Live as a guitar phrase looper in realtime??

[Per Boysen]

Then if you are using something like an FCB-1010 you could set up a second patch to do the arming and monitoring for those tracks.

Now, the only problem you'll have is that there's no way to delete a clip via MIDI.

I have heard of two applications that translates any midi message into a computer keyboard stroke. This would make it possible to assign a midi foot controller message to the computers delete button. I don't remember the name of the softwar but I can find it out - it's somewher inside my computers mail client...

(edit)
Found it! It's a Windows program at http://www.bome.com

[Guest]

the midi-to-keystroke software is free--Bome's midi translator (pc only i believe). Kicks ass. I use it to controll CAD and graphics software as well, so I can use foot pedals that do complex key commands and zooming with expression pedal--its a cool little app that I couldn't imagine doing live looping with Live without--we're all human after all. Without delete, you'd have to play guitar, bass, or horn parts perfectly every pass or else lose the groove while you take a hand away from the instrument to delete a flubbed loop.

Ryan

[Guest]

its a cool little app that I couldn't imagine doing live looping with Live without

Could you elaborate on how you use it in Live? For instance, how do you tell it which clip to delete? Forgive me for being a bit naive about all this

[Per Boysen]

First you have to step on the button that selects the clip. Then, when the clip is selected, you step on the button that you have assigned to the midi message that you have set up Bome to translate into a "computer delete key stoke".

[quandry]

actually, lets look at it in gig mode. you hit your foot pedal to start recording a clip/loop. While recording the loop, a hottie walks by and you totally flub a few notes while recording. No fear, just hit your "delete" footpedal patch, and the clip that is recording is deleted, the sound never stops, and you just wait until the right place in the music to try again. Of course, you can do what Per said--select the clip then delete it, but assuming its the clip you're recording that you mess up, its already selected--just delete.

Basically you need to have midi ox/yoke installed, open up Bome's assign it one of you virtual midi ox ins, the choose what incoming midi signal from your foot pedal you want to use. Then you set up what keystrokes it will trigger--just delete in this instance. Then have ox and bomes running alongside Live and your good to go.

Ryan

[radder]

Of course, you can do what Per said--select the clip then delete it, but assuming its the clip you're recording that you mess up, its already selected--just delete.

OK. Gotcha. That gets me a long way from where I started. But what if I want to delete a clip that is no longer playing? I didn't realize there was a way to select a clip through MIDI without starting it playing. Am I missing something? This is my main concern with this method.

radder

[Per Boysen]

But what if I want to delete a clip that is no longer playing?

I have not found a way to do this over midi.

I didn't realize there was a way to select a clip through MIDI without starting it playing.

No, I don't think there is. Sorry for my desinformation

[Guest]

you could actully set up a foot controller to by able to delete session clips that aren't playing, though it would be a bit complex. You would have to have ox and bomes running, and set up four patches on your midi foot controller to act at the arrow keys on your computer (by using bome's to translate the midi signals to keystrokes). Then you could use these four pedals to move the highlighted clip slot around in Live until you get to the clip you want to delete. Then you would have a fifth patch that is delete and could delete from there. Would be a bit of tap dancing, and probably necessitate a seperate bank for all of those patches, but it could be done. One little trick to jump to a clip thats already playing but not highlighted which you wih to delete-- Hit the clip slot button at the proper time to start this loop again on the one--it won't change the sound or the flow or anything, but will highlight that clip so you could then delete it.

Ryan

[FORMAT]

Good tip Ryan!
Will make it harder and harder to take your eyes off that screen though, wouldn't it?

[SnackDaddy]

Just found out about a great utility for Mac OS X users to get the most out of a foot controller:

controlAid (don't have URL right now).

It allows you to assign one controller to cycle thru Live tracks, then other controllers can be setup to do things like arm, stop, launch, etc, on the *current* track. So you can control lots of tracks with fewer controllers. Does other nifty things too.

I'm hoping to get around to doing a Windows port of this app within the next few weeks - but not sure if I'll have the time.

[Lucid]

I've been using an Electrix Repeater slaved to live's midi clock to capture my bass loops... then I bounce them up into live and the real fun begins... When I dont have the repeater around I just set live to quantize at 4 or 8 bars, hit the clip record button and play the loop (while monitoring my input via the headphones) then when its all captured and sounding good in the headphones i fade it into the mains... it works pretty well IF you know exactly what you want to play...


-- Paul

Do you find that the Repeater struggles with bassy frequencies? I've never been able to get a decent sound when looping electric bass directly into the Repeater.

[Lucid]

the only problem is that as soon as it starts looping, you will not hear input on that track any longer. so to continue hearing your live playing, you will need to switch to another track. so you could have a set configured with a number of input tracks, but only turn on monitoring one at a time, as you fill the previous ones with running loops. i'd imagine you would assign your foot controller to clip slots on each track, and also to the clip record enable buttons for each track (which will trigger monitoring on the tracks when selected)

Some audio cards allow you to monitor directly from the card. This means near zero latency w/o VST effects and no CPU load from monitoring within the Ableton program. Check out the Aardvark Q10 if this "direct monitoring" feature appeals to you.

[Lucid]

I got this to work with Bomes, MIDI Yoke, and the FCB 1010. Works great.

Select and arm tracks 1-5 by pressing pedals 1-5

Tap Tempo - pedal 6

Scene Up - pedal 7

Scene Down - pedal 8

Launch Scene - pedal 9 ( Enter clip record for selected/armed track , Exit clip record and begin immediate playback )

Delete - pedal 10 ( Erase mistakes on current clip without stopping the music or touching the keyboard )


I am monitoring inputs directly from my hardware, so "Monitor from Live" is turned off globablly.


Bomes made it possible, sweet. Awesome tip, thanks.

[radder]

It's so simple it was hard... A while ago I lamented that there is "no way to delete a stopped clip via MIDI"... I was incorrect.

The situation: You've set yourself up with a limited number of slots in which to record, and you've already got them filled up with clips... Some of those are eventually going to start sounding too repetitive or bad in the context of where your live performance is going... So you stop them (assuming you are using "toggle" launch mode) with your MIDI controller but now you're stuck with out-of-context clips clogging up your valuable recording slots. What to do? Gotta delete some clips. And of course, you don't want to look like a dork and use your mouse... so you wanna use MIDI.

You gotta be fast on your feet but all you have to do is:

1. Hit the MIDI note (or footswitch etc) that corresponds to the clip you want to delete (don't try doing it too close to the end of a measure)

2. Before the next measure starts, quickly hit the MIDI note that corresponds to the BACKSPACE key on your keyboard (I'm assuming now that you have Bome's MIDI Translator or something similar so you can accomplish that)...

Works absolutely perfectly. This is very important for my particular setup right now because I just have 4 looping tracks on top of 8 prerecorded tracks so I need to be able to turn certain ones off as I go in order to actually make looping interesting enough for my taste

[Lucid]

Yea, I gotta iron out the kinks in my setup a bit more. Deletion is kind of a pain, not as simple as I would like yet.