back into live via a virtual/physical midi connection? - might be fun.
That's a good idea. I just tried it out, and I think it's definitely an option. I'll try that as well as the intrument rack idea out later - to see what's most convenient.

Thanks for many good suggestions!

Jonas

Post Reply