does anyone have any hacks for changing rack presets?

[Angstrom]

this is an old subject, but I thought I'd bring it up again.

I currently use a really horrible system of hacks to change rack 'presets' by using 'chain select' . That's really horrible in just so many ways: you cant see a preset name, the instruments do not switch off, it is hell to re-order them or leap to one out of sequence, sometimes it fails.

My hideous preset selection system is : I have 'my' midi channel (the one I play keys through) set to monitor 'in' which means that if I put a clip in there with a CC assigned to a macro which is in turn assigned to a chain select. When I hit a Clip with a CC set to the macro it moves the chain select to the next preset.

This is terrible because, well, there are a number of ways this can fail utterly that are too tedious to go into.

So, there must be SOMEONE out there who actually plays Live instrument racks in a live context? How the hell are you changing presets? Or do you just ignore live racks and play hardware?

[Jekblad]

well, normally i midi map to record enables, but that leaves you with a ton of channels. The remote SL helps with this, but i've also key mapped to the macro's to save midi thangs.

i've tried the chain selector before.... not fun. so I'm totally interested in ways of doin this too!

[nowtime]

I don't know if this will work for you but I have, say, a dozen drumkits, each in its own chain. I midi map the first one's chain select to 0, the next one to 12, next 24 (or whatever the increment is that shows by default in the chain select window - I forget), and up the chain. I then assaign each kit to a button on my BCR or my QWERTY and then keep a paper list of the chain select assaignnment and my kit name and the song name. I suppose you could theoretically have a 127 kits in a single rack but I wouldn't dare!

[Michael Hatsis]

this is an old subject, but I thought I'd bring it up again.

I currently use a really horrible system of hacks to change rack 'presets' by using 'chain select' . That's really horrible in just so many ways: you cant see a preset name, the instruments do not switch off, it is hell to re-order them or leap to one out of sequence, sometimes it fails.

My hideous preset selection system is : I have 'my' midi channel (the one I play keys through) set to monitor 'in' which means that if I put a clip in there with a CC assigned to a macro which is in turn assigned to a chain select. When I hit a Clip with a CC set to the macro it moves the chain select to the next preset.

This is terrible because, well, there are a number of ways this can fail utterly that are too tedious to go into.

So, there must be SOMEONE out there who actually plays Live instrument racks in a live context? How the hell are you changing presets? Or do you just ignore live racks and play hardware?

Thats the way i did it. but found using nested racks of Insts is a horrible and cumbersome way to work. I spent too much time trying to make it work but in Live's current state, Racks inside of Racks are just too heavy,
If your using sampler you can use the sample selector page and set it up so that each preset is one notch on the sample selector clip env...not as heavy since technically you only need one sampler inst - but weird to work wif.
honestly, wait till you get about 12 or so Live insts deep, just using a few tracks like this Live will pretty much lock when doing something simple like moving a clip. def recommend third party insts here that support proper preset changes...again, wasted lots of time trying to work this way.

[lunabass]

i've actually moved over to combinators in reason for switching between presets. it means i have to do a lot of sampling from my racks to make sampler patches in reason. some sounds i just recreate using reasojn synths but everything else gets sampled. i can map different instruments to different parts of the keyboard add fx etc etc the combinator does everything i need for this purpose

all of my combinator presets for a show get saved into one folder and i choose them easily via midi.

it's a complete PITA but it's proved to be way more stable than nesting racks within racks etc.

it would be great if you could just store rack presets in a folder and be given some way of choosing them without having to have them all open at once

[forge]

well, you know my thoughts on this so I won't go into it again

but just in case you missed it, in Live 8 you can now MIDI/KEY map device title bars to jump straight to the device - not really the same at all, but it is quite useful and I requested that a few times so I'm glad it's in

[lunabass]

but just in case you missed it, in Live 8 you can now MIDI/KEY map device title bars to jump straight to the device - not really the same at all, but it is quite useful and I requested that a few times so I'm glad it's in

i haven't used v8. so if you have say sampler and operator within a rack you can jump from one to the other via a midi or key stroke? does this also mean you can specify which instrument in that rack will receive your midi notes?

i assume this means you'll still have to have all of your instruments for a set loaded?

[forge]

but just in case you missed it, in Live 8 you can now MIDI/KEY map device title bars to jump straight to the device - not really the same at all, but it is quite useful and I requested that a few times so I'm glad it's in

i haven't used v8. so if you have say sampler and operator within a rack you can jump from one to the other via a midi or key stroke? does this also mean you can specify which instrument in that rack will receive your midi notes?

i assume this means you'll still have to have all of your instruments for a set loaded?

you'd have to map the same key to the record arm as well or something - it basically moves the blue hand so you can instantly control a device with your controller

[33tetragammon]

well, you know my thoughts on this so I won't go into it again

but just in case you missed it, in Live 8 you can now MIDI/KEY map device title bars to jump straight to the device - not really the same at all, but it is quite useful and I requested that a few times so I'm glad it's in

that is a REALLY handy feature for me.finally,less mousing around!thank you thank you thank you!!!!!!now all i need is a jazzmutant Lemur,and i'm in controller heaven

[Machinesworking]

but just in case you missed it, in Live 8 you can now MIDI/KEY map device title bars to jump straight to the device - not really the same at all, but it is quite useful and I requested that a few times so I'm glad it's in

i haven't used v8. so if you have say sampler and operator within a rack you can jump from one to the other via a midi or key stroke? does this also mean you can specify which instrument in that rack will receive your midi notes?

i assume this means you'll still have to have all of your instruments for a set loaded?

you'd have to map the same key to the record arm as well or something - it basically moves the blue hand so you can instantly control a device with your controller

I bought Kore about the same time Racks were introduced and everybody was saying how they made devices like Kore obsolete, yet Racks offer no solution to saving CPU by switching between devices and turning off the unused devices with something akin to preset changes. I really don't mean to be bashing on Ableton, I love their DAW, but it seems to me sometimes they seriously don't get basic ideas, like a user might want to switch between a couple soft synths and samplers in a single song, and have the synths not being played turned off to save cpu. Seems straightforward enough to me, the laptop equivalent of synth racks from some prog group in the 70's, but that wasn't the idea at all.

[Angstrom]

well, you know my thoughts on this so I won't go into it again

but just in case you missed it, in Live 8 you can now MIDI/KEY map device title bars to jump straight to the device - not really the same at all, but it is quite useful and I requested that a few times so I'm glad it's in

yes, I use the new title bar selection method to focus a rack, but it's not really helping this particular issue, that of 'changing presets in a live set'. It's OK if you just want to tweak some filters on a specific rack, but not if you want to play 8 or 12 different instruments in a set.

[forge]

I really don't mean to be bashing on Ableton, I love their DAW, but it seems to me sometimes they seriously don't get basic ideas..

+1

I think they try a bit too often to find "all-in-one" solutions that solve lots of problems at once, but sometimes it comes at the expense of usability

well, you know my thoughts on this so I won't go into it again

but just in case you missed it, in Live 8 you can now MIDI/KEY map device title bars to jump straight to the device - not really the same at all, but it is quite useful and I requested that a few times so I'm glad it's in

yes, I use the new title bar selection method to focus a rack, but it's not really helping this particular issue, that of 'changing presets in a live set'. It's OK if you just want to tweak some filters on a specific rack, but not if you want to play 8 or 12 different instruments in a set.

+1

I've never understood this system at all

I mean I can *sort of* see how the browser system of changing presets might be useful when using a mouse and keyboard, but I would have thought all efforts would be aimed at avoiding them as much as possible

[Angstrom]

well thanks to everyone who has made suggestions on workarounds, unfortunately none have given me an "Aha!" moment. more of an "argh!" really.

My own most ludicrous plan involved writing a 3rd party app which displayed big preset titles and it sent CCs to the chain select and simultaneously switched off/on the device inside.
I actually got half-way to this when I realised that certain device chains when turned off/on make the entire host audio path recalculate with a hop a skip and a thump.
It sounded too bad, so I abandoned the project.

[Martyn]

a user might want to switch between a couple soft synths and samplers in a single song, and have the synths not being played turned off to save cpu.

I was always under the impression that if no audio was being processed by a Live device it usees no CPU, so doesn't need to be turned off at all in a rack.

I must admit I've not really used racks all that much, mainly beacause of how fiddly they are. Maybe in the long run of things Ableton would have been better off making their instruments full blown VST/AUs, then they could have not only sold them seperately (creating a new market) but also broken free of the narrow bottom panel/rack restriction. They might also have responded to midi controller data, enabling recording into clips.

They've painted themselves into several corners that will be very hard to get out of.

[pulsoc]

My edirol controller has 10 buttons I can assign midi on/off mssages to. You could do this with keys as well. My keyboard playing goes to channel 1, each instrument has its own channel that recieves the input from channel 1. Then I map the buttons to turn each instrument on/off simultaneous with the record function on that channel. So any given time only one instrument (or rack) is on and transmitting, unless I choose multiple instruments.

I got the edirol specifically to have those buttons for that purpose.