Can Ableton Live do these things?

[reubanks]

I actually have another question. I just bought Live 8 because a friend told me I could use Live to help lighten my rig and set-up. My friend had problems actually showing me how I would do what I'd like to do.
So I'm asking, how would I do these things with Ableton?

I play trombone. My standard electric set up has me using Guitar Rig and a Roland Octapad running into a mixer and the mixer going into a hardware loop station called a Repeater. I play percussion parts in the Octapad and build up a percussion section by overdubbing and layering loops that I play in real time. I also layer and stack trombone parts, the same way.
I need to be able to record an initial track, stop the track and then add parts on top of the initial track on the fly, preferably without using my hands. Can Ableton do that? I sure hope so

-Robin

[outershpongolia]

Sounds like you'd want a foot pedal, everyone seems to like the FCB1010

[pbs99]

Hey Robin,
your profile name and the trombone is kind of a giveaway. It's Ben - sound guy - SFJazz ..... how u doin?

As the previous poster said, a midi pedalboard like the FCB1010 will do the trick, in Live 8, you can use the Looper device to record, then stack parts. It's what I use, and it works great for me. It's not the smallest or lightest pedalboard out there, but it's one of the best priced and it's very versatile. there are other smaller options as well.

Basically, yes, you can record and stack parts in Ableton.

Having said that...once you've taken the repeater out of your rig, and put the FCB1010 in, I'm not sure how much smaller the rig will be!

[reubanks]

Hey Ben,

How are you? Thanks for replying. I have referred to the video tutorial we made, with you showing me LIVE on the bus, while we were on tour.
Anyway, after researching the FCB1010, it sounds good, a bit large and "difficult" to program. What are the other, smaller options you alluded to?
27" wide may be too big, but I need something that's easy to use and works well.

Thanks again,

-Robin

[dextroc]

The FCB1010 isn't that hard to program if you're a mac man and get the program iFCB. I don't know much about software for other OS, but I think there are a few FCB1010 editors for windows as well. I use iFCB, and it's no big deal to program this thing anymore. I also discovered wonderful things about the FCB1010 whilst programming it. You can actually program it so that the buttons 1-5 change the functions of the foot pedals, and since there are 10 possible pages you have all together: 100 buttons and a 100 footpedals. Of course, there aren't that many cc numbers to program upon, but if you use notes for the buttons you have well over enough to work with.

Anyway, to thano, you won't regret changing over to Live. I switched from FL Studio in 2004 after using FL Studio since around 1998 and I couldn't be happier. Well, I had to switch, since I got a mac, and FL Studio is not for macs, so I don't even have the possibility to run FL Studio anymore. At least, you can pop it into Live as a vst (that's still possible, isn't it?) or rewire it.
But, the change took a bit of getting used to, but now I couldn't b without Live. It's by far my favourite program of all times.

[pbs99]

Hey Robin,

well as the above poster said, you can get editor software for the FCB. It really depends how many functions you need,
if it's just rec/overdub/play and stop then maybe the FCB is overkill...however you can also map the foot pedals to controls in guitar rig - wahwah etc.there's also a bunch of other stuff in looper that you can map.... pitch, reverse, half/double length etc.
If you only need the one or two footswitches and it's all about size and weight, you could look at midi solutions footswitch controller, you can plug a couple of the regular keyboard sustain pedals in.
http://www.midisolutions.com/proddfs.htm

best, Ben