Ableton Forum

Hi SoloVox,
Thanks for your help as well..
"To make it clear where one song ends and a new one begins, "..Sorry but you mean "Song" I'm thinking a Live document..So a "Song" means what? when you are finished playing around fading things in..Or is this all being programmed in "arrange window" Or can scenes be automated and all in Arrange..This is where I'm still confused..Scenes make total sense..but do not understand how all starts at once and this may sound weird..

I think you're thinking about it too hard. There's no automation, no fading in and out. Just listen:

By "song" I do not mean a Live document, session or arrangement. Remember, we are talking about one solitary Live Session. If you have a gig in two days, you would call this session "Feb 27 Gig." And it will have numerous scenes (horizontal rows). Each scene will have clips of audio lined up that go together nicely. And (if you're like me) each scene will have a midi note assigned to it (F#4, midi chan 2, for example). But you will type in "Verse 2" in the right column. You will hit the F#4 on your Midi controller (which happens to have a label on it saying "Verse 2") and that scene will fire.

So by SONG, I'm merely talking about that particular CLUSTER of clips that you have within the Session. Maybe you have a Drum n' Bass "song" and then further down the screen, in the session, you have a House "song." The session never gets closed, and the Stop button never gets pressed. You just move down (or up) the screen, adjusting the tempo to fit each "song" and remembering to change your Midi channel for each "song." Got it?

Solovox

claudek wrote:I think he was using the controller keyboard and swicthing scenes by switching different midi channels? Scenes are cool..playing with them now..

Solovox was using his controller keyboard to switch between scenes using different MIDI signals (ie MIDI Notes, Control Change messages etc), not channels. He switched MIDI channels to switch between songs. Two separate things.

Scenes are definitely indispensable for me, I'm glad you're finding them useful too.

Well you both have tought me allot ..Funny I looked in the manual and did not see much on scenes,other than insert/delete/rename..I got it now..
Makes great sense..I was wondering how I can assign a scene to a different midi channel and try this..
Thanks again!

claudek wrote:Well you both have tought me allot ..Funny I looked in the manual and did not see much on scenes,other than insert/delete/rename..I got it now..
Makes great sense..I was wondering how I can assign a scene to a different midi channel and try this..
Thanks again!

To change the midi channel for scenes, IIRC, you simply go into the MIDI trigger definition mode (hitting the MIDI button next to the one that says KEY), from there you have your controller hooked up and change the midi channel and define your controllers/triggers. Live should detect which channel the message is coming in over and set it accordingly. For example:
If you had 2 scenes set up
click on MIDI
click on scene 1 (with your controller set to channel 1)
click on C3 to set trigger to said scene
click on scene 2 (change controller to channel 2)
click on C3 to set trigger to said scene.
now C3 on Channel 1 will trigger the first scene
c3 on Channel 2 will trigger the second scene

follow?

I'm all set ..Thanks

good thread for folks new to Live (like me).

Does this approach mean that you do EVERYTHING for a live set in the sessions view, (and you don't use the arrange view atall?).

thanks

Yep...I'm ALL session view. It's a live performance tool mainly. It's also an amazing compositional tool, especially with Reason in Rewire mode, but if you ask me the Arrange View is not what Ableton should be spending it's brain power on. They will never, ever be able to catch up to Logic, DP, ProTools, etc. But the Session View...damn! It's one of a kind...

thats interesting.. so far the session view seems the most useful part of Live to me anyway..

i'm wondering if ANY live users out their who compose with a 'big' main sequencer (logic cubase etc), use Live's arrange view for anything? or does everyone stick to the session view too?

We tend to write a whole lot of individual parts in Logic, then put them into Live for triggering ideas and some favourite fx tricks and then use Live's arrange page for the rough order. Then we render long (i.e. song-length) aiff's of each part and several fx bus only passes. We then open these in Logic for final arranging and mixing.

cheers
paddy

I dont use midi at all, I write the loops in a seperate sequencer and use the session view, I only use the arranger view for tidying up levels for sets Ive recorded.

I guess loading all the songs of a set in a single Live song so you just have to scroll down and eventually change midi channel for your control surface is a smart thing but what if one, as i usually do, uses a lot of plugins on the different traces? I mean each song is supposed to make use of different plugins so it's gonna be really difficult to manage the whole set if your plugin strip can't be changed as you change song.

What? You lot don't tell jokes between songs?



-Paws

I guess loading all the songs of a set in a single Live song so you just have to scroll down and eventually change midi channel for your control surface is a smart thing but what if one, as i usually do, uses a lot of plugins on the different traces? I mean each song is supposed to make use of different plugins so it's gonna be really difficult to manage the whole set if your plugin strip can't be changed as you change song.
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use send...

It would be nice if you could crossfade between scenes and not just tracks