Using the Roland FC300 for looping

[modulus10]

OK so I am still a newbie here, but i must say im loving the abelton live 8 for live looping - i moved up frmo a roland rc-50 and i am DIGGING This stuff!

However

is there a way, to use a single pedal to control a loop in a similar fashion as im used to on the rc-50? meaning that if I set switch 1 to start the loop, can i use switch 1 again to stop the loop, and then again ue switch 1 to rearm the loop?

I currently have to assign 3 different switches 1 to start 1 to play back and 1 to over dub - is there a better way to do this?

thanks in advance

[auron]

coming from the rc-50:

I am new to midi. I went from the boss rc-50 to m-audio profire 610, ableton live 8 and the roland fc-300. I have a i7 desktop win7 with 9G RAM and and OLD sony viao core duo running XP with 2G RAM and as long as you manage CPU usage, you can get by.

Here is a quick way to get started:

On the fc-300 if you use control mode then you can plug-and-play the fc-300. Using the parameter keys change the setting of the pedals from the default LATCH to MOMENTARY. You don't have to change the expression pedal settings, keep them default until you have a reason.

In the ableton looper change the quantization to "1/32". Record "x bars" and change the following action to the play icon. Song control to "start song". Tempo control to "set and follow" song tempo. note: to record to the session timeline you have to change Input->Output to REC/OVR.

so if we keep it simple with one pedal, just map pedal 1 to the big "multipurpose" transport button. Think of it as a RC-2.
Now hit the pedal to loop. when you click it again it will go into play mode. If you hit the pedal once more it will overdub like on the RC-50. That should get you started and you can map the rest whatever way you like. Those little icons over the multipurpose button are also buttons and can be mapped to play, overdub, stop, etc.

Under preferences, I changed my MIDI port type to DirectMusic because I had some delay when I clicked the pedal that went away when I changed this setting. You may or may not have to do this, depending on your system.

Now the next exercise is to change the quantization to 1 bar and loop again. see what happened there? ableton looper waits until then next full bar to start looping.

ableton live 8 with fc-300 Impression:

This is the way I imagined looping should work! the sync and quantization problems that you have to compensate for on the rc-50 don't exist. The ableton looper works the way it should and the extent of what you can do with ableton and looping is impressive. The rc-300 pedal board feels like the RC-50, a little bigger bc of the expression pedals and heavier. I thought I didn't need the two pedals until I used them.

if you place a beat track in another clip, when you record your first loop ableton beat matches perfectly and using legato you can keep all of your loops in sync as you switch loops throughout your set in a way that is more intuitive. You have control over quantizatation and tempo. This list goes on.

now I am looking into midi guitar pickups and hope other guitar players will start sharing their experiences with ableton.

ap

[mojofunk]

Say, auron - what do you use the two pedals for? I am using an FCB1010 and am about to cut it up and remove the pedals to make it a bit smaller, so I am curious what uses you have found. Cheers.

[yur2die4]

If I'm not mistaken, you can double-tap the pedal that is assigned to the big button in Looper if you want to stop?

What kind of midi output is the pedal? From what I've heard, note messages work much better than CC#'s.

[auron]

yeah you can double tap to stop. you can use one pedal for the essential functions. once you are stopped if you hold the pedal down for 2 sec it clears out the looper.

but I liked the distinct pedals on the rc-50 but that's where this fc-300 is nice, you organize it your way.

[auron]

expression pedals. I know what you mean about cutting it down since this pedal board is big, I imagine yours is even bigger.

I use one pedal for guitar effects. Then this second one is useful if you imagine having multiple rows for various different songs. Now someone yells out a song request from your song list. On the fc-300 you can use the expression pedal to scroll down to the appropriate row and launch that particular song and continue with your set.

what I would like to do is just perform with the guitar and mic...controlling everything with the pedalboard (never touching the notebook) so the more controllers you have on ONE board the better I think.

The fc-300 has two pedals (up and down) that can't be reprogrammed apparently, it only can be used to switch banks.

regarding notes:

I heard that too, can someone put up a quick example of how to use note messages with ableton and the fc-300?

AP

[mojofunk]

As opposed to midi cc or pc, ableton prefers to receive midi notes - program your pedal (1 bank at a time) with distinct midi note values, and then every midi mappable command within Live will respond to the controller.

[auron]

ok but if I am using a midi guitar, while playing then I have to make sure you don't have conflicting note values. is that correct?

[mojofunk]

Sure - just use different midi channels!